Last weekend, my parents had the kids and my wife and I had a whole weekend just to ourselves. It was great; we did NOTHING the entire time except relax and enjoy the silence.
Last night we went to pick up the kids. My mom made dinner, and we ate and visited, and I sadly got into it with my mom and ended up really upsetting her. I love my mom and this was far from my intention, but I just couldn't let a couple of things go that I suppose I just should have.
My wife was talking about how our neighborhood is lousy. Background: we still live in the first home we ever bought, in a relatively low-income neighborhood. Our house backs up to a trailer court and there is government housing at the end of our street. My wife's story was about some poorly behaved teenagers she saw when she took the kids to the neighborhood park. My mom chose to make a comment about how my wife's story showed just how bad things are these days and how much worse they are than even a few years ago.
My mom has been saying this exact same thing every single year that I remember for my entire life. She has been saying this because the Watchtower Society has been saying it for every single year of my life.
I tried, I really did, to keep my mouth shut. But I ended up blurting out "No, things aren't any worse than when we moved there. It has nothing to do with the world being so bad, and getting worse and worse; it's because it's a low-income neighborhood."
Mom said, "So if you went back ten years, you are telling me things were just as bad then?"
Me: "Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. It has been exactly this bad since we moved there."
My Wife: "Actually that's true. That neighborhood has always had a poor reputation and worse crime the entire time it's existed." My wife was born and raised in this town, so she would know. Keep in mind that my wife is also an active JW.
Me: "And we often go to the school park at <<redacted for anonymity>>, which backs up to a solidly middle-class neighborhood. Every kid there is closely attended by a parent or guardian, no unattended children like at our park. There's no crowds of teens hanging out and making out or having sex in the bathrooms or smoking pot. It's a totally different experience, and it's completely due to income level. The world isn't getting any worse."
At this point the conversation broke up and my mom and my wife talked a bit in the kitchen, and my dad and I talked on the couch. I could still hear them talking, though, and I hear my mom grousing to my wife about how I was deluding myself and how we really are in very last gasps of the Time Of The End.
Again, I couldn't let it go. I hollered out (not angrily but just to be overheard) "Mom, honestly, things aren't worse now. For example, did you know that the crime rate across the entire US is at a 30 year low? The lowest it's been in almost my entire life."
Dad: "That's actually true, dear." My dad is also an active JW.
So my mom trots out to the living room and says, "That may be true, but if you honestly look at the big picture, are you really telling me you think things aren't the worst they've ever been in the history of mankind? That you think the world isn't about to destroy itself?"
Me: "I really, honestly don't." And I went on to relate infant mortality improvements, about how many cancers are survivable compared to years ago, about average life spans and literacy rates, about childhood cancer being amazingly treatable now. I talked about how, while there still many violent deaths worldwide right now, there are no countries at war with each other. I talked about how while AIDS isn't cured, it is definitely controllable and practically at the level of a chronic condition rather than a life threatening illness like it was just a few years ago, and about how while we are in a recession right now, these things are cyclical and have always occurred--that they aren't new phenomena at all.
She just looked at me, knowing she was unable to compete with me in the realm of facts, but also knowing to the core of her being that I was wrong, dead wrong, and that we really are in the worst times in human history, so bad that Jehovah will have to intervene to save humans from themselves--and that this is going to happen soon, very soon, possibly next week, possibly tomorrow.
And her face got red. And she walked out of the room.