Mummy Dear Lies at Assemblies

Tempest in a Teacup

My zealously fanatic jw mum is aware of my current "tourist-jw" life. What she doesn't know for sure is that she's part of the ones who brought me to this.

My mum was a quite moderate jw, she even got publically reproved once. In our house, there was no daily text, no family study, no eating together, no preaching together, no watchtower study...even though she regularly checked my WT to see if I studied it.

Being a single mother, she had a quite busy work schedule, so from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed, you'd better not waste a single minute of her time needlessly.

Sporadic and awkward family studies (daily text) would begin after she got a bad conscience from a guilt trip at a random assembly. Since us kids were not used to that, no one enjoyed it; that coupled with her busy schedule would make the initiative to fizzle out after a few days...back to normalcy.

She then retired...and became an extremist, out of sheer boredom and loneliness I think. By this time, we've grown and left the house. She now spends 90% of her time reading WT publications and the bible. I mean, the whole day, my mum is sitting down reading the bible and co. She's only in her 60s.

Whenever she comes visiting, she'll try to impose a rigorous 'family study' routine. This often brings frictions between me and her. I limit to the extreme staying over visits at her house and I avoid as much as possible her long visits.

I feel that it's unfair that now that I am the one working, she'd feel I have to make time for 'us' to study together. I mean, I'll be running late to work and my mum will start an emotional blackmail about me neglecting her spiritually by not sitting down and doing the dAily text with her (for 20 good minutes, mind you).

Anyway...

We have a particularly tragic family story, which made most of us kids unsually submissive to our mother's authority while growing up; so we all got baptized, though a few later dropped out of the religion. Some of us are still in, with different degrees of zeal, with a few 'doing quite well' spiritually.

Now in her congregation, my mum is one of the "old and spiritually mature" sisters that people look up to. People literally marvel at how "she was able to single handedly raise so many kids in the truth" and now most of them are still in the truth...and they assume that it's because she actively studied with us and gave us a model to follow. Don't get me wrong though, my mum has a genuine love for God and it's something we learnt from her.

So for the past few years she's been getting quite often KH and assembly interviews as an expert on the subject of successfully raising kids in the truth.

Only problem though, there's no way she can give these lectures and not talk about the importance of a regular family study. It HAS TO be part of the script. So she invents fictitious ones, straight out of her imagination.

The first time I heard her do that, I was visiting her KH and I just couldn't believe my ears... 'really?! If you're asked to give an interview which you know is going to make you lie, why don't you politely reject the offer?', was what I thought, but I kept it for myself.

It wasn't before long that I realized this was routine for her.

Imho, she now tries to ease her conscience with a reverse method. Now, she has to get us to sit with her and study, to somehow justify her blabbing.

She has a hand in the fact that I find it so hard to believe in things coming from the religion anymore. In my naivety, she's ONE person I never would think of doing that!

I've never told her about it. But one day, in an argument we were having (about me not supporting her in her family study initiatives when she comes visiting), I told her that I don't get it when she goes about the circuit flaunting her parental skills family study wise because I have no memory whatsoever of us having any steady family study schedule. She blamed my memory and acted shocked.

I then realized (sadly) that she's done so much of it that she's begun to believe her own lies. So she knows that I'm aware of it...

...the impact it has on me however, she's not aware of...

Village Idiot

Makes you wonder how many of those testimonials given by the JWs at the meetings are fake.

Tempest in a Teacup

Village, I don't believe any of it anymore. Even when the interviewee wants to say the raw truth, they find ways to 'enhance' the testimony.

Pistoff

More 'truth' behind the scenes of assembly stories, funny

Iown Mylife

If you beleeeve hard enough it changes history!

Thank you for writing this, Tempest, as it validates my feelings about lots of people I knew who lied about how spiritual their families were. Meanwhile their teens were watching porn, getting drunk, pregnant and marrying at 18, and one kid we know is serving a life sentence for helping to murder a guy. Kids today, huh?

Marina

stuckinarut2

Thanks for your post T in a T!

I know many, many of those ones whose assembly experiences were embellished or outrightly made up!

Hypocrisy and lies knows no bounds when it fits the program of the assembly part!

OrphanCrow

I told her that I don't get it when she goes about the circuit flaunting her parental skills family study wise because I have no memory whatsoever of us having any steady family study schedule. She blamed my memory and acted shocked.
I then realized (sadly) that she's done so much of it that she's begun to believe her own lies.

Ah Tempest. Your post rings familiar for me.

My mother is over 80 years old and the last time I saw her (a few years back), it was rather disturbing to listen to her re-construction of the years of abuse that she subjected her children to. In her mind, and in her statements, she was a model parent who NEVER hit her children. And, she made that assertion when she was standing six feet away from the spot that she beat me with a belt (buckle end) for the last time when I was 13 years old.

I was a bit shocked - my mother was a liar? - and then I realized that she had to lie. If she admitted the truth, she wouldn't be able to live with herself.

LisaRose

Being a single mother, she had a quite busy work schedule, so from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed, you'd better not waste a single minute of her time needlessly.

I was a working mom too, not single but my husband was disfellowshipped, plus couldn't keep a job. I once sat down and calculated it out; with my job, cooking, cleaning and the meetings, study, service, etc. , if I did everything I was supposed to do I would have five hours a week to call my own. I sort of gave up at that point, I realized I didn't have it in me to do it all.

I used to feel guilty that I didn't have a regular family study, while many of my friends were much more disciplined. I thought their children would stay "in the truth" while mine might not, but what happened was that most of those children didn't actually stay either.

In seemed to me that those children were either religiously inclined or not and the parents had limited influence no matter what they did. This religions is all or nothing, if you don't attend meetings and go in field service, you don't count, and many people just aren't going to do all that, which is probably why they have such a low retention rate.

Vidiot

Tempest in a Teacup - "I then realized (sadly) that she's done so much of it that she's begun to believe her own lies."

The best liars are the ones who lie to themsleves and believe it.

My own mother indulges from time to time. I've just gotten used to thinking of the habit as "remembering it differently".

Actually, I've come to suspect most senior-citizen JWs tend to go this way.

Tempest in a Teacup

If you beleeeve hard enough it changes history!

True! Time tends to beautify reality. Plus my mum is being congratulated so much everywhere, and reading so many WT articles about parenting, that somehow she has fully fused with that idealistic persona she reads about.

.I lived with her until I turned 18. No kind words, no meaningful conversations, you can't confide in her and she had a rule NEVER to congratulate any of her kids, she never enquired of my day at school.

I vividly remember getting bold one day while we were in the kitchen and taking the initiative of telling her about my day. After a few minutes she asked me to stop talking so much and pay attention to the way she's cooking else I'd never learn how to cook. I was 9 or 10 and that was the last time I told her about anything that happened to me in a school day.

Our communication was limited to orders from her about things to be done around the house, in school or at KH; and insults in the case of mistakes, not talking about the systematic beatings!Today, she blames me for coming back from work and keeping quiet.

She has become a dream grandma for her grandkids, and really, I envy the type of relationship she has with them. If she had given me one tenth of that we would have a good relationship as well. But now the wall has grown too thick and too tall to bring down.

In her mind, and in her statements, she was a model parent who NEVER hit her children.
(...) I was a bit shocked - my mother was a liar? - and then I realized that she had to lie.

Oh Orphan, I think we have the same mum!

Mummy Dear Lies at Assemblies

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