Do Kids Hate Being JW`s?

by Englishman 95 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Englishman

  My kid brother, Tom, was born to witness parents. He was something of a surprise package and my parents were delighted. My father said that Tom was:

  A gift from Jehovah.

  A child of his old age.

  His Joseph.

  Tom went with our parents to every meeting. He went out in the ministry, my father was a PO and Tom would accompany him on his 5 weekly Bible studies. Tom`s whole life revolved around witness activities.

  When Tom hit his 17th. birthday, he suddenly announced to the family that "He didn`t want to be in the truth anymore". He left home within a week, then he had his first sexual experience, and was disfellowshipped a month later in his absence.

  My parents were devastated. My dad said that: "Jehovah must have thought that he (my dad) needed to be humbled".

  Despite a large age difference, Tom and I have become very close over the years, and recently I managed to draw from him just how he had felt about his early days as a JW. He said this:

  "I never liked the meetings. I was just pleased when the meeting ended. I couldn`t stand it when I was given a ministry school assignment, I found giving a talk a very unpleasant experience. As for the ministry work, I absolutely detested it with all my heart. My whole life just revolved around something that I didn`t enjoy one little bit. So I left."

  The conversation certainly got me to thinking: Just how many JW`s are "born into the faith" and yet never make it their own?

  How many parents believe that their child is being "brought up in the way it should go" yet never ask the child how he REALLY feels about his life as a witness?

  If you are a witness, maybe your child secretly hates the life that he is forced to lead!

  Englishman.
• 

  RedhorseWoman

  I doubt that there are many who were brought up in the truth who would say that they enjoyed their childhood.

  I, too, disliked meetings. They were boring. The same topics were rehashed at least 50 times, and after awhile I felt I could have given you a synopsis of the WT study without ever looking at it.

  I hated service and giving talks. I was always quite shy, and these activities were supremely distressing for me.

  I hated being the odd one at school. It was bad enough being one of the top students and being labelled a nerd, but as a JW I was caught between two worlds. I couldn't associate with the brighter students since they were all headed for college, which was forbidden to me. And yet, I didn't fit with the others.

  I would have loved to join in some of the extracurricular activities, but these were also forbidden to me. Instead, I read books (whenever I could sneak them out of the library), even though I felt very guilty for not reading only the Society's literature.

  Let's see.....my JW childhood.... No holidays, no friends, no activities other than those that were JW related, no plans for the future, no vacations other than going to assemblies, no lazy summer holidays.... It sucked.
• 

  Blackcat

  hi englishman! from another englishman, felt exactly the same as your kid brother... me and my brother both hated everything connected with meetings,field service, giving talks, counselled of elders etc. etc. etc.both decided to leave around the same time and decided to get A LIFE!!!! felt guilty for the first 5 yrs after leaving then could,nt give a monkey's about the witnesses until i got online and now i,m more interested and surprised to learn a lot more about the so called "truth" than expected.
• 

  Fredhall

  It was fun when I was a kid. You don't need holidays and bad association in order to have fun. Pick up a match stick to set something on fire. Pick up a brick to break a window. Go to a behive and tease the bees. Start a fight in school. Eat some beans and fart in the same car group you work in field service. Come on, there is a whole world out there!!
• 

  peaceloveharmony

  "do kids hate bing jw's?"

  my answer: YES!!!!!!
  well, i did anyway:)

  love harmony
• 

  larc

  Friends,

  My experience was somewhat different. I enjoyed my childhood, probably because my mother bent the rules some. We lived in the country and all my friends were "worldly". We are talking 1945, at the age of five, when the religion was tiny and there were no other witness children in sight. My father was a nonbeliever and some years, not all, I went to his parents at Christmas. Other exceptions to the rules, may have made it easier for me as well, but that's a very long story.

  RHW,

  I was thinking about one of your earlier posts and what you just wrote above, about not only being isolated, but being put aside by those of your own age among the faithful. My wife and I talked about this a lot lately, I reread Harrison's experiences from "Visions of Glory" she had the same kind of experience. We concluded that the ones who where treated badly as children at the Kingdom Hall were those who were bright and precotious (sp?). As a drone you are not supposed to stand out in any way, and if you do, you have to be humbled, and if you don't even know what you are doing wrong because you can't help yourself by saying intelligent things, then you will be crushed socially. RHW, does that make sense? I will find the passage from Harrison's book later, and my wife might choose to relate her own experience, but I do see a comonality there.
• 

  RedhorseWoman

  Larc, I think you have a very valid point there. The sad thing is that when you're living through it, you do not understand the reason why. I know that I always thought there was something wrong with me, and I constantly worked to try to correct the problem. Didn't happen, though.

  My friend who sometimes posts here (notsureofmyself) was also in the same boat.
• 

  larc

  RHW,

  I found the quote from Harrison's book:

  Many Witness kids were forebidden to play with me because I was judged to be too smart for my own good - for THEIR own good .... I remember once, feeling sophisticated and daring, using a bobby-soxer word --devastating. ("This fudge sundae is devastating"); and a Witness mother pounced - she had been waiting. "Only Jehovah can devastate," she said fiercely, the fire of the Inquisition burning in her eyes. And she forbade her daughter, my best friend, to play with me. I was ten years old. I have never forgotten her cruelty, the tears I shed on her account. She was old and sour; her railrod flat smelled as if a hundred years of poverty had been ground into the walls; she pounded the pavements with her message of life-everlasting, hope-and-joy, her legs bulging with varicose veins, her face perpetually distorted in a grimmace of pain; and her husband was deaf-her life was a hollow shout; but I have never forgiven her. Both David (my brother) and I are unforgiving; David and I also share the same reaction when people like us: We find it difficult to believe. People think we are NICE. We are enormously, outrageously grateful for small kindnesses, every kindness comes as a surprise.

  RHW, you are not alone in the grief.
• 

  ianao

  You know, it's funny.

  My JW (now friend again, go figure!) always told me that he could talk to me about things that he could never discuss in a KH regarding science, philosephy (sp!) and religion. This guy is pretty darn smart too. It seems as if he feels he needs to suppress that brain of his. I guess the dumber you are, the better you are. *shrug*.
• 

  mommy

  Larc,
  Thank you that was wonderful!
  I could post ten pages of growing up a jw. But won't because it doesn't matter, I am not in it any more. I am a lucky one. The people I feel sorry for are still active, going through the guilt trips. Not living their life to the fullest because of the constant cloud of doom hanging over their heads.Etc, etc, etc.
  wendy