From Your Experience: Did Elder's Families Get Away With More Than Others? (page 3)

lisavegas420

Oh no..I didn't get away with anything. I had to set as an example for the other's.

Nothing special...no extra activities, even some JW's were off limits because they were weak.

lisa

Lo-ru-hamah

Sorry, everyone but I am going to have to disagree with you. (At least in my case.) My father was an elder, the P.O. for some of the time.

There was a congregation get together when I was about 16 and I was counseled for dancing too closely with another young brother.

When I was 18 I was accused of being a lesbian for pinching a girl friends behind. I was accused of committing fornication with my future husband. My father was pulled aside and counseled because two weeks prior to our wedding we were kissing outside of our familys house. An elder saw it and went to my dad and swore we were commiting fornication. We were questioned. The elder said he saw lust in our eyes. My dad said he hoped so as we were getting married in two weeks.

Even after we were married we were counseled that we were holding hands too much at the congregation.

I was constantly under the scruntity of the elders, scared to death to do something wrong because of all the trouble I got into and not doing anything wrong.

I have seen a lot of elders kids get away with a lot but that wasn't the case in our family.

Sheri

razorMind

In MY experience?!??.....

HELL TO THE MOTHERTRUCKING NAW!!!

Open mind

Overall I'd say yes.

But it really depends on the individual elder.

My Dad ratted me out for something non-sexual, non-drug, non-alcohol related that wasn't even remotely judicial. Just stupid teenager stuff. I had to sit there with a two-suit investigative team and convince them of my continued goody-two-shoe status. I really bought into it thinking that the Hooly Spirit was hovering over the whole proceding.

I also personally know of one super-righteous, control freak elder whose teen-age son started having a few doubts about "The Truth". So what's his elder Dad do? He calls all his sons JW friends and tells them that his son is "bad association" right now. It was almost a pre-emptive, unilateral DFing. Kid didn't get DFed, but got treated like he was for quite a while.

Nice, huh?

But, yeah, more often than not, IMO, elder's kids get more breaks than non-elder's kids.

om

minimus

Yeah, some elders were dickheads for turning their own kids in. It's either one extreme or another.

yknot

...so Elder sons have an advantage but Elder daughter are held to chastity standard with only a few bucking the system......oh how typical!

Mickey mouse

No! As an elder's daughter I remember being hauled in the back room and questioned about things when I wasn't even involved. Sometimes when others were in trouble they would say "Well Mickey was there and she's an elder's daughter" just to take the heat off themselves.

Mickey.

Frank75

This is one of those questions that requires a "it depends"!

It has regularly been pointed out here that it is not the people who are necessarily bad, but it is the structure that's twisted and makes it a paradise for abuse. As a result there are decent elders and even decent bodies of elders AS FAR AS JW's go. In other words inside their little world of gross sin, pornea and the rest of it they dish out JW discipline as fairly as possible, even with their own children.

In politically charged environments like JW's there are also situations where men with children may be elders, but they are on the outs or on a hit list with the other elders. In this situation indiscretions by the children of those elders might actually be treated more severely than children of the rank and file dubs in the same hall! In one congregation I had the displeasure being involved with, the elders routinely waged war with one another through their children. In those cases it was better to be just a publisher!

I knew an elder who had several children. Some he showered affection and nepotism on and others who were major disappointments to him, he literally hated! They got whatever he could dish them with his own private army in the elders. However his darlings (at least one of them) got away with murder.

By and large, not withstanding the comments by some who truly were treated either just like everyone else or even worse, the status quo was to cover up the indiscretions of elders families if at all possible. All in the name of preserving the image of Elders that the WT wants to portray. Elders would often call in favours that involved the indiscretions of other elder families, or call on clout they had from relationships with CO's, DO's and other prominent dubs.

So again it is generally true but not absolute as many of the above experiences show.

Frank75

Quandry

Not from my daughter's experience.

My husband was an elder for twenty years. Our teen daughter did some normal teen stuff. Not fornication, not drunkeness. She was made to sit in front of five B@$&@%^$ who accused her of being in a gang, committing fornication, taking drugs, you name it, then called her a liar when she wouldn't admit it. Never an "investigative" committee of two, just straight to a JC. They berated and humiliated her, making her read a scripture that God viewed her as filth, and she would burn in the lake of fire with the devil and his angels.

They wanted to make and example out of her, I guess.

Needless to say, we, her parents, are now viewed as "causing divisions" as we vehemently opposed what they did to her.

Gotta stop. My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.

Beep,Beep

From my experience as the son of an elder I would have to say no, I certainly didn't get away with anything. It seemed to me as if the offspring of elders were more scrutinized than others. But as I said this is just my experience.

From Your Experience: Did Elder's Families Get Away With More Than Others?

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