by avishai 61 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
It really doesn't make sense to try to make small children sit at attention for a couple of hours, or longer at assemblies when in fact the adults usually don't understand what is being taught either.
If you think that's bad, you should hear the JWs rationale behind it. They tell people that they don't "banish" kids to Sunday School. Now, I've been to other churches, and I don't recall ever dreading Sunday School like someplace to which I was being banished.
I remember once I had to give a talk for the first time in the main hall, we had little halls in the back, I was so scared, I was nine at the time. I got up on stage and ran off to the bathroom and hid for about 20 minutes. After it was all over I went back to my seat and my fathers first words into my ear was "no skateboard for you." He had just bought me a skateboard and I was so happy, and now I lost it cause i blew chunks in the bathroom cause I was scared to give my first public talk in the main hall.
Life sucks!
I worked with two JW women. One was a woman in her fifties. I don't know how we got on the subject, but she started talking about her son's 18 month old daugther and her behavior at meetings. She proudly told me about how her son took her granddaughter into the back room and began to spank her because she didn't want to sit still in her seat. She also related how the toddler's plaintive cries filled the hall.
I will never forget how taken back she was when she glanced up and saw the mortified look on my face after she finished her "story". Yes, she knew of my JW background. Probably one of the reasons she thought it was ok to share in my presence.
She also held the opinion that one spoiled an infant if you picked it up every time it cried.
Moron.
My mam used to break the spoon from the force of her blows, but that didn't hurt as much as the things she used to say, that I disgusted her by being so naughty, and to get away from her because she hates disgusting people.
Been there, it hurt more having the acid tongue of one parent than having my nose broken by the other, although I did used to laugh in her face when the spoon broke and deliberately wound her up even more just as a small measure of getting my own back.
avishai!!!-Be assured, please, that I did NOT take your response that way at all! This was truly a WEIRD experience, not as painful as another, compounding the many other bizarre and fatal happenings around my family, but I hold no mourning in my heart for him. Oddly, it never crosses my mind unless such a subject as this one comes up. The cluster of mysterious deaths in and around my family is worthy of documentation! I deeply appreciate your concern for me regarding your response though-just shows how we have emerged from this nightmare as better and kinder humans. Thank you!
I feel like Blondie I held a lot of kids and comforted them so they wouldn't get the hell beat out of them.
I know Thunder jokes about the 'after the meeting beatings" but it was so hard for him growing up.....bunch of frigging child abusers
"The best way to make children good is to make them happy."
~ Oscar Wilde
Mom, I remember the directions that a sister at the hall gave to you: "When your children are being noisy, take them to the bathroom and slap their legs; that will keep them quiet!"
(Who decided that inflicting pain on a child makes him or her quiet, anyway? Has quite the opposite effect, doesn't it?)
All we children wanted was to play in the sunshine, eat ice cream, lie under a tree and read a book or daydream. Was that too much to ask for on a Sunday afternoon? Of what benefit was it for me to be taught to sit still, still as a stone, as still as some dead thing?
All that hitting taught me nothing except how to disconnect from my emotions. It did not teach me to "behave". I already was a good girl to begin with. But your spankings told me a different story.
I remember one young lad being dragged from his chair for a beating and he was brilliant he started shouting happy christmas brothers happy birthday etc
I reckon he thought if he was going to be hit he might as well make it worthwhile.
I just loved that kid. a face full of frekles.........
But it is abuse to make a child sit for two hours, and then if the bloody elders had a meeting after we had to sit in the car for hours after ..........no way to bring up kids ......no way at all.
I remember one young lad being dragged from his chair for a beating and he was brilliant he started shouting happy christmas brothers happy birthday etc
Happehanna, that kid's a hero in my book.
