In explaining both the nature of the material shut away and the causes
of its being so, attention is called to the role that a child's parents play.
He contends that we need to pay attention to the role of the parent may play
in aid in the forgetting and the impact of behaviours that resulted from the original
events.
Examples are given of parents who seek to disconfirm their child's obser-
vations of events, to disapprove or condemn their natural emotional
responses to distressing situations, and to discourage their children from
registering aspects of their (the parents') personalities and behavior.
Now this is where I think things get very interesting and I can see an application
to our experiences as JWs.
First the application to children:
I had a clients a few years ago who recalled waking up in the morning to see
his father passed out on the kitchen floor. His mother explained the father on
the floor that he was "sleeping" as she stepped over him to serve breakfast. The
children were not allowed to acknowledge the alcoholism. I had a similar thing
happen in my family. I recall asking my mother if my father "drank". Her response
was that he got sick when he drank so of course he didn't. This was supposed to
be a denial of any problem drinking on his part. But for many years it negated my
memories of beer bottles all over the place in the morning and the smell of alcohol
on his breath. I remembered going to the beer store so he definitely did drink. He
might have gotten him sick but it sure didn't stop him.
As an adult I still hate the smell of left over beer mixed with crushed out cigaratte
butts in the bottle. Now if I continued to believe my mother's take on this I would
be left with an unexplicable reaction to the smell of stale beer and cigarettes.
Pressure exerted on the children to conform to their parents' wishes can
be crude or subtle, but its effectiveness depends on the child's insistent
desire to be loved and protected.
By the nature of their status, children are dependant on the adults around them.
They know they are dependant on the adults for food, shelter, and clothing. Their
lives would be at risk without adults to care for them. They need to be protected
and they have an inherent need to be loved and cared for. In healthy families the
child's needs get met with few problems.
But when the child's needs are not met or the child gets mixed or confusing
messages from the parent on some level the child knows something is wrong.
Some kids act out (negative attention is better than no attention).
Other kids become the the family care-taker, not only caring for the other children
in the home but also taking care of the parents.
Whether the child is the "acting out child" or the "care-taker" they need deny the
knowledge that the adults are not capable of being "parents". To acknowledge
this role reversal would force the child to understand that no one is there to care
for him or her. And that would cause too much psychological conflict. So the
child's mind blots out the conflict and does what needs to be done to get their
needs met - cognitive distortion.
When the parent says "Daddy is sleeping" as she steps over his body on the kitchen
floor the child knows not to confront the mother on the reality of daddy sleeping on
the floor. When I was younger I never dared to disagree with either of my parents
regardless of what the issue was.
So let's move this to the WTS, who sits as all-powerful parent that protects, feeds
and cares for the "children" in their care.
The WTS sets itself in the position of "mother" to the flock, providing food in due
season, and protection from the dangers of the world. Like most dysfunctional
families there are rules about how to be well-fed (studies and meetings) and how to
stay safe within the family (the only source of safety is within God's sole
organization, keep the family secrets - especially from outsiders). Leaving the family
means death. Punishment is doled out because of the great love for the "children.
Questioning of how the family runs (or their beliefs) is forbidden.
To remain within the family one must "forget" the conflicts - poor food, iron fist of
discipline, control of every aspect of a person's life, and the memory of oldlight vs
new light.
JWSs have to forget that the WTS once taught one thing and has denied they ever
taught something, they have see-sawed back and forth over beliefs and practices
and metes out discipline that is a far, far cry from being loving.
Since they have convinced people they are the sole representative of God, family
members must remain loyal to the point of "knowing what you are not supposed to know and feeling what you are not supposed to feel"
