''Being a JW kid sucked''
Getting shafted out of everything.
Should young children peddle Watchtower Society literature?
by RULES & REGULATIONS 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Beth Sarim
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Pete Zahut
My older brother and 2 beautiful younger sisters and I had to go from door to door since babyhood. On Saturday's my Brother and I used to go with the older teenagers to do "street work" in the city in the darkness of the morning hours and then returning to the Kingdom Hall to meet for regular "field service". It's was the "last days of the 1970's and along with the weekly meetings, preparing for the meetings and our family study, giving talks and "considering" the daily text each day, we had to sit in the blistering sun on hard bleachers during the 8 day assemblies that they had back then. From 9 in the morning to 6 at night or later we'd listento talk after talk about the impending destruction of the world around us. Many's a time as a child I'd look at the assembly program only to realize that we still had 6 more hours and 7 long days of this ahead of us. Sometimes, I'd feel myself beginning to lose the will to live. Especially on Saturday when during the mid day intermission, we'd have to go out in Service on the street wearing "sandwich signs" advertising the "keynote" address for Sunday" and then go back to the assembly for 6 more hours of talks. All of us my siblings and I are highly functioning but we deal with anxiety and panic issues. Mine got drastically better however, (almost non-existent) within a few weeks of leaving the Cult.
I'm completely out of the religion and my one sister has been "inactive" for decades but can't bring herself to admit she doesn't believe anymore. She's the saddest one of all of us because on some level she still thinks it could be "the truth" but the panic and anxiety of going to the meetings is too much for her to bear. The other sister is "in" but the religion has done a number on her head as well.
My brother is "in" but he knows it's all B.S but just can't bring himself to face it. Like the rest of us, he was emotionally ruined from continually hearing about the end of the world and fearing Armageddon and the absolute understanding that we'd lose our non JW father once it arrived.
I was talking to my brother about the craziness of all of this and how much better I am on an emotional level since I left. I showed him the magazine cover below because the tall blond boy looks a lot like he and I at that age (we're only a year and a half apart in age). One of the boys on that cover looks like our childhood friend who we used to do street work with. He is no longer a JW and has quite a story of his own to tell.
My Brother's face dropped when he saw the photo and he looked as if he were going to cry. He tossed the magazine aside and walked away. Like him, it breaks my heart to see those children and think that all over the world, instead of enjoying our childhood, we were holding our collective breath, tossing and turning at night with fear, waiting for a cataclysmic event that never occurred.
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Beth Sarim
Should children be allowed to peddle WT literature?
When you come to think about it,,, you have often if not always children who have inherited beliefs which they are just forced to believe whether they like it or not, and are forced to peddle such propaganda, whether they like it or not.
Should children be allowed to peddle WT propaganda literature?
Should be resounding NOOOOO's.
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Overrated
When I was "forced" to hand out Watchtower crap. I would find trash cans or dumpsters very handy. And still looked good on my reports. My studies I had were a joke too. I would talk them out of out and so them how ridiculous it all is. On our RV's we would go to lunch or drinks.