Well, I gather that there are no such "spanking rooms", but the spanking does take place. Kind of an unchristian thing to do while in the hall, I guess.
The spanking room
by dgp 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
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OnTheWayOut
... but the spanking does take place. Kind of an unchristian thing to do while in the hall, I guess.
We don't call it a dangerous mind-control cult for nothing.
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misguided
I thought the book was excellent. William Coburn is around my age, I think.
The KH I grew up in had a room where children could be spanked attached to the women's bathroom. It wasn't separate from the bathroom, though; and all the women standing in line could see the children being spanked. I remember one sister even carried a wooden spoon for the purpose in her diaper bag.
When I was 2, my parents asked me why I go to meetings. I think they were expecting me to say 'because I love Jehovah' but my answer to them was, "to get a spanking."
When my kids were little, the KHs we attended has sound-proofed "mothers" rooms with a speaker in them so you could hear the meeting. Some mothers used them as spanking rooms. I used them to nurse and change diapers, etc. It was a great place to escape.
I'm so glad today that I didn't spank them at the kh much, although I am guilty of it, and that the six of them all followed me out of the org!
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ziddina
"At least, I did and counted down the minutes until a meeting was over...."
Me too. In fact, I often faked an illness just to avoid the meetings... [I was a sickly child anyway, due to my allergy to refined sugar and its prevalence in the American diet...]
And spanking?? I saw actual beatings take place - and I wasn't the only target of them, either. I remember one JW mother who had an unbelieving mate, who wailed on her child because the child and I were 10 minutes late getting back to the entrance at Disneyland - which we'd gone to, after the DC in the area was over...
We only had one afternoon there, because the blasted DC had taken up the rest of the week. That bitch JW mom didn't even take into account the LOOOONG lines we had to stand in to ride the rides!!! We only got to ride TWO rides in three hours, and then that vicious viper beat up her child - nearly hit me in the process, and I was crying and saying, "Don't hit her!! It was MY FAULT we were late!!"
It wasn't, but - GeeeeZZZZ!!! ANYthing to stop the beating... That kid left that mother's family and the "trooth", the second she was old enough to get out on her own... The cult never got THAT one!!!
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White Dove
This is all turning my stomach at the memories of the meetings when I was small.
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mrsjones5
I when was small our hall in Menlo Park, Ca didn't have a spanking room, jws took their kids outside and whooped them. And if I recall correctly that had to stop because the hall received complaints so the spankings (or whoopins, it was a mostly black hall) were conducted in the tiny restrooms in back of the hall just to the right of the front door. We could hear everything.
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designs
It got so bad in the Hall I was an Elder in I had to give a talk about bringing 'weapons' to the Hall- wooden spoons, belts, cords. I had to explain to them it was a Felony and they could have their children taken away by Child Protective Services. Neighbors, especially those who didn't like Witnesses would turn them in. Spanking on the buttocks was allowed but not if it brought welts and no hitting on the chest, arms, legs or face.
Tough crowd
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CandleLight
When they built the new KH where I had attended they added a 'mother's room.' It became a spanking station. I had an infant I was nursing and she would be just about to fall asleep and in would come a mother to spank a child. Wasnt much of an area for mothers, what it became was a place you could spank, and no one could see you.
The Elders had recieved complaints from the community who had see some parents, one sister in particular, haul her child outside and wail on him. So their solution was to tell her to make sure she only spanked him indoors. At first she would somewhat curtail her spanking if I was back there with my daughter but after a short period of time she decided it didnt matter. One day after seeing her drag her two year old back to the room in a rage strip him naked and pull out a wooden spoon to beat him, I refused to sit and watch her harm him. I took the wooden spoon out of her hand and asked is she would like being hit with this?
I spoke to the elders and they informed my husband and I that it was not our place to tell another parent how to dicipline their child. They would do nothing, and told me I was in the wrong to interfere. There were MANY in the hall who would cringe everytime that she got up because they knew the sounds of the beating were still going to escape the room. I finally decided to follow her everytime she got up... as she was not willing to have me as an audience anymore.. she no longer drug him back to the bathroom. I wish I could say as much for his home.
I think the general apathy of 'its none of my business' and we wouldnt want to make a bad name for Jehovah, by involving authorities, really shelters alot of abuse.
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Scully
I can remember being around 8 years old and watching a kid a couple of years younger than me being hauled down to the basement of our KH at least once or more per meeting for a spanking beating. The dad picked her up like a sack of potatoes under his arm - usually during the song so the sound of the spanking beating would be masked by the "singing".
It was around the time when ADD was starting to be diagnosed - that kid was on a special diet to calm her fidgeting, took medication and still was required to sit as quiet as a mouse at the KH, and I'm sure if she farted in the wrong direction, she'd still get dragged downstairs for a beating.
Those beatings may have stopped when she got too big to be beaten or carried downstairs, but the long-term damage haunted her. She would have been about 20 when she died of an 'accidental' overdose.
I'll never forget her.
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exwhyzee
Good for you CandleLight ! I wish you would have attended our hall...We used to get dragged outside to the car to get hit with my dad's belt. They told parents not to do it where they could be seen from the road. I don't know what I could have done during the meeting that would have warranted being beat with a belt, but all the kids in our hall were.They used to quote that scripture in Proverbs 23:3,14 If you beat your child with a rod, he will not die. With the rod itself you will deliver his soul form sheol.
It was an accepted practice to hit your kids with something...and it was even considered a loving thing to do. The beatings hurt...but the sting of humiliation comming back to your seat with a red tearstained face was the worst. Not to mention having to face the other kids after the meeting.
We used to have a little girl in our hall called the "No Mommy" girl. When her mom would haul her up the asile toward the back she'd be screaming "NOOOO MOMMY...NOOO MOMMY ! "
The thought of this practice and the long term damage it did to witness children world wide, makes my blood boil. If I knew then, what I know now, I'd have called Child Protective Services on a lot of people including my own parents.