Is It Fair To Discipline Born-Into-It's?

by Englishman 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  SEAKEN2001

  My Dad & Mom both went to the 58 assemblies. Dad, I think, also was at the 53. I think Mulan and Mom went there togther with their folks, from accross the country, from Seattle to New York by car. We had similar assemblies well into the 80's. My Dad was a cook at many of the assemblies where I helped out in the kitchen and cleaning up the "metal trays". When I was a teenager I played in the band also. The assemblies were actually fun for me back then. When they started doing away with all the fun stuff I started to become disallusioned. The "hoagies" were terrible! and Shasta pop!. Ughh!

  On topic, I agree with you E-man. There really is no choice for kids raised in the borg. If you choose not to get baptized you are branded as rebellious. And yes, there is always the sense that the big A is coming real soon and baptism is the only way to save your ass. The mind control makes it impossible for a child to really make his/her own choice. It's not till much later in life that one has the opportunity to make their own choices.

  I thought I was choosing for myslef when at 16 I got dunked. But I did not have all the information. Had I known then what I later came to know I would not have done it. Also, there is no changing your mind. If you decide later that you made a mistake, too bad. Your damned, with no hope of recovering your own power to choose. The WT now has control. The only way to regain control is to leave everything behind and start over. If they would have told me that before I got dunked I would have declined.

  Sean
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  Mulan

  Sean, your Mom and I, with our grandparents, your grandma, your uncle, and my mom and dad, went to both '53 and 58 conventions in New York, by cars. We camped across country and back, and had a blast. It was so much fun. (My brother went in '53 too) They were 6 week trips each time, and we went to lots of historical places and took tours, and saw most of the country. Loved it!!

  I agree that conventions were fun before they started simplifying. Then it just became really hard work. The poor children are the ones who really suffer too................sitting still for so long, and they aren't supposed to have anything to keep them entertained either............do they really think a 2 year old will listen to the talks? We would bring our coffee and snacks to the big conventions, and now they don't want them to do that during the program either. An attendant asked Dave not to drink his coffee one time, during a talk, and he just glared at him, and ignored him. The guy was about 30 years younger, and no one can glare at you like Dave can.

  I pointed to the booth above us where the CO's and the other bigwigs sat (the press booth) and they were all drinking coffee. That was great.

  Edited by - mulan on 17 June 2002 16:12:43

  Edited by - mulan on 17 June 2002 16:13:30
• 

  MoeJoJoJo

  A little off topic but here's some nostalgia. This is from the 1953 convention.

  "Keeping Refreshed At New World Society Assembly" (Taken from the Report of New World Assembly, Yankee Stadium)

  "If you attended the New World Society Assembly, were you an average conventioner? If so, then besides your regular meals you patronized the refreshment stands during the eight days for 14 cups of fruit punch, 3 pieces of ice cream, one third of a pie, 5 hotdogs, 2 meat sandwiches, 3 half-pints of milk, and 3 lollypops.

  Not much refreshment, you think? To give you some idea how much food was prepared to serve you your share, it took a hundred thousand gallons of salad dressing-not to mention another thousand gallons of relish and mustard, 8,996 heads of lettuce-just to garnish your sandwiches, and 56,040 onion rolls and five tons of bread to serve them. The cream that went into your coffee would fill enough barrels to stretch side by side from home plate to the speaker's stand in Yankee Stadium. Two million paper cups and 875,000 straws were supplied for your fruit punch and milk, and 110 tons of ice were used to keep the punch and other food cold.

  For your convenience 24 complete refreshment stands, backed by 18 supply kitchens, were dispersed over the stadium grounds, staffed by 5,500 cheerful volunteer workers and utilizing a third of a mile of counter space.

  "You gave us the biggest order for milk we ever received, or hope to receive-unless you people come back," a leading dairy industry head assured Earl Singer, Refreshment manager. "You must have the right religion," commented another food supplier."

  This was my favorite bit.... "You must have the right religion," commented another food supplier." LOL!! Why because they could eat so much. What would he think if he only knew the JWs have to bring their own lunch now.

  Back on subject, I also was baptized at 13 and I remember a talk given before I took the plunge, the talk stated roughly that just because a parent was doing "right" that would not necessarily save their child at Armageddon. If that child was old enough to know right from wrong and was not baptized then they could lose their life when Armageddon came. There was also the constant pressure from my parents. I think I also did it for attention and approval.
• 

  obiwan

  My two cents since I was a born into it,is that each individual should be old enough to hold a job and experience the outside world,by doing that you gain a broader perspective of the world.You also can then make the decision of weather or not to join,because of the ramifications later in life,
• 

  joannadandy

  Good point obi...

  Heck the Amish even let their teens go through a rebelious period and let them listen to radios, and associate with those outside their faith, express themselves with dress, etc etc.
• 

  Matty

  obi, joanna, you are absolutely right of course, but it just aint gonna happen, because decision doesn't come into it. I honestly can't see any issue as to when a Born-Into-It is actually baptised. You are going to get exactly the same emotional press-ganging from your family at 20 as you get at 10. As far as I see it, baptism for Born-Into-It's seems to be a formality that is rarely given much thought. It's a very different scenario to someone who makes a conscious decision for themselves to be baptised.
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  larc

  You folks bring back some memories. I was there in '53 and '58. I was 13 and 18 years old respectively. I might have walked by you or even sat next to you at the convention. It is funny, I do not remember anything that was said there. What I remember are the sights, sounds, and smells of the stadium and of New York city. One thing I remember in particular in 1958 is the orchestra they put together and the beautiful music the played - old kingdom songs based on classical music, which have long since been abolished because of their pagan origins.
• 

  Simon

  Good points E-man

  I was brought up in it and know how hard it is to 'walk away'. I was pressured into getting baptised because it was 'expected' and at the end of the day there is NO WAY you can leave honourably.

  There shoudl definitely be some legislation or protection for people brought up in a cult to allow then to make their own choice when they are properly able to without fear of any sanctions or reprisals.
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  Prisca

  When I got baptised, I was 19. Fortunately my parents didn't believe in children getting baptised, although on the other hand, there wasn't much choice about being a Witness. You were expected to get baptised when you grew up and live the rest of your life as a JW. There weren't any ifs or buts about it, that's just the way it was in our family.

  So when I got baptised, it was just a mere formality. I was a VERY innocent teenager, so when they asked "have you repented of your sins?" I said yes, although I honestly didn't feel I had anything to be repentant over. Um, I may have told a few white lies once or twice, does that count as a sin to be repentant for?

  In some ways born-into JWs do understand the way the Society works better than adults who become JWs, but then we didn't know anything else to be able to make a proper comparision.
• 

  BONEZZ

  MoeJoJoJo...

  Wow, I remember the apple pie...and their were ice cream bars, fudgecycles and those orange/vanilla bars too I think. Besides the metal trays I think they put the fruit punch in little colored plastic cups. Food I remember...everything else is a blurr, except for what little of New York I got to see. That was exciting. I remember at refreshment stand in Yankee Stadium some Einstien gave my dad a cup of coffee in a wax Dixie cup. He got back to his seat, took a drink and got little steamed. The wax was floating on the top. Yes, those were the days...7 days and 7 nights. And when Freddy spoke everyone was in their seats. Why couldn't I have gone to NY with the Boy Scouts or YMCA?

  -BONEZZ