Is there any hope for Jehovah's Witnesses? Last night I was sitting in a hot tub at a gathering I was at when my mother in law came into the spa. She started talking about my 2 and a half year old son's future associations. All I could think about was that I wanted to run, but was forced to sit there and take association advice for my son from a JW. She told me that families are untrustworthy today and that she believed that kids no longer should ever be allowed to spend the night at other kid's houses.
She then proceeded to give me an example of a past bullet she dodged with her daughter (my wife) when she was about 8 years old. A worldly friend at school was having a get together and my wife was invited. My MiL told me that she considered allowing her to go because other Witness kids were invited too, but she decided to disallow it. She said that the next day she heard from the Witnesss kids that went that they had been subject to a scary movie. My MiL said that she was so relieved that she didn't allow her daughter to go to this party because she would have seen the movie. I asked which movie it was and she said that she didn't remember, only that it was very bad and scary. She thought the story would have some sort of affect on me and it might make me think twice before allowing my son to go over to worldly people's houses in the future.
I really didn't know what to say other then, "Yes, maam." Then she warned me that if you let your kids sleep overnight at worldly people's houses you have to seriously worry about pedophiles. So, this woman freely chose to raise her daughter in a JW environment her whole life, but didn't allow her to go to Non JW kid's houses because of "pedophiles" I stood in utter disbelief of the disconnect from reality this woman had. It was truly astonishing and I felt very sad.
The good news is that my wife has reconnected with that childhood friend and has been having drinks with her when she has the time. They were very good friends despite the parental resistance. Her friend recently ended a very long relationship and my wife is being a listening ear and a good friend. I told my MiL that and she seemed a little uncomfortable with the idea. Rank and File Jehovah's Witnesses are uttery clueless and I feel for them, but I don't really see a solution that's readily available.
Here is a good video on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2A3aOAYSjI
-Sab