Married to a JW, how do you handle teaching the kids?

by AlmostAtheist 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  AlmostAtheist

  I'm fading away from JW's, and I hope my dub wife will fade with me and we can teach our children to be free thinking humans, not mindless automatons. But there is certainly the possibility that my "falling away" will spark something in my wife to make her take the JW religion more seriously and she'll wind up going the other way. For all I know, she'll turn me in and get me disfellowshipped.

  Surely some of you are already in this situation. You're out, your spouse is still a dub, and no doubt the dub is trying to indoctrinate the children. If you have another faith, you probably want your child to at least be exposed to it. If you're an atheist, then you at least want your child to be given an opportunity to consider that the universe might not have a personal creator.

  How have you worked this out? Has anything worked, and given your family some peace?

  Thanks for any insights.

  Dave
• 

  kls

  AA i am married to a JW and i was one for a few years. There are many here that are going through what you maybe going to go through. I can't go in to much detail cause my JW husband is home and he does not know i visit all these evil Apostates.
  
  
  Weekends here on this forum are a little slow but soon you will get much advice
  
  
  
  
• 

  Logicandreason

  Good luck man. When my mother became a witness, it became almost impossible for my parents to agree on how we were to be brought up. My mom and dad fought endlessly becuase my brothers and I were in Catholic school. Neither of them won though. It might be a bumpy road for all of you at this point. But if you have brought them up well so far, they will be able to decide for themselves eventually what they want to do. I did, and now I am twenty four years old, married, and taking care of my wife and I very well with hopes of having children of my own. So I can bring them up right. Eventually, it will be all up to them. The children that is, no matter how much you guys fight over it. (and hopefully you dont). Hope that helped.

  Peace

  J
• 

  Black Sheep

  You may get quite a bit of help from this article by one of our posters.

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/exithelp.htm

  Chris
• 

  kwintestal

  Hey L&R, I'm in the same boat as you are. I started fading away about 2 yrs ago and stopped completely 1 yr ago. My wife now knows my position regarding the WTS (just for the record, I'm against). It was rough at first because she really didn't understand, and didn't except the changes in my life. She still doesn't understand because she hasn't looked into the problems with the org, but she now excepts that I won't be going with her again. Our kids are still young and very smart and perceptive (like all kids) and they know that I don't go to meetings anymore which prompt questions from my daughter. I personally don't feel that I should right now put the kids in the "But Mom said/But Dad said" situation and confuse them anymore then they are already. You know the way the witnesses work, more then likely if your wife has any faith in the org. at all, she will put up a fight to teach the children. My wife did. So I'll let her have that for now. It's a work in progress right now, and will be until she's out, but right now the best I can do is work on my wife, not confuse my kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying not to do things to open your kids minds, definately don't get them trapped in the org's box. Do things with them that will open their minds. For example I've taken mine (6 yr old daughter) to volunteer at a soup kitchen, I've taken both my kids to different marches, they're involved in T-Ball and will be in hockey next year. It's important to me that even though my wife is teaching them the WT teachings right now, that they see more then that world and that is how I teach them. In time I hope my wife does fade away (don't we all), but right now I can't count on that and so that is what I'm preparing for. Good luck L&R!

  Kwin
• 

  Terry

  Contrary to popular belief, children are a lot harder to indoctrinate than you might imagine.

  Their innate sense of "fairness" raises red flags in their thinking as does their natural sense of freedom.

  I find the best way to provoke my kids to think analytically is to tell them regular bedtime stories in which I set up a situation and then stop and have the main characters ask for advice from my children. The plot device sets up a Q and A that helps me determine what thinking skills they apply to problem solving.

  Also, the fact that Jehovah likes to solve problems by killing people demonstrates He is not a thinker. Jesus, on the other hand, seems to genuinely like people and wants to be on their side when they screw up. This disharmony makes for interesting discussions.

  The main thing is this. You never have to indoctrinate a chiild. Just make sure they hone their critical thinking skills and their rational minds will protect them from propaganda.

  My kids and I use to do exercises in which I'd take a TV commerical or a magazine AD and break it down to demonstrate how words and images are used DISHONESTLY to tell a different messege than what is implied by the facts.

  By focusing kid's attention on how adjectives and verbs can fool you and how associating one image with another can make a mental connection--you arm them against being manipulated.

  Kids have genius in them. How else would thousands of generations have broken the Santa Claus story wide open and exposed the fakery?

  Watchtower fakery is little different.

  Good luck

  Terry