Having children ??? did the Watchtower have an affect on your decisions ???

by run dont walk 35 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  run dont walk

  I remember growing up and thinking that there was no way I would have kids ........

  Why ??? ......

  Because I did not want to raise them the way I was raised, in the borg.

  I went through hell, why put a defenceless child through that. And how do you raise a child in something YOU don't believe in.

  The sickest comment I have ever heard from JW's was "We are going to wait until after Armageddon, to have kids, because this world is terrible."

  How STUPID can people get ??? Who is teaching this the Watchtower ??? or parents ???

  Anyone else ever hear this ????????????
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  happyout

  I remember the last assembly I ever attended made a lot of strong comments about not being concerned with things like getting married and having children, but instead focusing on God's kingdom. That was pretty much the last straw for me. How dare they?? And two of my siblings, both of whom would make great parents, have decided not to have children because they don't want to bring them into this system of things. They love my son, and my nieces and nephews, but they won't become parents themselves. Yet another thing to hold against the WTS.

  Happyout (the happiest mommy in the world)
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  blacksheep

  Well, if you look at the history of JW teachings, they've pretty much pushed the "no children" rule off and on. Why? I'm sure it's because children take up so much time and enegy, which time and energy should be funneled to the borg.

  Although I've been out for many years, I remember thinking that I didn't want to have children. I remember seeing crying babies carted out to backrooms in the KHs to be whipped until they stopped crying (yeah, right). I remember my infant nephew even being taken out and given swats in an effort to stop him from crying and stay still. AN INFANT.

  Add to that the 3 meetings a week. Good grief, getting no only yourself (and your mate) fed, showered, dressed and in the car, for 1 or 2 hour long BORING meetings during which you had to keep you infants and toddlers somehow quiet, and THEN also try to get out in service at least a couple of times a week while doing the same prep work....OMG! No thanks! To the JW, children are work that simply interfers with their worship. And, to add to all that, having to make sure you carefully indoctrinate your child in the JW teaching, which includes, of course, insuring that he have no desire to celebrate holidays, birthdays, salute the flag, bascially have NO fun and/or be no part of the world....wow...sign me up (not).

  It wasn't until I was out many, many years that my desire for children surfaced. I had two beautiful children rather late in life...and now I know what life is about. And thank god, no meetings, no trying to feed them a line of BS that they cannot possibly comprehend, no trying to hold them back and keep them in a small, ignorant, stiff box.

  I would have had children far, far sooner if I had not been raised a witness.
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  mizpah

  The Watchtower has long been an advocate of not having children before Armageddon. It goes way back to the Children book of Rutherford. I think the characters in the story were Eunice and John. They were young and contemplating marriage. By the end of the book, both decided to wait to have their family in the "new world." Eunice and John could have been literary great grandparents by now!

  When I became a Jehovah's Witness in the 1950s, a sister said to me that I would be able to raise my children in the "new world." Fortunately, I didn't wait. Now, I am a grandfather of 11 grandchildren. And a couple of them are old enough to marry and have children themselves.

  But I did know of couples who decided they would not have children before Armageddon. I'm sure that a number of these regretted this choice in their old age. In fact, I think that is one of the things that Ray Franz mentioned in his book. This is just another example of the abnormal life in the Watchtower Society.
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  unique1

  My best friend had to fight her inlaws constant pushing for them to wait until the new system to have a baby. She waited 5 years until she was 24 and then had her little girl. Now the Inlaws want another grandbaby. FICKLE PEOPLE!!!
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  Wren

  Not for long, and that was in 1975. The majority of JW's I've observed don't wait until it's too late to have children. As was mentioned, there are some who wait.

  In the seventies, everyone that could have children were producing families of two to six children, in my region. It was not just the young couples either, women in their 30's & 40's were having "second families" of two or three more children. I can name at least three couples who came from long time(10yrs+) Bethel or missionary work to the town I lived in, when they hit 40 yrs old, to have children. They were all successful with one or two children per couple. I'll add this was no-show Apocalypse late seventies. I noticed the same reproductive rate at all the assemblies. Yep, three pub. minimum for all car groups. One to watch the six kids in the back.

  I am convinced the reason JW stats maintained for all these years, in industrialized countries, is due to all the children/grandchildren that continued with the JW tradition.
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  maxwell

  I am convinced the reason JW stats maintained for all these years, in industrialized countries, is due to all the children/grandchildren that continued with the JW tradition.

  I kind of agree with that statement. At all the assemblies I went to, a significant percentage of those getting baptized would be preteens to teenagers who were of course children of JW parents. My parents were married in 1972, and I, the eldest of 5 children, wasn't born until 1977. They have never spoken much about 1975 and when they did they gave the impression that 1975 wasn't too big of a deal for them, but I wonder.

  Personally, the Watchtower rhetoric contributed to my decision not to have children some before I left. But now I still don't have the desire. Some might blame the Watchtower for taken the desire out of me. But I have never had the desire, don't have the desire now, and I don't ever anticipate having the desire. Parenting is the most important job a person can do, and I just don't want to do the work. The planet is in no danger of underpopulation and there are plenty of other people doing good and bad jobs at parenting. Our species will survive.
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  freedom96

  I have seen and heard many people sadly put their lives on hold in many different areas of life just waiting for the end. Well, it hasn't come, and they missed out on priceless memories.
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  SheilaM

  Thunder and I would have had two more if it wasn't for the fear, you know. Now we are still tossing around having two more....
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  mizpah

  For most young couples in the organization, youth and nature was and is stronger than some of the prevalent views usually held by older married couples. ( Most of them already had their families.) Of course, it would be to the Society's advantage to have young people devote their lives to the Watchtower instead of being "burdened" with a normal life.

  But for a few, this decision to forego marriage and children must have been a bitter pill later in life as the Watchtower predictions were not fulfilled and the ravages of age began to take its toll.

  People have always been expendable in the Watchtower Society. I remember one old faithful pioneer sister who had a stroke. She was put into a nursing home and eventually abandoned by the majority of her "brothers and sisters" in "the Truth." Once her usefulness was over, so was the "love" of the congregation. I'm sure this has been repeated many times over the years.