How do you view your parents ????? very tough question !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

run dont walk

being brought up in the borg since birth, I beleived everything my parents taught me and showed me, i looked up to them, they were my heroes in life.

Now, I look back, they lied to me, cheated me, mislead me, did not look out for my best interests, and abadonned me when i needed them the most,

I have nothing good to say about them (or my brothers and sisters), like to tie them both to a tree and ----- them. They are very STUPID PEOPLE.

I'm sure i will wrestle with this the rest of my life.

thanks so much Watchtower Bible and Tract Society !!!!!!!!!!!

I was raised a JW too. I must say that my parents provided for me physically, cared for me when I was sick, gave me piano lessons and took me on vacations (although a lot of them were tied in with summer conventions).

They really believed (and still believe) the WT Society's teachings, and think they're tied in with the only organization that God uses.

All that having been said, I felt the sting of being different from my peers. I was used as child labor for a large printing corporation with my parent's full approval. I was discouraged from going to college.

And now my parents shun me because certain officials within the printing/publishing corporation have issued orders that I must be shunned.

Since they go along with that edict, now I view them as parents in ONLY the biological sense. They are no longer my parents in ANY other sense.

It's hard to do, but once you accept that they are no longer going to be humane to you, you just move on.

Phil

I too was born and raised in Canada. My mother was an absolute saint. She raised her family with the love and tenderness that all women should have. She was an Anglican and was obliged to raise us in the Catholic belief system. She never stressed religion in the home, ever, as we were growing up as children and as adults. Catholicism was in church and school. My father was the disiplinarian, and couldn't care less, one way or the other. As a result, I questioned everything that I was taught in school and church. I never could get any satisfaction with the responses I received. I know now that there is no answer to the vital questions I have always asked. My Mother let us think for ourselves and taught the basics of love, understanding and doing unto others........... As I told her many times, there is nothing that I can do in my lifetime to repay her what she has instilled in me. She rejected the JWs outright. I never did have a chance to discuss the JWs before she passed. I was not involved at that time.

Yerusalyim

I think I hated my dad when I was young, mostly for not being around much...he worked 3rd shift for a long time, and then 2nd shift. Then my baby sister came around, and he got promoted and moved to 1st shift, and was able to spend time with her...and I was jealous...

then I

grow up...get some life experience...

and

I think my Dad is the greates man I know. He worked hard to provide for eight kids. Worked his way from the bottom of the pile in a factory, to being the pressroom manager of what was the single busiest printing facility in the world...in charge of and responsible for 500 or so folks.

Dad is one of the smartest guys I know....and has the most common sense I've seen in any person other than my deceased Grandmother (his mom).

I NEVER make a financial move without him, and I discuss my career with him...he doesn't know the military, but he knows people.

Mom...she's Mom, Gotta love your mom.

Abaddon

I have four parents;

Two are wonderful loving people I love and respect. They are warm, kind and generous, although perhaps not emotionally demonstrative. They are both intelligent and have quite a liberal view on life, having travelled extensively and even lived in foreign countries. They are supportive and proud. I wouldn;t swap them for the world.

The other two are mad cultists who will say ridiculous things, believe in demonstrable rubbish, have raised all four sons in their beliefs, and would, if pushed, cut off relations with one who overtly set himself against their beliefs.

These four people share two bodies. I can get the mad cultists to appear by pushing their buttons. I know what their buttons are and how a conversation is likely to go before it starts. I try to avoid this. Afterall, I am an adult, and they are the victims of a cult, so it is my responsibiltiy.

stillajwexelder

I think the world of them - I worship the ground they walk on - -they are not JWs and did their best to warn me before I became one -- they never lost their love for me when I became a witness - and now they know I am coming out they have noty tried to encourage - all they say is I have to make the decision myself -- wonderful people --my eyes are filling up as I am writing this

Very easy question -very easy answer

scotsman

Abbadon

Your parents sound like mine! Lovely but deluded.

El blanko

Secular upbringing. Both parents split when I was 12, leaving my sister and I to be raised by a father who decided it was a good idea to go out and court other women straight away, leaving us in the house alone most of the time which eventually made us both go off the rails.

Mother, neurotic, in another really bad marriage now and tied up with her own anxieties.

Both heavily into the material ways of this world. Both shy away from me because I tell them the truth as I see it "in a kind way". They hate the truth about our lives ~~together~~ as a family and are in deep denial + will not take responsibility for past errors.

If the scriptures did not exhort me to show honour, I would cut them off completely.

It sounds a mess, but I have got used to not really having a family. Sad eh

maxwell

Although my parents raised me in the JW religion, I still respect them and view them with honor. I don't think they had ill will and were only doing what they thought and still think is best. I think there is a lot that is positive about me and all that is positive about me has to be credited to my parents. Those positive influences went above and beyond providing more than adequate food, shelter and clothing for the first 20 or so years of my life.

Strawberryfieldsforever

My Mom was so strict with me. I hated that. But I knew she did love me. It was just warped. I always wonder what life would have been like if she wasn't a JW. Maybe we would have had a better relationship. Maybe not....