Serving as a congregation elder and involved with organizing circuit and district conventions demands much of your time. I received criticism for giving the cult a tertiary position and putting my family needs and expectations before theirs. I remember several elder meetings that I left early before concluding to care for a family matter. The first time I did that, one elder panicked and saying emphatically, ?We haven?t closed in prayer!? My response was, ?I have already said a silent one, don?t worry, I agree with what ever the body decides, I will see you on Sunday.?
Now that I am not a member, my family benefits even more from my time dedicated to them, and sees them as nothing more than an organization and me as the same loving husband and father.
Looking Back, Did You Neglect Your Family Because You Were In The "Truth"?
by minimus 23 Replies latest jw friends
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titomunoz
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Terry
The only "advancement" a man will have inside a Kingdom Hall will have to come from his ambition to brown-nose. There is a class division among brothers. You are either IN or you are OUT. A "macho" brother goes the extra mile.
Elders flex the muscle. Non-elders are poop-ons.
Men don't appreciate being made to feel small.
Being made to feel insignificant if you don't pull EXtra duty is what the strategy is all about.
Having somebody constantly prodding you to INCREASE your activity is to induce a feeling of worthlessness.
Is it any wonder husbands neglect their families just to prove they've got Kingdom-sized balls?
I don't know of many men who don't want to feel important in the eyes of their peers. How else to do this in the KH but to run the meetings?
Is it any wonder that most of the performing monkey types are old men? Who else have shed family responsibilty? When kids have left the house and your wife is quietly depressed you are free to jump into Jehovah's boiling cauldren of activity.
As a side note:
My "JW-active" friend Johnny has always been smart.
He tells the elders that he has to "provide" for his family FIRST.
He asks anyone approaching him to do "extra" a question:
"Are you going to pay my bills?"
It works every time.
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LittleToe
Titomunoz:
I would submit that you were a rare bread. Good for you>
Most of us have regrets, in this regard.Terry:
Maybe it's different for 3rdGens, or maybe I was just different. I didn't brown-nose, because I'd be raised with Elders in the house (my dad, uncle, and granddad became Elders as soon as the arrangement came in).
Neither did I look down on people. I just assumed we were all equally JW's and that it was a natural progression to become an Elder. The idea of "giving your all" was conditioned from birth and things like "volunteering for Assembly duties" was just "the done thing". We all did it, in the congregations I was raised in.I'm just trying to give another perspective, in that it wasn't always done out of ego.
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frankiespeakin
I would say yes. We as a family did things together but as an elder any time spent on recreation alway made me feel guilty that I wasn't doing theocratic things, so I was never able to let go of the guilt to enjoy just being together doing things.
Because of my working hard to provide for my family(i was basically the sole provider) and elder commitments, field service, meeting attendance, assemeblies, and other theocratic whatnots, I was tired and not the best conversationalist most of the time when relaxing with my family. So I would say the JW life style is not really conducive to family closeness.