How Long A JW ( Baptised )?

by hillary_step 62 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Erich

  BQE wrote:
  

  DF'd December 1980 because I wanted to go to college

  Amazing.
  Incredible.
  I'd never heard of something like this.
• 

  thinkers wife

  Raised as one. Dad has been pioneering since the fifties. Mom is also pioneering. I pioneered regularly for over eight years and countless months of auxiliary pioneering.
  Baptized at the ripe old age of thirteen December 16, 1973. Da'ed myself June of 2000. Didn't want to give them the chance of degrading more than they already had. After years of battling depression and other assundry afflictions, I am finally happily married to a man of the "world". He was never a Witness and knew nothing about them until he met me and did mega research. Has a kicken' collection very well organized of the JW's.
  I left mostly for emotional reasons, Thinker showed me the logic.
  TW
• 

  AMarie

  My Mother was baptized when I was three and thus began raising us JW's. I was baptized 10/2/92 at the age of thirteen and was DF'd on 12/29/99 after being inactive for two years.
• 

  Duncan

  Born 1954
  Mum dubbed on the doorstep 1960
  Mum baptised 1961, Dad domino-effect-baptised 1968
  Me, patform parts from 1962, baptised 1969, pioneer from 1970
  MS 1973
  Public Talks 1975 - nods and winks about "eldership potential" but never made it, because:
  Last field service 1977, deleted as MS
  Last meeting 1980
  JC for "Apostasy" 1981 - survived.

  Didn't give JW's much of a thought for almost 20 years until July 1999
  when, on an idle whim one slow afternoon in the office, I put "Jehovah" into a search engine, and was overwhelmed with all the stuff I found. Ended up posting on H2O, then here.

  So, 2001 was sort of significant for me in that I have now finally been "out" as long as I was "in".

  Happy New Year to all.

  Duncan.
• 

  ashitaka

  Born August 29, 1979.

  Father became a JW a year before. 1st memorial at three. Mother baptised in 1988. She left unofficially in 2000.

  I was baptised in 1992, @12 years old. Unoffically left in end of 1999. Was a baptised dub for almost ten years.

  ashi
• 

  Prisca

  HS,

  No offence taken. I think it's common everywhere that people are considered JWs from the date of their baptism.

  However, I think that doing so downplays the involvement child JWs have in the organisation. When you're born into the "truth", you have no choice but to do what your parents tell you to do. Some of it makes sense (having morals, being a "good" person, be loving to all) so the child goes along with it. It's generally not until the kid comes into his teenage years that he develops critical thinking skills and is able a choice.

  Until then, the child JW acts much the same as any other JW. Goes witnessing, possibly gives talks, has to stand up to his friends and tell them why he can't go to their birthday parties, has to tell his teacher why he can't make a Mother's Day card, is expected to live by the same moral code as his parents - no swearing, being truthful in all things, attending all the meetings.

  I dedicated myself to God when I was 14. However, I didn't get baptised for several years later. I thought it was "the Truth" and believed wholeheartedly in what the Society taught me. After all, I was a 3rd generation JW so I had many family members telling me the same.

  It wasn't until I was old enough, and actually brave enough, to start reasoning on what the real truth was all about.

  So although I was baptised for half that time, that's why I consider myself having been a JW for about 30 years.
• 

  Billygoat

  I did a similar thread on this a few months ago...

  Brought in at age 8
  Baptized at age 16
  DFed at age 19

  I consider myself raised in it although my early childhood I wasn't affiliated with any religion.

  Andi
• 

  teenyuck

  As Pricsa said, the childhood experience is strong. Grandmother's father-in-law a dub since 1914. He got her into it, then my mother in 1967. I was 5.

  Had it in the background from birth, with grandparents into it. I got baptised at 12. Left in about 1981, when I went to college. I just stopped going.
• 

  TR

  Started studying 10/84 at age 23

  Baptized 10/85

  stopped going to meetings 11/94

  started "real" WTS education on the net 6/97

  sent DA letter 2/98

  TR

  "YK is his name, false prophecy is his game"
• 

  LoneWolf

  I agree. It's an interesting thread.

  Myself ---

  Born in 1940, a fourth generation witness. (Counting my Great-great uncles Manton, who were supplying the WTBTS with all the different colored inks for their printing operations around the turn of the 19th century [1900]. They brought my grandfather into the organization in 1919.)

  First recorded time in service --- December, 1946 Yes, I remember the windup phonographs and wearing placards to advertise assemblies, etc.

  Baptised --- 1955. I knew what I was doing and have no regrets in that regard.

  Moved where the need is great --- Valier, Montana in 1962.

  Moved again at the Society's invitation in 1968 to the Eskimo village of Bethel, Alaska, 420 air miles due west of Anchorage. Mentioned in yearbook in 1969. (As I recollect.)

  Disfellowshipped in 1988(?). for telling an individual who was trying to browbeat a young girl and me (He had no authority of any kind in the congregation) that "If you think you can intimidate me, you aren't man enough."

  Time since then --- making the elders and Society miserable. LOL.

  6 kids, 5 girls and 1 boy.

  LoneWolf