Being a JW Kid

by Scully 39 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Tatiana

  All so true...so sad yet true. My sister and I were the ONLY 2 witnesses at our school. The town was small, southern, narrowminded, and mostly Baptist. Every day I we went home crying. I hated standing in the hallway for birthday parties, the pledge, and not being able to draw at holiday time. (which I absolutely love). Some of the teachers were mean, some were nice. One teacher knew I had artistic talent and always let me paint other things during holidays and made sure I had books and paper. Another teacher would try her best to embarrass me in front of everyone.

  One particularly painful memory was in art class. There were only 3 people in the entire class. Me and two guys. We were so good we got chosen for a special project. To paint the school gym with giant pictures of football, basketball, and track participants. We had scaffolds and started working on it. I was so happy to be included in something. ANYTHING!! I was so shy and not very cute as a kid. This was like a fantasy!

  We were halfway finished when my mom found out. And of course, since it had to do with sports (God forbid!!) she made me quit. I was devastated. I cried for weeks. My art teacher called and begged my mom to let me help. But all my mom did was launch into one of her sermons on the negative aspects of "competition." Someone PLEASE tell me what in God's name is wrong with painting a football player???????????????????? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......

  It's so true that we were "prepared to fail". I think of what I could have done with my art, or music, or sports, (I loved basketball and played well). I know it's not too late now, but your talents and gifts are supposed to be nurtured when you are young. Instead you have all this baggage to worry about. Like being destroyed if you spend too much time as a child "playing" or "pursuing earthly things."

  I think the organization should be sued for "alienation of life."

  An aside....one of the guys in my art class went on to become pretty famous in SC. Danny McClauglin(sp) His paintings are in a gallery in Pawleys Island and are in just about every restaurant on the coast. The other guy became a psychiatrist and moved to Boston. What did I become? A salesperson. The only thing they DO train you for.

  April

  If you bury the truth under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.--Emile Zola, J'accuse
  http://www.network54.com/Forum/171905
• 

  teenyuck

  Poor April!

  A salesperson. The only thing they DO train you for.

  I could'nt even do that well....I never did sell too many mags. I also tried sales at one point in my working life. I failed miserably! I can recall that I knew it was because I just did not want to force/sell anything after the door to door experience.

  I am nice the few times someone comes to the door to actually sell something. I bought a Kirby vacuum (bad idea!), girl scout cookies and a 5 year subscription to Newsweek. I figured if the poor soul had to make a living doing it, I would at least try to help.
• 

  terafera

  ugh April! My heart broke for you not being able to paint that picture...

  I'm sorry for us, and all the other kids that are left out because of their parents religious beliefs.

  Would you believe this year is the first year I let my son celebrate holidays. Last year he didnt, and the poor thing looked very uncomfortable.. but I thought I was saving him from some horrible act. GRRR!!! I try not to beat myself over it though... that was only (thank God) his first year in school and now he is having a blast! He thanks me every day for letting him participate in holidays. Sweet kid!
• 

  Scully

  I remember so clearly the feelings of exclusion due to being a JW kid. It was awful in grade school, but even worse in high school.

  My grades were always very high for as long as I can remember. It was the only thing my parents didn't object to. Of course, if I scored 99% on a test, they'd ask why it wasn't 100%, and that was pretty discouraging too. Because my marks were so good, teachers asked me to tutor other students who needed help, and I would be paid (a whole $2/hour, which seemed like a fortune at the time). When I talked to my parents about it, they pooh-poohed the idea, saying that I'd be doing my classmates a bigger favour by offering them a Bible study. I said "Well, they don't WANT a Bible study, they WANT to graduate!" They said they didn't want me doing any of that "foolish tutoring business", but I did it anyway on lunch breaks. In my last year of high school, we had the opportunity to take Drivers' Ed, and the course was $200. My parents, thinking that I'd never be able to afford it, told me that I had to come up with the money on my own. I had also been babysitting on weekends for the previous year or so (JW kids and the neighbour across the street). Imagine my parents' surprise when I told them I had more than enough to pay for the course myself. My mom offered to write a cheque for the amount of the course provided that I turn the money over to her. I'd been burned before with this game (yeah, my own mom! - she would take my money, give me a cheque, and then "forget" to deposit the money, or would spend it on something else! - but this was the biggest sum to date, and I wasn't going to take ANY chances) and told them that I'd already gone to the Post Office and had a money order for my course.

  Anyway, that was just one example... no school dances, no clubs (like orienteering, photography, art, drama or debating), no sports, no leadership development. The leadership development was actually pretty interesting, even though I was never allowed to participate, I was frequently nominated by my classmates, because they knew I was honest, and they knew I could speak well in front of an audience - the Theocratic Ministry School was good for something!

  It was a rather dreary existence - even when the congregation organised an event (like a skating party, or a picnic, or a pot-luck dinner) we were seldom allowed to attend; there was always something "not good enough" about someone else attending.

  I was actually allowed to be on the Graduation Committee, and I was in charge of arranging the printing of the tickets and organising the sale of the tickets. I was even allowed to attend the dinner but not the dance. In order to make sure that's the way things went, my dad escorted me. I was mortified, but it was the only way I could attend. I'm glad I went, but I was so anxious that I ended up being sick the whole day leading up to the dinner. I was as white as a sheet in the pictures, and we ended up going home immediately after the meal was finished.

  The things JW kids have to go through..... I can see now how my parents didn't think they could trust me, and it's no wonder I ended up ill that night. I wonder how many other JW parents were as untrusting as mine were? It's not that I'd done anything to deserve to be distrusted, quite to the contrary. I think they really believed what the WT said about "the desires incidental to youth", "inclination of the heart of a boy [or girl] is bad from his [her] youth up", and that if we had the opportunity to misbehave, then that's exactly what we would do. It's like they expected us to be bad, and it kept them from loosening the apron strings at all.

  Pretty sad, when you think about it.

  Love, Scully

  It is not persecution for an informed person
  to expose a certain religion as being false. - WT 11/15/63

  A religion that teaches lies cannot be true. - WT 12/1/91
• 

  teenyuck

  Hi Scully,

  Your parents were not the only ones who did trust their children. My mother never trusted my sister or I.

  When she nagged me about drugs I finally broke down and did it...I figured if she thought I was anyway, I might as well.

  You are correct-they were looking for us to do something wrong, just so it would prove the Society's point.

  It really did suck. No fun.
• 

  144thousand_and_one

  Scully,

  One point relating to your initial post in this thread. I'm not sure about the laws of Canada, but in our state and in most of the states of the US, parents have no right to stop their minor children from receiving a blood transfusion if the child's physician deems it necessary to save that child's life.

  It is unfortunate indeed that governmental intervention is sometimes necessary to save a child's life because his/her parents place the interests of the WTBTS corporation over the well being of their children.

  Peace!
• 

  Scully

  144 thousand and one:
  

  One point relating to your initial post in this thread. I'm not sure about the laws of Canada, but in our state and in most of the states of the US, parents have no right to stop their minor children from receiving a blood transfusion if the child's physician deems it necessary to save that child's life.

  Actually, in 1995 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a child's right to life and medical treatment superceded the parents' right to freedom of worship. However by that time, I was already in my 30's, and had the issue come up while I was a minor under my parents' care, it was quite clear that my parents felt that we children would have been better off dead and "in an approved condition before Jehovah", than to live 'tainted' with someone else's blood in our bodies.

  I shudder to think how JW parents treated their children after the courts intervened and gave needed blood transfusions to them. My own parents made comments at the meetings to the effect that blood transfusions were "disgusting", and I know that's how they felt about a neighbour who said she wouldn't be alive had she not received a transfusion. The way they talked about her was on par with the disgust and disdain they felt about prostitution.

  I dated a JW fellow for a while who had aplastic anaemia as a child (before he became a JW), and had been treated with blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant. All of a sudden to my parents' opinion, he went from being potential son-in-law material to scum, and the resulting interference soon wrecked the relationship.

  It's pretty pathetic for a group that claims to be the 'true religion' to consider its members better off dead than alive.

  Love, Scully

  It is not persecution for an informed person
  to expose a certain religion as being false. - WT 11/15/63

  A religion that teaches lies cannot be true. - WT 12/1/91
• 

  Mindchild

  Hi Scully...cool thread

  I have to agree with everything you said and as with other JW kids growing up in the "truth" I went through all that crap too. I didn't do anywhere near as good as you though in terms of grades. I was always terrified of school and tried to avoid it as much as possible because of it being unpleasant and being beat up all the time by other kids (word gets around fast if you won't fight because of being a JW).

  One of the functions of the school system was to socialize students with the idea of living with a diverse group of people. The system failed miserably too. Can you imagine what a horrific life would be for a JW kid now in school? Not only do you have to worry about the same stuff, but you have drugs, violence, sex, and much more to deal with as a JW kid.

  Public schools suck but being a JW sucked big time.

  Skipper
• 

  Beans

  OHHHH the bad memories,standing in the hallway in High School was the worst how embarassing!
  -being the only kid playing outside on Christmas day.
  -coming home on Halloween and your house was egged and soaped by your mates.
  -not being allowed to play organized hockey.
  -having a hard on during the Watchtower, Oh sorry that was good!
  -knocking on your buddies door and trying not to be noticed while standing behind Dad.
  -not being able to go to the birthday parties.
  -wearing gay meeting clothes handed down from other witnesses.
  -going in service every fucking weekend when your buddies were all hanging out.
  -masterbating and thinking it was wrong!
  -cutting out a picture on an album thinking it was satanic.

  Ohh it`s so good to let it all out after 17 years!Thank you internet!
  Beans
• 

  WindRider

  I can relate to all of this Scully. It sounds like we all had the same problem of sticking out like a sore thumb; all that was missing was a sign around our neck saying,"Kick me, I'm a geek!" And, as Mindchild pointed out, if they did literally kick us, there wasnt a damn thing we were allowed to do about it!

  Where I went to Junior and Senior High school, everyone was pretty much divided into gangs and cliques......the schools were 75% mexican, 20% black and 5% white. Fortunately I had a few good friends from every group but that didnt stop the often made threats of being beat up or being harrassed verbally in classes because I was too shy and scared to do anything about it.......The truth is that I was shy but would have cheerfully knocked them senseless(or at least tried ) if I were not constantly worrying about what my parents would say and whether or not I would die at Armageddon for not turning the other cheek. "When they "persecute" you, that is your golden opportunity to give a good witness and maybe change their heart condition. Maybe your good stand of not fighting back will impress on them that you are different and they will want to know what makes you that way." I heard this alot growing up. The fate of the known world was on my shoulders and depended on my constant portrayal of a good christian.....I didnt bother telling my parents that, yes, I made one hell of an impression on these kids. They had the impression that I was a cheap source of entertainment and was an idiot for putting up with it and not standing up for myself! As far as their wanting to know more about what made me different, what the hell did they care; they were just glad they were'nt me.

  To a large extent I blame the stupid, assinine, make-me-want-to-gag assembly skits.....Give me a break! First of all, I knew the kids they used for those parts half the time and they would'nt voice those lines in a real life situation if their lives depended on it. But of course, our parents were convinced that these were to be our models for how to handle situations at school and walk away with more bible studies than you could handle. After all, "the schools are our special territories....yada-yada-yada."

  Imagine this actually taking place: For the umpteenth time a kid is harrassing you at school. Luckily you recall that skit performed at the circuit ass. Isn't it a fine thing how Jehovah always gives you what you need at the proper time! You attempt to explain to the bullies that as one of JW's you will not engage in violence but perhaps they would like instead to sit down with you, so you can share with them just what makes you so different.....Of course, the reality is that you get no further than "I am one of JW"s and as such...." before they have already laid into you. When they are done, you of course, readily offer them a free home bible study so that they can learn how they too can experience the joy that is being one of Jehovah's people!

  And don't get me started on the fact that I hit junior high in the early seventies when mini-skirts were all the rage. Girls would wear micro-mini's with nylons.....then there was me: A taller than average, skinny, long-legged girl wearing dresses and skirts to school that always had to come at least to my knees....and no nylons until 9th grade; I had to wear long knee high socks! Yes, nothing says, "one outcast geek to pick on, no waiting!" like the clothes my parents made me wear.[>:(]

  I do appreciate that my parents thought they were doing what was best for me and for my eternal salvation but, let's just say that I am so very thankful that I learned the real "truth" before I screwed up my children's lives too much.

  Sincerely, Windrider