Beat to Hell.......were you as a child as a JW?

by restrangled 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Nowman

  Restangled~remember the young people song, where the chorus was "he says use the rod" la la la...my mom would look at me at that point in the song at the KH and smirk at me like it was a big joke.

  I got hit with a wooden paddle until I was 16, I may have been 17. Pants down and all. As I got older it was worse. It would be the paddle 1st, then my mom would step in kicking and punching me...mom would slap me across the face if I decided to go above and beyond cleaning the house for her. This one time, she asked me to do a touch up vaccum, I decided to vaccum under the plant holders too, she saw me and freaked, and slapped me right across the face.

  The last straw was when I was 16-17, got beat as above, then my mom sat me down in the kitchen in front of the microwave and proceeded to cut 8 inches off my hair to show me some humility.

  I always hated the fact that they would want me to come out of my room and tell them that I loved them after the beatings. Why did they do that to me? Thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach....gotta clear my head...all the beatings were because I went school with other JW kids, and they would tell their parents what I was doing, sure I kissed a worldy boy, that is as bad as I was.

  Enough said.

  Nikki
• 

  parakeet

  I wasn't beaten physically because I was almost a teenager when my parents converted. The emotional abuse was tremendous, however.

  I remember seeing many small children in the KH dragged downstairs to be beaten and hearing their faint screams because they couldn't sit like statues for 2+ hours. One elder routinely carried his restless toddler downstairs holding his mouth and nose shut so he wouldn't scream. That's about a minute of not being able to breathe, let alone scream. Everyone smiled when a small child was beaten -- gotta make that tree grow straight!
• 

  Gram

  I am so touched and yet infuriated at the same time. Can't something be done??? I would champion such an effort!!! Now the laws so favor the children, I wonder what is the current situation with JW kids being "beaten" etc.? Are they told to keep silent? As for the little ones, they cannot be expected to sit quietly for 1, let alone, 2 hours. It is unreal.
• 

  InquiryMan

  Only got spankings twice in my life. And that had nothing to do that my parents were JWs, more that I misbehaved and deserved it.

  However, since for decades now, all references on physical discipline has been removed from Watchtower literature in Norwegian. I guess sometimes the translation had to be somewhat rephrased compared to the original English text.

  I do not think physical discipline is more practiced by JWs now than the general population, e.g. it is actually illegal.
• 

  Anti-Christ

  My dad would beat the crap out of me and he would quote scripture" beat your child he will not die" The worst was when he whipped me with a garden hose, that really hurt especially the metal end. The last time he beat up my brothers I was 16. He started to hit them with the broom handle on their backs, that's when I lost it and I grab my dad by the throat, push him against the wall and punched him right in the stomach. I looked at him right in the eyes and said if he ever did that to my brothers again I would bust up his face.
• 

  Black Sheep

  The occasional spanked bum is nothing compared to the psychological damage for me.

  I also have physical damage due to a really bad decision made during the 1975 excitement that I delight in showing JW Diehards.

  The people that let me do it pretend to have no remorse.

  Look to the sky....

  say loudly......

  La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La La
• 

  Jim_TX

  *sigh* Many many tales here of folks who got it much worse than I.

  Of course - at the time... being a kid and all - you never think to tell someone... after all... you were 'bad' - and deserved it.

  I came from a family of 7 kids. I had 4 older sisters and 2 younger brothers. My 2 younger brothers were too young to beat - being only about 2 or 3 years old - at the time.

  My older sisters... well... they never got beat.

  Me? Yuppers.

  My dad would take off his leather belt and wail the crap outta me. Me being a little kid of... oh, about 5 years old to about 7 years old - I would be yelling and screaming - hopping all about - trying to avoid the 'hits' - but only causing them to fall in places that hurt worse.

  When I was about 7-1/2 - my family was in a car accident. My dad was killed - as well as one of my sisters.

  After all of the rest of us recuperated - my mom kept up the 'tradition' using an old leather belt of my dads' that hung on the back of the kitchen door. Only - this time - my younger brothers were included in the beatings - when they were bad.

  I also remember when it stopped - for me. I was slow, I suppose - but it finally occurred to me that when I hopped and jumped - my mom seemed to enjoy it - and the beatings lasted longer. So one day - I just stood and took it. No jumping and hopping about. That belting lasted a very short time.

  It took a while for my brothers to catch on - and they still got beat.

  ...

  I always thought that I was a really bad kid - growing up - to have gotten so many beatings (and usually over trivial things, too.) But then - as an adult - many many years later, I got to pondering it and realized that my dad was under a lot of stress and pressure to provide for his family. We were poor - and didn't have much to eat, and he was just worried about how to provide for us.

  Also - since he didn't beat my older sisters ... he had a lot of anger to release - which he seemed to do - on me.

  It's pretty sad... the only memories of my dad are of 5 or 6 beatings I got as a kid.

  Regards,

  Jim TX
• 

  LouBelle

  My mother didn't spare the rod. I got quite a few hidings, some because I did deserve them and others for some minor offence. The once though she did punch me, connected with ear/jaw/neck region - I remember my ear canal swelling and was in a lot of pain.

  The last time she tried to slap me I grabbed her arm, jerked her back and told her enough!

  My father though got hold of me when I was 17 and beat me with a belt - he actually started the beating while I was sleeping - being woken like that is one of the scariest things. It was shortly after that I moved out of home and went to live with my gran.
• 

  BarefootServant

  Having been in for many years, I saw and noted the gradual change from the 'scripturally based' and WTS enthusiastically endorsed practice of proudly smacking your kids if they so much as sniffed during the meeting, to the current enlightened and 'scripturally based' view of tolerance and appropriate discipline where the sound of a thwack is unheard of in the KH and some kids even have (shock! horror!) the occasional colouring book. What a coincidence that this progressive thinking happened exactly in parallel with the attitude of society in general toward the treatment of children. Not that I approve of course, I pine for the good ol' days when you could vent your frustrations on the kids - even if you didn't have any.
• 

  Lady Lee

  rebel

  I suspect that your mother was abused physically as a child. Why else would she need to read books about child discipline? I know I didn't want to beat my kids who way we were beaten so I went to the books. If I had never been abused I would have already learned from experience how to discipline kids.

  Then the WTS teaches parents something different. Beat your kids for their own sake. I think you are right about the quick release of anger in the parent that would spur them on to using physical violence to control a child.

  When you stop to think about it back in the 70s when my kids were growing up the guys calling the shots were older guys who were kids at the turn of the century. Kids didn't have a childhood. They were taught to be seen but not heard and forced to behave like little adults. That belief still continues because no one has bothered to learn any different.

  I have to wonder how kids are disciplined in countries where corporal punishment is illegal.