Elders Children

ballistic

Let me know if this was just a local / UK thing.

The elder's children in our area weren't the youngest to get baptised. There were, in fact, many baptisms much younger than what you would expect, however, there was talk amoung elder's children of "making sure you are ready" and "making sure you are old enough".

Now these I call children are 18, 19 even 21. There were ordinary children being baptised at 13, 14 and ocasionally 10.

Did these elders and their children know something we didn't. For instance, were they "hedging their bets" because it is better to have a child who does not take the truth up than to have one baptised young and disfellowshipped?

Isn't this an example of playing the system?

And how does this relate to recent suggestions that the organisation are going to be making enquiries as to ex-member's stand?

caligirl

It made no difference in the hall I grew up in, elders child or not ( and I was an elder's child), the average age for baptism was 12-15 to take the dip. I was 14.

I do think it is certainly a possibility that some elders who discouraged their children from being baptized possibly knew something about their children's personalities that might come back to threaten their position of power at a later date, so it is better to have your children not be baptized than to suffer the humiliation as an elder of having your children DF'd/reproved.

Prisca

Ballistic,

What time period are you talking about?

I was raised as an elder's daughter, and our parents raised us with the expectation that when we were old enough to make our own decisions we could get baptised. This was assumed to be around the age of 18, the age of adulthood in Australia. We weren't pressured to get baptised at an early age. In fact, if I'd been 13 or 14 and wanted to get baptised, my father would have had a very serious talk with me to make sure I knew what I was doing.

It's only been in the last 10 years or more that I've noticed young ones (ie. between 10-15) getting baptised. Maybe it's a trend, or maybe some congregations think differently to others.

I was baptised when I was 19, and I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately I didn't know the real truth about "the Truth" otherwise I would have not gone through the procedure of baptism.

bay64me

Ballistic,

I would say, that what you say happened in your congregation, was just like the one I left.

Children of elders were certainly among the last/oldest to get baptised. Infact many have still not taken the plunge as far as I am aware.

Prisca

Another thought:

Maybe those who weren't elders or pioneers felt inferior in some way, and thought that if they encouraged their children to get baptised early, it would reflect well upon the family. Even the kids themselves might feel that if they are baptised, the adults in the congregation will take them more seriously, and/or they will be included in more congregational activities.

Roddy

Prisca >>I was raised as an elder's daughter, and our parents raised us with the expectation that when we were old enough to make our own decisions we could get baptised. This was assumed to be around the age of 18, the age of adulthood in Australia. We weren't pressured to get baptised at an early age. In fact, if I'd been 13 or 14 and wanted to get baptised, my father would have had a very serious talk with me to make sure I knew what I was doing. <<

I think your dad was reasonable an responsible. How could a youngster get baptised and realize how this change of status will govern his or her life indefinately.

>>It's only been in the last 10 years or more that I've noticed young ones (ie. between 10-15) getting baptised. Maybe it's a trend, or maybe some congregations think differently to others.<<

It's a trend. At my district assembly they had a 9 year girl on the stage who was baptized that morning. They said some theocratic stuff and the audience applauded. I shook my head.

I think baptism of minors shouldn't be allowed nor should it be 'theocratically' binding.

Room 215

The attitude of the congregation toward my children and the way they were unfairly scrutinized and held to arbitrary standards set much higher than non-elders' kids, who reported every petty ``infraction" of my brood back to their Neo-Nazi parents (sitting at lunch with ``wordly kids," participating in varsity sports and cheerleading, extracurricular activities, etc. etc.) was the main reason I resigned as an elder. I've since come to add a lot more reasons for not ever reconsidering, but that was enough to get me to quit.

If I were to try to explain this to my nice non-JW neighbors, their reaction would be non-comprehending stares of amazement... ``but your kids are just normal, healthy, active teens." They were indeed, and this despite, rather than because of, their being JWs.

ozziepost

If I were to try to explain this to my nice non-JW neighbors, their reaction would be non-comprehending stares of amazement... ``but your kids are just normal, healthy, active teens."

This is true of so much of "normal" Dub life. Non-JW neighbours find so much of what a Dub takes as routine, is to them bizarre.

Farkel

Prisca,

: It's only been in the last 10 years or more that I've noticed young ones (ie. between 10-15) getting baptised. Maybe it's a trend, or maybe some congregations think differently to others.

I was baptized when I was 12. That was in 1960. Almost all of my teen friends were baptized in their early teens. The only ever-so-minor "pressure" they ever put on us was to say that unbaptized infants and toddlers of dubs would probably survive armageddon, but unbaptized children of dubs who had come to an "age of understanding" wouldn't.

In otherwords, if you are old enough to know that God would slaughter you and spill your guts out for the birds to eat if you weren't a baptised dub, then you've reached that "age of understanding." I was tweve and I knew what guts being slaughtered and eyeball-pecking by birds was all about. After all, my first study book was "From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained!"

As I said, that was the only "ever-so-minor pressure" the WTS put on us back then to get baptized very young. Simply put, I got baptized at 12 to save my sorry ass from their genocidal maniac God.

Farkel

Edited by - Farkel on 17 December 2002 9:25:54

Elders Children

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