Were You Pressured To Get Baptized? (page 3)

Es

It was more a sublte pressuring, we were always told there was a problem if we got to 18 and wernt baptized yet..i got baptized at 13 i never had the choice to refuse. I didnt get so much of a hug or congrats off my dad it was like it was expected es

freedom96

You know what? Suprisingly not. As I look back, elder dad, strict JW upbringing, they never talked about getting baptized. Weird, very weird as I look back.

Now so much later, I realize that my mother had severe doubts about it all.

I was 19 when I got baptized, and only did so because the elders said if I wanted to get married in the hall, I had to be. So both my ex-wife and I did so.

What is funny though, is that they made her wait a couple extra months, in order to build up her field service time, as she was a bit shy on the hours. Didn't go over so well.

Insomniac

I was told by my family that if I didn't get baptised, I was no longer welcome to live at home. So, two days after I turned twelve, I got dunked in a slimy horse trough full of piss-warm water. Awful, yes, but still better than being on the street at twelve. I guess.

caligirl

In a sense, yes. Absolutely EVERYONE my age (14) was either already dunked, or getting dunked. It was a peer pressure thing in may ways - not wanting to be left behind, wanting to be part of a group. I think I was also desperately hoping for some "approval" (I was the little blond girl with the bad reputation that I HADN"T earned, but apparently looked the part- looking back, I feel kind of jipped that I didn't get to do all the stuff I was rumored to have done)

I was never pressured by my parents directly, but they definitely made it known that they were proud of me. That longed for approval lasted about a week( I shortly came to realize I didn't want it anyways). However, my sister who was 10 at the time I was dunked WAS pressured by my mother, starting the day I got baptized, she started asking her when she was going to. She held out until she was 12 I think.

FlyingHighNow

The whole JW religion is based on getting EVERYONE baptized. Even for those who say it was their idea, the society put pressure on you through persuasion.

Yes, I was pressured. We all were.

When my daughter was 12 she started giving into that pressure and told me that she wanted to work towards baptism. I told her no. I felt she was too young to be making such a serious decision. I had seen nightmare situations in our cong. where girls had been baptized and then ended up pregnant and were dfed & kicked out of their homes and cut off from their families. I also saw boys who were baptized, dfed and then shunned when they needed all of us the most. I am very happy that neither of my children ever gave into the jw pressure to be dunked.

tijkmo

insomniac...... what???

delilah

In a word....YES.....I was 16, and was told I'd die at armaggeddon if I wasn't baptized....so, I was as stoned as could be, the day I was dunked.....nobody knew the difference......I knew from that day forward, I was doomed as a JW...hahahahaa

Delilah

Doubtfully Yours

Yes.

I also wanted my parents to be proud of me.

Bad choice. I was so young, though.

DY

littlerockguy

If you are studying and going to meetings and all you hear is that armageddon is coming any minute; especially in the mid 80s- every magazine saying UN declares 1986 to be year or peace tied with the scripture of the fake peace and security cry and instant destruction (armageddon) being upon them, along with 1914 generation not dying off, etc., etc.,

Nope, no pressure here!!

garybuss

Salvation from angry gods by ritual bathing . . . nothing but a leftover from a primitive superstitious culture. Shun your 35 year old daughter and her children because she had a bath when she was 12. What a rip!

Were You Pressured To Get Baptized?

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