My father was a complete bum. He drank like a fish and was a bigamist. My mother came from a well to do middle class family. She said that when she was a child during the depression, her family had an automobile, all the gas they needed, a large home with a separate bedroom for her and each of her siblings, a woman that came in and cleaned the house and their groceries were delivered to them from the S.S. Pierce store in Boston 18 miles away. However, all was not 'peaches and cream' for her as she was molested repeatedly by two of her uncles until she was a teenager. At any rate, my mother and father met working in a WW2 production factory. They were oil and water from the start. He was a piece of shit and she was a spoiled/troubled individual. Together, they had six children and finally separated for good in the mid 50's. She moved back in with her parents and took her six children along. As luck would have it, a nice Jehovah's Witness lady called at our home and listened to her issues and promised that Jehovah's New World would take care of all her problems. All she needed to hear was that their would be 'paradise' for her and her children and she was hooked. The rest, as they say, 'is history'.
Born Ins, How Did Your Parents Get "The Truth™"?
by pale.emperor 26 Replies latest jw experiences
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sparky1
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freddo
My parents had me quite late in life aged 38 or 39.
My maternal grandmother died at age 60 when my mother was pregnant with me in 1960. My mother got called on by two nice ladies who "offered the resurrection hope". She got baptised in 1962.
My father was ex-forces (last three years of WW2 and just after) a hardworking man who loved my mother and let her get on with it as far as being a JW was concerned. He would go to Sunday meetings with her and was befriended by the Congregation Servant and his sidekick who took a social interest in us as well as a bible study type of interest.
By about 1965 he was coming to all meetings and was "favourable to the truth".
Mum absolutely was convinced by the 1975 rhetoric from 1968 and Dad came to believe it too, getting baptised in 1969.
No horror stories - we always had food on the table and a modest house on a mortgage which despite my mother's entreaties to my father, we didn't sell or give up any employment to pioneer.
They have both died - my Mum awaiting Armageddon to the last and my father going through the motions with less zeal than he once had.
I firmly believe that the catalyst for us becoming JW's was my grandmother's rather early death and my mother not wanting to accept it fell for the lies of the "truth" brought to her by two nice ladies.
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Dreamerdude
My mother was suckered in while she was pregnant, somewhat along the lines of the scenario described in 2 Timother 3:6, where sly guys captivate women while they are weak. My father was cooperative, but they never convinced him to get baptized. He hated disfellowshipping and refusal of blood transfusions when doctors insisted it is the only way to survive. He got upset a few times when he caught the JWs abusing his generosity. The JWs just thought Jehovah was using him to bestow blessings upon them. It kept him at arms length from the worst of the religion and gave me some freedom also. My mom would have liked to see me pioneer and go to Bethel, but dad helped me avoid those traps.
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Normalfulla
My dad emigrated from UK at 18 ,first stop Australia, lonely , vunerable young man in a strange country , WA LA becomes a jw and gets into pioneering
he never convinces his parents to follow jw after they emigrated also , end up in nz where my mother grew up in an abusive household that were kinda jw , her parents get baptized pre 1975 and are all strict and zealous then 75 comes and goes and they smell a rat so they slowly fade but mum meets dad and she's 19 and wants to marry this pioneer and parents say no (in those days u need consent for marriage until 21)
So they are so horny and desperate so they take them to court ( issues there with taking a brother to court) elders meetings galore and the judge rules in their favor and the rest is history
My dear old dad is still so stupidly brainwashed, only trusts info from jw.org but my mum is not the zealous elders wife she once was ,I think realizing the fact they will die in this system
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stan livedeath
my first wife was a born in--in 1949. her mother was also a born in !---about 1920. so--thats 3 generations--so far.
my parents converted in about 1957--i was 9. mom had given birth to a badly deformed baby girl a couple of years before. she got religion. dad was a lot more cautious--and studied for a few years. i was given that awful pink paradise book. dad and i got dipped together at a circuit assembly when i was 14. fast forward a few years.
so--met my wife to be when i was 17--she sweet 16. married at 20--first baby girl at 23---so thats generation 4.
fast forward the next 46 years. my little girl is hardly little any more--the last time i saw her. she has 4 girls of her own now--so they are generation 5.
ive never met those 4--the oldest is in her early 20's.
about time for generation 6 ?
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OUTLAW
Born Ins, How Did Your Parents Get "The Truth™"?
They had JW neighbours that introduced them to it.
My best guess is, my parent's wondered.
"How can I get that stupid, without going into a coma?"
Then they came up with a brilliant idea...
"We could become JW`s!"
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Themdoubts
Mine is a fairly simple story. My parents got it from their parents, who got it from their parents. 'The Truth' is *unfortunately* deeply entrenched within my extended family.
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adjusted knowledge
My father was a high school math teacher, and there was a large JW family that were students. On of his students from that JW family arranged for his elder dad to study with my parents. My parents accepted a bible study and within a year my mother got baptized. My father stayed active for about 8 years but stopped attending meetings and never got baptized.
However, my father defends the witnesses but I think partially it is a defense in how us children were raised. Even though my father was never a witness he enforced their petty rules and we never celebrated holidays. I was never allowed to engage in school activities even though my father was a teacher at that school and was a coach off and on.
My mother became a witness mainly for friends, and they were some horrible friends even to this day.
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disillusioned 2
I wasn't really a born in. My dad was contacted at the door when I was 4. He loved debating with people about anything and he invited them in. It could very well have just as easily been the Mormons!
He started a study and very quickly got baptized. My mum was very opposed, she was once a Sunday school teacher and firmly believed in her faith.
My dad had lost his mum when he was 14 and the promise that he would see her again had a big influence on his joining the witnesses.
It took my mum 10 years of being love bombed for them to wear her down. All that time we were like part-time witnesses. Going to meetings but still celebrating xmas etc. If my mum had never become one then none of her 4 children would have because my dad very quickly stopped going.
My mum couldn't quite make the commitment because she was scared to tell her family and the neighbours!
So when I was 14 we moved house and she decided she would make the commitment then
She is 87 now and still hanging on to the hope that one day she will be in paradise on earth.
Two of my siblings are still in, one left when she was a teenager and got on with a normal life. I wish with hindsight that I had done the same but they convinced me it was the truth. I really believed it back then.
My dad who invited them in, has never gone back except for a short period in the 80s when he had another study but fell out with the brother studying with him because he told him he should shave his beard off. He wouldn't and they argued and the brother left never to return.
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tiki
Grandad came over to the USA from the old country in 1910....got involved with the then bible students...married...wife would have no part of the religion....had 5 kids...grandfather decides to move a few states away due to employment...grandmother refuses to come...he takes kids and moves..my mother was one...she was baptized in 1938. Back then no one to marry in org, but was okay to marry a worldling so long as not a Catholic. Married my father...by the time I was 8 he was baptized....