A bit of a rant... the selfishness of older generations

by cedars 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  cedars

  Hi everyone

  I was talking to Mrs Cedars earlier about one of the things that really frustrates me about our situation as "faders" - namely the fact that we are looked down on by our respective parents, not to mention other older generations of our family. It strikes me that the incessant attempts to drag us back into unquestioned loyalty to the organization is actually extremely selfish, even though (in their minds) they have only our best interests at heart.

  I think of it this way. They made a decision when they were younger to follow in the footsteps of their own parents' faith - without doing objective research into the beliefs or history of the organization. This was their choice. Whether it was right or not is irrelevant. They decided to blindly follow a cult without checking the smallprint. It was a mistake, but it's their mistake to make. I can respect their beliefs, even if it is becoming increasingly apparent that they can't respect mine.

  However, to then go one step further and insist that subsequent generations of their family to infinity should automatically follow the same ill-advised course they have chosen to take is just absurd and plain selfish. My wife and I are still relatively young, young enough to have kids. We have potentially four or five decades left to live. They (our parents) are expecting us to completely ignore the fact that we have discovered the organization is a scam, and commit to spend the rest of our days living a lie just so we can make them happy by living our lives as a mirror of theirs. Not only that, they want us to raise any children we have as JWs too, even if we have serious doubts about the religion.

  In other words: "this is the choice we made, so you and your children should make the same choice - even if it means wasting your lives in just the same way we might have wasted ours."

  I know many on here are believers and Christians, and (being agnostic) I am not entirely dismissive of belief in an afterlife. However, IF there is no "great beyond" and this life is all there is, how selfish can you get to ask someone to spend their remaining time on this planet in subservience to a corrupt and deceptive organization JUST because doing so corresponds with your life course?

  To illustrate: imagine you are given a million dollars, and your teenage son/daughter is also given a million dollars as some sort of inheritance from a wealthy ancestor. You both know that it is highly unlikely, if impossible, that you will ever stumble upon this amount of money again. You somehow end up wasting it on some scam where a company promises to pay you back your million dollars with interest at some point in the future, even though you don't know when that day will come (and you even secretly doubt that they will fulfil their side of the bargain at all). Even so, you insist that your son/daughter also spends their million on the same scam, JUST TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER!

  Like I said, I know that isn't necessarily how indoctrinated parents view things, and that they honestly think they have our best interests at heart. Still, I can't help being infuriated at times by the selfishness of it all.

  Cedars
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  Apognophos

  I can't disagree with you, but one difference between your analogy and the reality is that they don't know they're doing this! It's an unconscious refusal to admit they could be wrong which leads them to insist that we validate their choice by making the same choice.
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  breakfast of champions

  ^^^^^aka Cognitive Dissonance.
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  Mum

  Most families have this illness to some degree. My mother could not believe that I got a divorce. She told me once, "You're the last one of my kids I would have expected to get a divorce." Because I was the best behaved of her brood, she thought that meant I cared more about what others thought than what was best for all concerned. Why? Because that's how she lived her life. She was willing to go so far as to give me money for medical treatment (because my husband made an issue of a visit to the doctor after I had not gone to a doctor for 5 years).

  As Rational Witness (who no longer posts here apparently) once said, "Image is everything."

  Parents want us to validate them and their riduculous choices. Their job was to teach us to become who we really are.

  Regards,

  SandraC
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  sabastious
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  gingerbread

  Cedars - It's quite probable that your parents think ya'll are the ones being selfish... In their eyes you have been "corrupted" by independent thinking and are lacking the "self sacrificing spirit" that is held in high esteem by lifelong JW's (this is a justification device used to ease their own insecurities). You are ruining their hopes of having a family that is well known in your area for being "steadfast" in the truth. You have decided to break the cycle of victimization. As my spouse and I continue in our fade (both raised in), we are beginning to feel the pressure too. Our respective families are large and very well known in the southern US.

  The trick is managing your own "separation anxiety" and guilt. You can't control what other folks think about you.

  Thank you for jwsurvey. It's been a great help to many of us on the other side of the pond!

  gingerbread
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  Hillary

  You are so right. My dad acted the same way when I left home 21 years ago to escape the cult and the misery. And I have never been baptized. He joined the religion when I was 9 years old so I grew up around it for about 11 years. Yet he still had this arrogant, nasty attitude towards me because I chose to not have anything to do with his religion. He took it very personally. At least now he doesn't act that way towards me anymore but he's still a hardcore, brainwashed cult victim
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  wasblind

  I can respect their beliefs, even if it is becoming increasingly apparent that they can't respect mine.________Cedars

  " No one should be made to choose "__2009 July Awake

  Oops, I forgot, that was only to fool the householder

  Stay strong Cedars

  .
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  sammielee24

  What you see as selfishness - they perhaps see as themselves being selfless. Their belief and right to eternal life is through the Society and so they believe that if you don't hold hands with them, then you will die and they will never see them again. Is that selfish? Or is it normal parental and human behavior. I see it as a lot of fear. Fear of losing their children - in your eyes it is selfish. You said they 'choose' to stay in a faith blindly and in a way you too are selfish in that thinking. People brainwashed into specific types of behavior aren't necessarily selfish but controlled. Some people seem to be able to break the control easier than others and some never do. That doesn't make them selfish. It makes them maybe susceptible to mind manipulation and the underlying cause could be anything from fear to need.

  I knew a woman very well who got into the organization right after she got out of a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown. She was vulnerable. She raised all her kids in the religion and the household was a high control environment in every sense, so the option of thinking as an individual was minimal at best. Did she think it was selfish? No. She believed that she could have them forever and they would never suffer and to her that was the most selfless act she could make as a parent.

  I have always wondered why JW's have children when their first loyalty is to the Society. I quickly put that mind set away though because I know that in their minds, they cannot ever fathom a child of theirs, raised as a JW, will ever abandon them. sammieswife
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  Phizzy

  I honestly think my parents believed it was the truth, and that I should follow it too, and I did for decades, not for them though, because as a born-in I was fooled by the religion.

  But when it came to my own kids I did not make any fuss as one by one they gave up the religion, I recognised their right to choice, and I listened with respect to their reasons, but did not agree with them at the time.

  They sowed seeds with me though, that grew in to a Tree of Cognitive Dissonance that I could not ignore, so stick to your guns Cedars,

  you may help them yet !

  So, I have to say, it is my opinion your parents, and any like them, are being selfish and wrongly controlling, your kids are not clones of you destined to make the same mistakes as you. I wanted always that my kids would do better than me by learning from the mistakes I have made, and they did.