by asilentone 45 Replies latest jw friends
I remember those one word coached answers.
I hated it, because the whole congreagation would laugh at me.
Yeah, I know they were laughing because they thought it was cute.
But even a five year dislikes being treated in a condescending manner.
After the first couple of times i only did it when my parents forced me to because it felt demeening even at that young age.
I used to hate it when there would be an asshole of a conductor that would purposely not call on a little kid that was trying he's best to get called on. Then to see the disappointment on the little ones face!!
Guess the conductor was trying to start them off young with unbrotherly love and years of disappointment.
First off, I never thought young ones should have been in the main hall. It's unreasonable to expect a small, energetic child to sit quietly for two hours and not fidget, squirm, or fuss. THEY'RE CHILDREN! But, I lost count of how many bored and fidgety children were hauled off to the bathrooms and beaten. Such bullshit.
What does the org have against "Sunday school" exactly? If they're so keen on indoctrination, you would figure they would make indoctrination fun for a child by gearing things towards them. Never made any sense.
Secondly, it hurts childrens feelings when adults laughed at them. I know it hurt me. Once we had a nice visiting speaker give the public talk. In that talk he pointed out that during childhood, children want approval, love and support from adults and when they're laughed at, they learn that they're not valued. He suggested that if you want to "encourage" your children, perhaps nod your approval and smile at them instead of laugh. So what happened during the WT lesson? You got it. Some child answered with a one-word answer and everybody laughed. F...ing JWs.
But then again, I think that indoctrinating a child in any religion is abusive. Expose children to a wide variety of beliefs, including no belief at all, and encourage them to explore. When the child grows into an adult, they'll have a more rounded view. It sickens me that it is considered a good thing to indoctrinate children. I've seen some videos on Youtube of young Islamic children saying that how when they grow up, they want to be a martyr. In the JW children, they're encouraged to not become educated and to throw their lives away to pioneer. They're never taught to think critically about anything.
Well in my case my dad would pick 2 or 3 questions and prepare us "kids" for our specific question and answer, then at the meeting he'd go to the conductor and tell him which one to pick for which kid If we didn't raise our hand the conductor was instructed by dad to call on us anyway!
If you didn't make your comment you got punished when you got home. So it wasn't cute or funny. It destroyed our self esteem and nothing about the jw religion prepared me for debating, speaking in large groups or did anything to develop my speech or reading skills, character or anything else that would have been usuefull in my adult life.
nj
If they are not old enough to give answers that involve thinking, and in their own words, their comments cannot be genuine. I have actually heard the parents telling small children the exact words, almost always the words that are already in the washtowel paragraph, to say. And then the conductor always bally-hoos it.
My daughter used to make comments at a very young age - she was a very precocious talker. When she was barely 2 year made a comment about Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. Of course I was the proud mama and encouraged this. When she was 3, instead of the correct bible character, she gave the name of a character in a fairy tale. Everyone just thought she was confused, but I knew she did it deliberately. She felt pressured and she had had enough of that, and she rarely answered again. I never forced her as I realized it was just an ego thing on my part. It always seemed wrong to force children to make rote comments. If they are capable of putting it in their own words, fine, but otherwise you aren't teaching them anything.
I lost count of how many bored and fidgety children were hauled off to the bathrooms and beaten. Such bullshit.
This used to make me so raging mad, some were just babies. We would hear those children screaming and begging, and NO one would do anything about it. It was sanctioned abuse, plain and simple.
There was a few times that I just got up and left, it was more than I could take.
My girls were taught the same as the others, and contributed their one word ans. early on... But, we were just going thru the robotic motions, trying to make it all look heartfelt.........
Cas
Moderator: And who then is deserving of our worship? Is that little Andy I see there?
Andy's Mom (stage whisper heard throughout the Hall): Jehovah!
Andy: Jehober!
As for myself, I was giving number 2 talks (no pun intended) at 10 years old...and could answer Jehober all on my own well before then...
well at teh time I thought it was great that my kids were beginning to comment.
Now. . . what was I thinking?1?
I'm so glad my grandchildren have never seen the inside of a KH
This topic reminds me of my childhood, so I will comment on it.
I was from a divided family, my mother being a devout JW, and my father a crazy drunk lunatic. I was pretty smart before I started killing brain cells, so I started commenting at a very early age. I was doing Bible readings at age 6 in the TMS. They graduated me to do the #5 talk within a year or two (7 minute talk you wrote, for those who don't remember). No kid at age 8 should have to do that crap!
And studying for the Watchtower was worse, we did it on the weekends as a family while my dad was drunk and tearing up the rest of the house. Me, my mom and my sisters would hide in one bedroom, and hoped he wouldn't come in and hurt us. I, as the only boy, was the one singled out for the most abuse. For one year of my childhood, he even took the door off of my bedroom so he could rant at me non-stop (I didn't even remember that until my sister told me, due to repressed memories). I hated studying for the WT the rest of my JW life.
So now that I have made a short story long, I hate it when kids are used like that.
JK
