"Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him." (Prov. 22:15)
How many times did I hear that at the meeting when I was growing up and shudder.
I remember once, at about the age of 7 or 8, being taken outside the hall after a Sunday morning meeting to be spanked for some minor thing I'd done, just as everyone was leaving. How embarrassing. The girl I was on kissing terms with at the hall said to me at the following Thursday meeting, "I saw your bottom," and she giggled. I still cringe now. Mentally scarred.
The time I knew that we were very different from the norm was when my younger sister and I stayed at for my aunties for one night as my parents were called away. I was about 11 or 12. My aunty had 4 boys, my age and younger, a very normal healthy family. Bedtime arrived, we all trooped up to bed. My sister and I slept in the room above the lounge and we could plainly hear the TV. We never had a TV in our house until we were much older. A film was on and we lay in bed listening to the music and the muffled words and became more and more agitated about being in a worldly house, in the dark with no protection from Jehovah, scared of everything. Eventually, I plucked up the courage and went down stairs and implored my aunty and uncle, with tears streaming down my cheeks, "Please can you turn the telly off, we can't sleep because of the demons." They just looked at me stunned.
Just another normal, healthy, well adjusted JW child. *looks for the sarcastic icon*