Need some advice

by KICKED OUT 62 Replies latest jw friends

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  Scully

  Your mother hasn't spoken to you in years, and feels that shunning you is "the right thing to do", and you actually are considering having her in contact with YOUR child?

  Why????

  So she can get to be "grandma" while at the same time she treats you like $h!t???

  So she can emotionally abuse and disrespect you in the presence of your wife and child???

  You, your wife and your child(ren) are a package deal. If someone wants to reject one family member, they don't get to enjoy the company of any of your family members.

  Please, respect yourself and do not allow your self-righteous mother anywhere near your family, unless she is prepared to treat you properly. She is having her reward in full.
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  GoingGoingGone

  I believe that most parents who shun their kids do so out of loyalty to the WTS/Jehovah. But I think that parents who are the most rigid about shunning are embracing the shunning out of anger, whether they consciously realize it or not. They are angry that their son or daughter has left the JWs and ruined their perfect family. They can't travel to assemblies and be surrounded by their children and grandchildren. They miss having you around, and they embrace the shunning because they want you to feel alone and left out, like they feel. They think that you deserve it.

  Having grandchildren gives them an excuse to come back into your life. But if your mom is coming back into your life in order to shun you in your own home, while heaping love upon your child, then I'd tell her forget it. You deserve to be treated with respect. The love in your family is unconditional, and a grandmother who shows conditional love is not something you want your kids to grow up around or view as normal. Conditional love makes for very insecure children.

  Good luck to you, whatever you decide to do.

  GGG
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  Hortensia

  I'm more cynical. Your mother may want to see her grandchild, probably does, but there is no way she should ever be left alone with the kid because she will definitely try to convert the kid. I know families where that has happened. You miss your mother, but why should she set the terms of the visit? It's your house. You set the terms - she can stay there and she can eat dinner with all of you or no go. My two cents worth.
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  JWdaughter

  Jeff has great advice.
  
  My caution on letting her in and let her ignore you is that she will be having a JW influence on your child. Which would lead her to expect YOUR child to decide to join HER religion at some point. And your child will then be rejected by her as you were. To her, your new son is her chance to redeem herself and do it 'right' this time. She did you wrong, you think she will treat your wife and son lovingly when they don't fall for her religion and teachings?
  
  Congratulations on making your way, and being a honorable man, husband and father. You let your mom know you will be an honorable son, but that does not mean that she gets to play her wt games with your family. You are doing great. Congratulations on your baby, and WELCOME to the board.
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  LouBelle

  I agree with some here that have said "let her in"

  A lot of us were raised as JWs and acted just as they do now - we were just as brainwashed....fortunately we saw the light, and even though we may be angry, we were once there and know why / how they think.

  Show love - for it is the true way

  Be peaceable - then no fingers can be pointed and no warring of words will ensure.

  Have hope - that by your love and attitude your mom will be set free.

  Lou
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  cognizant dissident

  I know of another JW family in this exact situation. Every time the grandma and grandpa would go over to visit the non-believing girlfriend and their little grandchild, they would witness to the girlfriend. They eventually studied with her and they took her and the kid to the meetings. So then the husband had to go along and get reinstated or live in a divided household.

  My parents also try to witness to their non JW grandchildren and teach them about Jehovah even though they have been explicitly told over and over again that they are not to preach to them.

  In the past, I might have said show love, be the better person, and maybe they will come around eventually. However, now I think you can show love, be the better person and still maintain a strict boundary that says to your mother, "my family and I come as a package deal, where my child goes, I go, if you do not want to see or speak to me, then I don't feel comfortable having someone in my home, interacting with my wife and child, who thinks I am such a bad person that they can't even be in the same room with me. Would you let any other person who thought you were so bad that they couldn't speak to you or be in the same house with you spend the day with your wife and child. Of course you wouldn't. But because it is your own mother and you have been raised that way, it is more difficult to see the insanity of it. You start to wonder if there isn't some sort of merit in their twisted version of visiting a household and refusing to speak to certain ones in that household. If you allow your mother to visit your family and yet still shun you, you are opening the door for your family to consider this kind of behaviour acceptable and normal. It could end up driving a wedge between you later, even years down the road.

  Cog
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  MochaLatte

  I would never allow myself to be disrespected in my own house. The fact that the offending party was a brainwashed well-meaning parent would not matter. It's your house, your family. Putting your foot down on this issue would not mean that you don't love and miss your mother. You deserve her love and respect as she deserves yours, but as long as she allows the Watchtower to dictate her family relationships, that kind of normalcy gets thrown out the window. If you say no to this you're not doing it out of any ill will toward your mom. You really have to insist on being treated with respect, especially in your home.
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  jwfacts

  I am expecting my first baby in about 1 week. I am semi-shunned by family, who give me phone contact once every few months. I have determined that I will not let my family see my child without me present. I am simply going to say that shunning is unchristian cult behaviour and it is very important to me that my child is not be around the negative and confusing atmosphere of such behaviour. My son is not going to ever have to live a life of fear that my love is conditional on him sharing my views on everything, and I do not want to be put in the position of explaining why my family are shunning me and not wanting to see him when I am around. It would be better for them not to be part of his life whilst they live their lives in such a damaging and heartless way.
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  rimfiredancing

  I am new to commenting on this board and haven't introduced myself formally yet, but this post moved me to registering because I was so distressed at some of the advice.

  JWs are an organisation founded on the abuse of its members.By their very nature, JWs are abusive psychologically, emotionally and spiritually: it doesn't matter if they 'mean well', it doesn't matter if this abuse is done 'out of love' or 'christian concern' for the people they are abusing, the simple matter is that this board exists because being a JW can be something that it takes a lifetime to recover from.

  How many stories do people need to post here re their painful, traumatic and exhausting recovery from JW abuse? When your brain is being hammered into cardboard by the constant, insidious and subtle manipulations that constitute the 'teachings' of JW's, does it really matter that the people doing it might actually believe that it's a 'loving' thing to do? Does this not actually point to how toxic their very definition of 'loving' is?

  They are violaters who have zero understanding of the violations they inflict. Why would you want your wife and child around someone who has had long training in the subtle art of mind control? How long must we be subjected to the idiocy that allowing such violation is 'loving' on our part, shows us to be 'better people' than those that violate us? Please, do some research on the minds of habitual violaters of any kind: in ALL cases, they have a complex chain of 'reasoning' that justifies everything they do by reducing the value of those they abuse. Those who beat their partners or children do so because they actually view their victims as lower on the humanity chain, they cease to see them as people and view them as 'things'. This is true of molesters, rapists *and those whose abuse and violations are directed more at the spirit and mind of the abused*. How many children have been killed this year because their abusers (most often family members and most often parents) have decided that the abuse is 'deserved', that they 'need to be taught a lesson', that 'it's for their own goddam good' or because 'the devil is in them'?

  The comments re JWs taking the 'letter of the law' to cruel extremes are right: your mother is not interested in a real connection with your family because she's blown off every opportunity beforehand to create that connection. This is not a loving act on the part of your mother, this is the action of someone who is looking at the opportunity to draw someone else into the Borg- your son. Everything that has been said regarding leaving your unprotected child in the company of someone *who WILL violate your requests NOT to preach*- hello, the Borg are VERY open about their 'theocratic responsibility' to LIE IN COURT if it suits the GB's purposes- if they are happy to do that, why do you think your mother is NOT going to violate your requests? JB's LIVE in violation, they are accustomed both to being constantly violated and violating others 'in the name of Jehovah'. I have seen JWs in KH's respond to the tired cries of their *SIX MONTH OLD CHILD* by *SLAPPING THEM HARD*. Do you remember the closed and shut down faces of witness kids? If parents are prepared to *destroy* the spirits of their children 'in Jehovah's name', what matters a grandchild?

  Please, protect your wife and son. This is not a harmless religion, this is a potent and destructive cult that NEVER has its members wellbeing at heart. How many children have to be damaged before we give up this ridiculous idea that being kind to abusers and violaters works, and that violation and abuse in the name of religion (or any other name, really) is ok because oh, they MEAN well..?

  No more victims of poisonous doctrines. No more nightmares because someone has told them their parents are going to die at Armageddon because they have sinned against Jehovah. No more kids lying in bed with visions of being swept away in a river of blood because they're not 'in the truth', no more adults having nightmares that started when they were kids.

  Love does NOT mean putting yourself in the path of abuse. If your mother isn't going to be swayed by the loss of relationship with her son, she will only have a relationship with her grandson while the possibility of luring them into the truth exists: when it becomes obvious its an empty cause, she'll shun him too. But oh wait, by then there might be *another* child she can focus on...
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  rimfiredancing

  arrrrgh, need to learn the formatting here. grr.