that was the major problem about it all , the shame and embaressment ecouraged you to lie to your friends and what presents you did get over Xmas, it was only after major nagging to our parents that they made their wedding anniversary a present giving time but this was when we were in our teens, our parents were poor, my father worked but my mum was fundamentally lazy she did the odd part time shop work and never pioneered. The sad thing we used to see was a fairly wealthy family in our cong who had their "unofficial" Xmas on the 26th December there kids also got birthday presents as well, even all the years of being out of the cancer I've never developed any enthusism for Xmas and Birthdays.
JW CHILDREN GET PRESENTS ALL THROUGH THE YEAR. REALLY?????
by NAVYTOWN 36 Replies latest watchtower bible
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kaik
I lived behind the Iron Curtain, so the choice of the toys were limitted. My parents were always generous as both had messed up childhood as result of WWII and they never experienced happines during these years. They tried to do opposite for us. But my grandparents (non of them were JW), never bought any gifts for anyone. They were the breed of the ending Victorian era, where parents treated their children as unpaid servant and never exchanged even single gift ever. They behaved the same way until their death. I had notices that JW were never really generous among themselves, they never invited anyone for lunch or dinner, nor were giving any gifts to children at all. I would say they were outright stingy. They also never visited anyone who was in hospital, or was dying or had provided support for family if anyone had died.
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LongHairGal
NAVYTOWN:
No, most JW children did not get presents "all through the year". This was a phrase invented to deceive non-JWs into thinking the Witness religion was "normal". It isn't.
kaik:
When I first came into the religion in the late 70s I met a few of those "harsher" JWs who seemed on the stingy side. When I say stingy, it wasn't because I expected people to be dropping gifts all over the place. No, it was just an attitude I picked up on.
There was an unsmiling general lack of just plain old friendliness. Any kindness was displayed in small nuggets. These were people from the days when if there was persecution and you missed a meeting, you wouldn't know where the next one was being held. I think in general the older JWs had an attitude of survival of the fittest, as far as the religion was concerned.
If you didn't "cut it", they had no pity.
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kjg132
We recieved presents as kids and I didn't feel deprived. Also once I had my own kids ( we have 4) we did gift giving thoughout the year...our anniversary was the big one but other times too. Its not about the presents though. We have just had our second Christmas and everyone has had 2 birthdays....its about the excitement, the spirit of Christmas, they are so thoughtful to eachother and absolutely excited. They all love school too and school has been so much more fun and exciting....my oldest still gets a little teary eyed when she remembers sitting out of all the fun Kindergarten projects (she is 9) :( , they participated in a christmas concert and it was so so cute....we walked around town looking at lights and singing christmas songs....all these things I never got to do....everything is so pretty and happy and we get to be a part of it, instead of sitting on the sidelines critisizing people calling them greedy or saying that they live from holiday to holiday with nothing else to live for......so so judgemental and wrong...its just not true...its about all the opposite things we said they were about. I am also so happy to observe their birthdays...nothing extravagent....but a special day just for them....the days my kids were born were the happiest days of my whole life....why wouldn't you celebrate the happiest days of your life? My 2 cents
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Separation of Powers
Never happened to me or anyone I knew. Orwell's 1984 was my upbringing, the self was not as important as the collective. Therefore, presents were rarely seen and when seen were used as a club to beat you into submission. Poor kids.
SOP
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KateWild
My kids had present days when we had assemblies. They had bouncy castle parties and x-factor patries too. Kate xx
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quellycatface
Always bought toys for my son.not extravagant but he had enough.also took foreign holidays and it was fun to buy souvenirs.he loves train and tank games on the pc now.