BEATING KIDS IN THE WASHROOM

by Rags 56 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  Scully

  One of the elders in the congregation where I grew up had a literal "rod" for "disciplining" his kids.

  It was a piece of 1" x 1½" oak, about 16" long.

  He had bored a hole into one end, and a loop of leather was tied through the hole and tied, so that it could be hung on the wall.

  One one side he inscribed "Mxxxxxx ROD OF DISCIPLINE" (the xxxx are for the kid's name); and on the other side was written "Rxxxxxx INSTA-MOVER". Even after the kids were well into their teens and beyond the age of being spanked, and were basically good kids, that stupid ROD remained hanging in the kitchen for all to see.

  I remember the first time we visited the house and my dad seeing it, and commenting on how "clever" it was to "name" the stick. As a little kid of 7 years old, it made me even more terrified of the kids' tall parents; the father was about 6'6" and the mother was about 6' tall herself.

  It's incredible the kinds of barbarian child rearing tactics that the WTS produced.

  Love, Scully
• 

  patio34

  Maybe the problem is that people are following the advice of ancient savages, who even had it in their law to have a child stoned to death for drunkennes or rebellion. Go to the source: the Bible.
• 

  Farkel

  I've seen enough children smacked and slugged and pinched and whupped in the Kingdom Halls to know that is EXACTLY what the WTS has encouraged. Here are just a few quotes to illustrate what I'm talking about. These are older quotes, and I haven't the time to dig out newer ones. Remember, the collective conscienceness of dubs takes a long time to change, even after the society has dropped or softened one restriction or another. How many dubs still think giving to charities or seeing a psychologist is somehow still "wrong?"

  *** w54 1/15 49 Rearing Children in the New World Society ***
  Recently a leading New York newspaper ran a series on teen-age crime and gang wars, and, after noting the rise of progressive methods of child training that all but discard discipline, said: "Many of those fighting teen-age crime are convinced this lack of discipline is to blame for many children refusing to accept normal standards of behavior." J. Edgar Hoover has investigated the causes of juvenile delinquency and claims ninety per cent of it is traceable to lack of parental discipline. A Brooklyn court judge contributes this caustic comment: "I think we need the woodshed for some young folks. But that is not considered fashionable now. Now we are told you must not strike a child; you may be stunting a genius."

  6 But is there springing up around us a bumper crop of unstunted geniuses? Rather are we not reaping a record harvest of juvenile delinquents?

  Here the society has plainly implied that unless children are whupped, they will be a "harvest" of juvenile delinquents.

  *** w54 1/15 54 Disciplining Children for Life ***
  That brings us to discipline, and forces a facing of that hotly controversial question: to spank or not to spank.

  2 Many child psychologists put a "hands off" sign on children, as did one who said: "Do you mothers realize that every time you spank your child you show that you are hating your child?" Jehovah says: "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him." A spanking may be a lifesaver to a child, for Jehovah says: "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol." Again, "Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts."

  In other words, BEAT THAT CHILD!

  *** w54 1/15 55 Disciplining Children for Life ***
  So it is with children. Some are more sensible than others; some are meeker than others. A rebuke may discipline them more than a whipping would others who are more stubborn and in whose childish heart may be bound up a more than usual amount of folly.

  5 Parents, if this is the case with your child, be patient.

  So, if your kid is "meek," then rebuke him. Otherwise BEAT THE HELL OUT OF HIM.

  *** w54 1/15 57-62 Disciplining Children for Life ***
  If you children have been the subjects of our discussion, it is because you are the objects of our affection. All right, you say, but if you grownups are so fond of us what is all this talk about discipline, and especially spanking? Well, with you children that does touch a tender spot, does it not? But to help us get to the bottom of the matter let us look at the animals that you children love. Jehovah's wisdom is reflected in his creations, so to look to animals for instruction is not to lower our thinking to their level, but to lift it to God's thoughts...

  "Remember children, we love you, but:
  
  18 There is no juvenile delinquency in the animal realm, because there are no delinquent animal mothers. They do not spare the paw and spoil the young, but spank to preserve the young. They would die fighting for their young, just as your parents would die for you; yet they spank their young, just as your parents may spank you. In the woods the first mistake is often the last, and if the young animals disobeyed their mothers they would become the main course on a woodland menu and end up in another animal's stomach. So, while it may not be pleasant for them to be spanked, it is better to be beaten than to be eaten...

  "Animals beat their young, therefore, so can we."

  27 You parents know what you must do. You children know what you must do. Jehovah knows what he will do. If we obey him, he will do things for us. If we disobey him, he will do things to us.

  WOW! We have the triple whammy here! Parents: you MUST beat the shit out of your children, or Jehovah will KILL you. Children: you must take it, or Jehovah will KILL you.

  *** w56 5/15 305-6 Youth in the New World Society ***
  5 As an illustration of child rule in the home, this occurred in a Christian home. The child pleaded and raised a fuss about a certain type of food it wanted and did this in a demanding way. The mother yielded and prepared the food. When the food was set before the child he decided he did not want it after all. The mother coaxed, but when the child feigned illness the mother took the food away. Under his breath the child was heard to say: "Well, I really got out of that one!" In this instance there was no discipline and the child was developing the trait of selfishness and was becoming self-centered. Parents may not always realize it, but children test them too. An instance to show this occurred when a four-year-old boy, when his food was set before him, threw it on the floor when the mother stepped out of the room. A mild scolding resulted, whereupon the mother placed more food before him. This was treated similarly in the absence of the mother. It was explained to him that some day he would be grown and would have children of his own, and, when asked what he would do if his child threw his food on the floor, he unhesitatingly responded: "I would whip him." He knew what was right and that proper corrective measures should have been administered. From an educational viewpoint he must have been somewhat disappointed in his parents. Children in similar circumstances could not look to their parents as a proper example of rearing children.

  Beat, beat, BEAT that child, folks!

  *** w56 10/15 637 Children Respond to Discipline ***
  Children Respond to Discipline

  A mother writes regarding her efforts at training four children: "I thought I had tried everything, as the saying goes, to make my children behave, still they were rebellious and antagonistic in our everyday relations. I had been a witness of Jehovah for five years, but my husband was violently opposed and I was forbidden to read any of the Watch Tower publications to the children. When it was stressed that it was the parents' responsibility to see that children had daily Bible instruction I decided to set aside time for daily Bible reading. This raised a howl of protest from my boys, ages 7, 5 and 3, as it always seemed to come at their most enjoyable time. After the account of creation they lost interest and the howls grew louder as I turned off the television every night and announced it was time for Bible reading. Many times I sat with the Bible in one hand and the rod of correction in the other..."

  I'm sure that child grew up to be a well-adjusted psyhopathic child-abuser himself.

  Farkel
• 

  Farkel

  bttt.

  Farkel
• 

  GentlyFeral

  The mother yielded and prepared the food. When the food was set before the child he decided he did not want it after all. The mother coaxed, but when the child feigned illness the mother took the food away. Under his breath the child was heard to say: "Well, I really got out of that one!"

  Yes, and if my kids had done that to me, I would have told them how ashamed I was of their meanness. It would have worked, too. My kids are good people today and they know it.

  I've never found it natural to beat my kids. I never did it unless I was furious with them, and of course that way lies excess.

  Physical punishment stopped forever in our home on the night when my son refused to eat dinner and my husband threw him to the floor and kicked him. And realized that this was not the way HE wanted to be.

  GENTLY! Feral
• 

  Yvonne

  Dear people,
  It is still true...One of the things that keep me away from being a JW is the fact that I am afraid that the nice-happy-good family thing does not really exists...Yesterday evening I was at the Memorial in a big Congress Hall, and two children about 3 and 4 years old were being carried away and soon we heard the tremendous crying and yelling of these poor children. My 17 year old daughter and I watched the sister who was with us, and later asked her, what this is. She said it is not proper to judge the way other people bring up their childeren, and that is more important to look at our own imperfections.
  And then there are these sisters, I know them from the place I work. They do look happy only on congresses and in the evening. During the day I hear how they are tired, how they feel they have to do to much and how they are really just the slave of the husband.
  I do know nice JW's too, especially some gentlemen, but I think everybody should help the poorer and less equipped. What is real about the family-happiness JW-style???
• 

  nita6368

  I have three boys of my own and remember how their dad, my ex, used to take them outside-he never took them to the restroom. My children
  are in counseling now and have told their counselor that he would take them outside and spank them with a belt and then give them a lifesaver so they would quit crying. Sick, huh? I remember one time a bethelite was in town visiting his family and we went to see a stupid slide show and when they shut off the lights my son started crying and the PO of that hall came and told me that I needed to take my son to the back and discipline him and if I didn't want to he would do it for me...last time I went to that hall. the ironic part of it is his son was the bethelite and he was kicked out of bethel for fornication almost immediately when he went back to New York. In Port Jervis New York Hall, there was a sister, a very large italian sister who would walk around the hall with a big leather belt thrown over her shoulder and a wooden spoon in her purse that she used to beat her kids, they were 4 and 2.I am told by my kids that their dad spanks their 1 1/2 year old brother when he wakes up in the middle of the night when they are visiting him, they can hear him spanking him and hollering at him to shut up or he's going to spank him some more.So I guess the abuse trails on into the home life even at a young age.
• 

  DIAMOND

  In the 70's this was common practice. I remembr the Elders waiting for my little brother to start up. My father was an unbeliever so my mom was at the Hall alone. As soon as my brother started they would grab him up and take him out and do God knows what. And my mom just sat there and let it happen. But to us it was they way it was to be.

  AND THEY CALL IT THE TRUTH.

  Diamond
• 

  waiting

  Please be aware that the act of disciplining children - whether beatings, whippings, no food, tied to the bed, rapings.......all have been going on for .....well, since recorded history. Naturally, including Bible history also.

  This is not something that only JW's do - this is something that PEOPLE do. And as people learn more ways to control themselves, their anger, and their little children, they seem to choose violence less often. My mother was beaten often by her English father, police were called often by neighbors. However, at school, it was a regular practice to whip kids, particularily the backs of their legs which couldn't be seen easily. The teacher beat my mother one time so bad that her father came to school to protest. The teacher & principal agreed with the father not to report him if he didn't report them. And all continued to beat the kids. It's was common.

  Children have always been the target of adults - this is nothing new, and absolutely not confined to jw's. Catholics also believed in spankings, so did my Nazarene grandmother (she beat the hell out of all her kids), my atheist father loved and used his black belt, and if we were bad enough....."The Buckle."

  Particularily during the earlier years, corporal punishment was used by a majority of parents, including jw's. Jehovah's Witnesses are behind the times......as usual.

  waiting
• 

  144thousand_and_one

  Waiting,

  Please be aware that the act of disciplining children - whether beatings, whippings, no food, tied to the bed, rapings.......all have been going on for .....well, since recorded history. Naturally, including Bible history also.

  Rape and murder have also occurred throughout history, but that does not excuse these acts. Child abuse is unacceptable, regardless of past history.

  While it's true that folks in other religions also abuse children, I know of no mainstream religion where abuse is not only condoned, but encouraged. Other religions provide child-care facilities for young children who cannot sit still during worship, but JWs provide beatings for kids with short attention spans. Additionally, JWs encourage the exploitation of children via forced marketing activities on behalf of their cult. Don't try to minimize the abuse suffered by children at the hands of JWs.