What kind are you! (page 2)

Paralipomenon

I was an elder's son, then my dad stopped being an elder so I was just a son.

Interestingly, an ex-elder's son has little to no chance for advancing in his parent's congregation.

quietlyleaving

hi brokenperfection

welcome to JWD

I'm not an elder's daughter but my daughter is.

Your name pretty much sums up what it is like to be an elder's daughter imo. Hugs to you. I am really sad and sorry that you most probably have had to put up with unimaginable pressure, guilt and expectations of perfection from growing up an elder's daughter.

ql

free2think

Welcome brokenperfection

I am an elders daughter, although ive stopped going now completely.

I know exactly what you mean, people were always looking at me when there were talks about elders and their families and how they should behave. I also felt a lot of pressure to get baptized and eventually did at 15, which many made me feel was quite old to be getting dunked.

I had a lot of medical problems and surgery growing up which led me to develop chronic fatigue syndrome when i was 12, i know very young. Anyway skip forward a few years, i had a brain tumour which left me partially sighted, which i adapted to quite well but then we had this over zealous missionary bro in our hall, who's own wife had ME. He started pressuring me to pioneer. So i thought well its what i must do. Then i had another tumour, got really depressed afterwards, and while i was recovering got pressured again to go in the min more and eventually to start reg pioneering, less then a year after my last tumour. Crazy. I managed to continue pioneering for 2 and a half years until my body totally shut down and the cfs relapsed fully. Its been three years since i stopped pioneering and i still havent fully recovered.

The reason i am rambling on is because i dont want you to feel you have to rush into anything or let them pressure you into getting dunked or doing anything else that you don't want to, or will live to regret.

Nowman

I was an elders daughter, I was DF'd 15 years ago this month. I was an only child, so everyone knew me as the one with the parents that were so strict. I was not allowed to do much. When I shocked everyone 15 years ago by having the guts to leave, my dad stepped down as an elder after that...me leaving was too much for them. Mom stopped pioneering too.

Oh well. Dad is still in, have not seen him since 92. Mom is out, has been DFd since 2000.

Nikki

greendawn

Welcome brokenperfection, I suppose being an elder's child means having and exhibiting a superior status in the local congregation and in some congos the elders do have power struggles and seek to promote their own family members.

restrangled

Welcome!

I was an elder's daughter during the 70's. Victim of the 1975 hysteria. High School was actually frowned upon becuase I wouldn't make it until graduation anyway. The more pressure, the worse I felt and behaved sight-un-seen. I felt crazy. No social life, limited tv watching, etc. I read to escape. My mother hated to drive so any social functions with the witnesses (if I was invited, were limited to getting a ride with an approved person or stay home and like it!) Ofcourse absolutely no outside school association allowed.

One Friday night I obtained an approved ride to a rollerskating party at the local skating rink. Not specifically invited by the host. I was asked to skate by a "wordly" guy from another high school and things went from there. I started ditching school....he was old enough to drive. He showed up at my highschool and would meet me at my locker and give me a quick kiss in the morning before he attended his school......low and behold some study of another elders daughter saw me and reported it to her father.

Things snowballed from there. Nasty desperation from parents and elders, versus nasty desperation from a teenager is not a good combination. By time January of 1976 rolled around, my dad had given up and resigned, my mother was still desperate to save me. I would have none of it......The big A had not arrived and I was alive and kicking.

There is much more to this story and won't go into it, but I had too much spirit to be stifled. At aged 48, I can still feel the anger.

I wonder how to ever unload that?

r.

unique1

As an elders only child/daughter, there was a whole lot expected of me. Auxilliary pioneer at every occasion, get baptized before 15 (that was the age when people started wondering what was wrong with you if you didn't), I was expected to give parts with answers about my future that could only involve pioneering or perhaps marrying a bethel brother , I was always told I was an example to all of the young ones so an inordinate amount of pressure was put one me and I fulfilled them all. Until about 20. Then the rebellion started.

My advice. Dont' get baptized until you are an adult. Jesus waited until 30, there should be no pressure to get baptized any younger.

Best wishes to you.

ex-nj-jw

My dad is an Elder - I'm so anti-JW it isn't funny! When my siblings and I were growing up he had to step down so many times it wasn't funny. Most of it was just teenagers being teenagers. Nothing serious but you know how JW's are!

Now he's in Elder heaven, all the kids are grown up and no one to make him look bad so he's happy as a pig in $h^!

nj

brokenperfection

quietlyleaving You are right about my username. There are so many pressures that normal daughters of brothers would simply not begin to understand. E.g the pressure to get baptized is starting to frustrate me, going to meetings. Also the guilt of not going to meetings cause of being depressed. I feel bad for not answering up at the meetings.

free2think I know how your feeling too. Being in the religion is like being on a rollercoaster you can be really good but then there are times when you just cant take it anymore. In my opinion as being rasied as a jw if a person wants to get baptized it should be on their own accord and not the elders daughter father to make the choice for her. Because then people start to think what happend with so and so. How could the people there do that to you what a load of aholes.

Nowman Thats sad, but anyway it would have been pretty big of your father to do that. It got your parents out of the jw family fantasy. It's one thing that bugs me is the shunning rule i hate it so much. I feel that i could end up like that. Elders dont like to admit it to themselves that they have huge egos.

greendawn You have no idea.

brokenperfection

I would like to say thanks for everyone being so helpful towards me.

What kind are you!

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