Madame Quixote - I like your observations. The elders only have power over us if we allow them to. We've been programmed for so many years to obey them unconditionally--it's hard to break the mindset, but it's only in the mind. True... I just ignore them, they don't know what to make of me and thats cool.
Elders' wives and elders' kids - any different from the RnF?
by Inquisitor 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Quandry
Elder's kids - My cong tends to assume that they know all the leaked secrets about the cong. Funny how the gossipers tend to make that assumption rather loudly when the elders' kids really know nothing. They must know that these kids make easyscapegoats when in actual fact they are real channels of information. Another presumption is that elders' kids have a measure of immunity. I think this latter one is true.
My husband was an elder. I was the wife who tried never to know what was going on. I dutifully sat in the front, studied the WT and Book Study books even though many times I could not understan the gobbledy-gook such as the generation change. My husband, daughter,and I always answered at meetings at least once. We cleaned, usually the bathrooms. In short, we tried our best to do everything expected of us.
Guess what? Many times the elder's kids do know the secrets of the congregation. We were friends of another elder and his family that had a daughter close in age to ours. This child heard the elder when he told his wife many of the things that were going on, and she told my daughter. I didn't find this out until later.
Do the elder's kids get off easier? Yes, definetely sometimes. It depends on the congregation and the power of the elder.
When my daughter did some normal teen things, the power broker elder in charge decided to bully my daughter, humiliate, and berate her. The other elders followed his lead. My husband, the one who cared about others, was shown the door.
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GoingGoingGone
My husband is an elder. I think it has made my fade much more difficult in many ways, because he's been pressured by the other elders to pressure me. This in addition to the normal problems we'd had as a couple where one has left the WT and the other one stays.
In all my years as an elder's wife, my husband has never leaked any confidential info to me or the kids. He will go on a shepherding call and not tell me who he is going to, or have 'meetings' with someone and not tell me who. When the kids got to the age that they would ask him questions about who/what/where, he'd tell them, "That's none of your concern."
I thought my fade would cause him to be removed as an elder, but I guess not. If the kids were to stop 'obeying' him and refuse to go to the meetings while they are still living at home, then he could potentially be removed. That puts a huge burden on the shoulders of my kids.... they feel like they would ruin his life if they weren't model JW kids.
GGG
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changeling
I knew an elderette (a regular pioneer who never had time to clean her house) who made a habit of looking through her husband's book bag (you know, the great big boxy one from Stoops). She would find out all the dirt on people and then tell her best friend, who then would tell everybody else. Other than this disgusting example of abuse of power and meddelsomeness (is that a word?), I stand by my previous comment that by and large elders wives and children have it much harder than the average publisher. The scrutiny that others put us through and the imposible standards my dad held me to are the stuff that makes people crazy.
changeling (been there, done that)
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monophonic
after reading more comments, i remembered something else of the horrid existence of being an elder's son.
i had a pretty good idea when a disfelloshipping was immiment. not that i'd know any thing about the specifics or who, but when dad would be gone a lot more and he'd burn documents on the balcony, i could expect an announcement within a couple of weeks.
i thought it was so lame that he'd get his stern elder's face on and go to the balcony to burn his confidential documents.
oh, my wife got mad at me b/c i have the elder's book on PDF, but i said, why does the elder's book have to be secret? or even the pioneer book? publishers should know what elders are programmed to think, especially if someone's on the wrong end of a committee meeting, there's no protection for the 'sinner'.
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tremoka
It totally astounds me that this behaviour seems to be the same no matter what country you live in.
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changeling
Monophonic's last comment made me think of something. Regarding judiatial matters: I think elder's families develope a sixth sense about these. It's not that they have info leaked to them, but when your dad or husband suddenly gets lots of private phone calls and has to run out for "meetings" several nights in a row, you can't help but know something is brewing. If you then see him talking to someone in particular, you can pretty much put 2 and 2 together. People forget that the cong does not own the elders, they are part of a family and they are not blind. Duhhh...
changeling
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emptywords
It's all politics everyone is being ruled by the Governing Body. I thought we were suppose to follow Christ but its all modeled on the world.
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LongHairGal
Inquisitor:
You are right on target about elders wives possibly being the leak for gossip. As far as them not being polite, I can't say I noticed that. But, then again I never tried to get "familiar". Why in the world would I want to? I was well aware they were in a clique and only associated with other couples who they liked and maybe they showed hospitality to a pioneer they 'approved' of. Everybody else, especially single women, were never invited to their homes. They didn't even want to work with such ones out in service either.
As far as their kids were concerned, I got the sense that certain ones were privileged characters.
LHG