by ConcernedParent 33 Replies latest jw friends
They will try to indoctrinate your child, beware. Do your research and keep your child safe. No more outings with his family would be a start, let him come to your house in your presence at all times if he must come at all.
Never, ever let her go to a kingdom hall, she will be love bombed and that could be the beginning of the end of your relationship as you now know it.
See the movie smiddy suggested too!
Can you live with the down side?
If your daughter is successfully converted (and don't think it can't happen), you will likely never "see" your daughter again, at least in any meaningful way.
She will think Jesus is an angel, believe the governing body of JW's is God's sole channel of communication on earth, and adopt the hideous practice of shunning anyone questioning her beliefs.
You say you are a Christian. Then, be a good christian parent and read where the bible says to marry only in the Lord. That would include dating I'm sure. JW's are anti-christ.
Share everything with your daughter. Hopefully, it is not too late already. You did the right thing by asking former members what they think. There are many Ex-JW-Now-Christian groups on Facebook that you may want to check out as well. They are closed groups... no one can see you post there.
I was a 4th generation JW. Many in my family have had their lives destroyed by this nasty little cult. It took until age 40 to be completely mentally free. I had serious doubts since age 13.
Don't do this to your daughter. You have a legal, ethical, moral and Christian duty to address this head on. Having a do-nothing attitude is the same as doing all these things to your daughter yourself. She is blinded by her emotions. You are not.
Here are some tools that I wrote that will help you to understand why JW's are not Christian. You can mostly forget about confronting JW's on their beliefs (like Jesus is not their Mediator). They will lie to your face without skipping a beat and claim just the opposite, although you can show them from their own publications that this is so. Their conscience is seared. They will do anything to protect church leadership, whom they idolize.
I will be praying for your daughter.
- Perry
Hello, CP, welcome to the Forum!
I would suggest in addition to having you and your daughter check out jwfacts.com, also search/look at the following other mediums re: JWs=> jwsurvey.com; exjwreddit.com; jwstruggle.com; avoidjw.org; aawa.co; JWVictims.com plus You Tube videos of John Cedars, Marcus Vaughn, Mikey Kim, ExJW Critical Thinkers, Marc Cora, Christian Katja, Fateful Slave, and so many others who have had their own experiences with this very high control group which is actually a corporation disguised as a religion. Knowledge (especially about this) is power!
Their is a new movie coming out called "Apostasy" with Emma Thompson as a family court judge (I think)
Lol Smiddy3. You kinda mashed up two Jw films into one there. The one with Emma Thomson as a judge is The Children Act. It is a bit weird that there are two out in the same year. I know Apostasy is the one you meant to recommend.
ConcernedParent,
You are very wise for coming here and asking how things might turn out for your young daughter. She is about the same age I was when I first came in contact with the Jehovah's Witnesses. But that was back in the 60s before information about them was widely available. In my case two JW girls befriended me and began filling my head with how God had purposed to restore the earth to a paradise where there would be no sickness, war, death, and the animals would all be at peace with one another. O how that appealed to my teenage ideology! My parents were good parents so I was not escaping a bad home situation. But of course it wasn't until after I was thoroughly immersed that I learned about the ban on blood transfusions and all the other strict controls imposed by a high control cult. To make a long story short, I married into the cult, raised two boys in it and exited just 7 years ago. I am now 65 years old.
Tread carefully. Either the boy is trying to get your daughter to convert or he himself is looking for a way out. Be supportive until you learn his real motive. By the way, you haven't mentioned how old he is.
Best of luck. We are interested in how this turns out.;
Reopened Mind
The boyfriend may not be all that enamoured with his parents religion....he needs the normalcy of a non-jw family..friends...the nice thing to do would be to make him feel welcome and to feel that he is accepted and appreciated as an individual.
All good answers here, and they're all correct.
However... that fact that a JW is dating at 15 in the first place speaks volumes to me about this boy, also, the fact that he's dating a non JW speaks even clearer. Either his parents dont know about him dating at all (most likely) because any JW parent would be absolutely livid at their 15yo dating a "worldly". Or his parents do know, if they do and they're fine with it then they're not strong in the religion and probably inactive but still call themselves JW.
This actually could be your opportunity to help this boy out of the cult. Be really nice and blow the JW stereotype of what non JWs are like. They're told that non JWs are greedy, lying, sinful, proud and quick to anger.
While I like and respect Perry as one of our rare believers I wouldn't agree that they are anti-Christ. After all they end every prayer in Jesus' name. However they have thrown their religion in with Jehovah as a marketing device to set them selves off as the true religion. And kinda sort of diminished the value of Jesus. The anti-Christ comments goes to the fact that the Watchtower Governing Body has taken a leadership role as Jehovah's representative. Sort of ignoring Jesus
They will go as far as they can to present themselves as the only religion that has the 'Truth'.
I was in from the age of 12 to 22 when I reasoned my way out.
What is of great concern is that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the legal corporation of this religion, has been and continues to be reckless with the health, education and welfare of it's followers. It has a corporate mindset that resembles Amway or Tupperware more then the church's you may be familiar with.
Their divorce rate is around 11% which is pretty much the same for most religions. They believe in 'New Light' which allows them to 'fix' a belief with a new understanding. Basically they have had a tendency of painting themselves into a scriptural corner.
For instance they put great credibility on the Two Witness rule quoting the old testament and Jesus's admonition as well.
Unfortunately they apply the 'two witness' rule to child sexual abuse....... meaning there has to be a creditable witness to the abuse to be able to inform the Elders. For decades the Society did not encourage bringing an abuse issue to the authorities if they didn't have a second witness.
They have proclaimed the end of this world on numerous occasions which has yet to take place. In the mean time their followers have put off medical procedures, left their jobs, sold their homes in preparation for the battle of Armageddon that is going to destroy everyone who is not a JW.
They shun like the Amish and Scientologist's. Being shunned by your family and close friends is a form of torture. They demand that family members shun a family member who no longer wants to be a JW. And if that family will not shun their child or parent they in turn will be shunned.
We have people on this forum who have never met their grandchildren.
Unfortunately they are also anti higher education. So they rank lower then any other religion in a recent Pew Survey in that category. Because of a lack of higher learning their income on average is also the lowest.
They are warned to avoid critical thinking. Obedience is as or more important then faith.There are questions that you can not ask least you be accused of being an apostate.
The good news is that over 65% of born-ins. leave the faith.
They don't believe their members should ever approve of a blood transfusion even for a dying child. They depend on the courts to rescue their child so their life can be saved. The courts can not render a verdict timely when a child has an accident.
Their death rate probably equals Jonestown, except it happens year after year.
A lot of this your daughter's boyfriend might not even know. JW's prefer that their children become baptized ASAP (a life long contract) without knowing what they have signed up for.
It is not rare that a baptized JW teenager who has been disfellowshiped is told to leave their family when they turn 18.
Please do your own research. Being fully informed is a precious right.
Gio
I would be very wary of the relationship and the situation. Because of their young ages, there is still a great danger of your daughter becoming indoctrinated. If you try to pull her away, it may drive her closer. She needs to be educated in the dark side of JW life and not be roped in with the "lovebombing."
My ex-wife had a crush on a JW boy in high school. He was far from the best example of a JW brother. He got in fights, spent alot time in the dean's office, slacked off in school (why bother the end was coming in the mid eighties), drank alcohol, and regularly got drunk. He hid this from the congregation. However, my ex had self esteem issues and suffered through the death of a close family member. He befriended her and she became interested in the JWs. He started a study with her at school because her parents were opposed. They are from a non-christian belief system. A young sister took over the study for awhile and he became the congregation hero for finding a "sheeplike" one. They studied at school during her lunch period without her parents knowing. She was ripe for the pickings. She had severe emotional issues with the death and the mental abuse in her family. Her family life was very dysfunctional and unhealthy for a young woman. She fell for the life, hook, line, and sinker.
My unbelieving family was attending the same hall as the her and the double life brother. He offered me a Bible study and my parents encouraged me to study with him. I liked her and started to study with him to spend more time with them. Ultimately, she dropped out of college, we got married, had 2 kids, and spent about 25 years in WTland. I had learned TTATT (the truth about the truth) and it cost us our marriage. However, I am finally out but my kids (young adults) and my parents shun me and will not have anything to do with me. They are uber dubs but I have hope that one day they will wake up and see the WTBT$ for what they are. BTW, the double life brother is now a DFed raging alcoholic who destroyed his marriage. However, most of his kids were not baptized so he still gets to spend time with them. How ironic.
Tell her to run.
She may think he's the nicest guy ever (and he might be) but there are some important things to consider about what their future would be and what the future of their children would be if things progressed to marriage.
She should ask him what would happen if they married and had a baby, and there was a medical emergency during the birth that meant she needed blood. What would he do?
If he's honest, his answer is: "I would ask some people I don't know and have never met to tell me what to do and they would make me tell the hospital to not treat her. In fact, I would already have made her sign over power-of-attorney in advance in case anything medical ever came up"
Run.
But they are only 15, so it's possibly going to be over in a few months time anyway so don't be too worried, just don't be too keen to promote it continuing because you think he's such a nice boy. He's in a cult.
(although the fact he's dating someone outside it may mean he's not 100% signed up himself)
