The unpleasantness of growing up in the jw world.

greendawn

JW children have typically a very hard time growing up because of having to be so different from other kids they can't celebrate Christmas, Easter, Birthdays or national Holidays can't associate with "worldly" kids because that can ruin good habits, and as teenagers have to suppress sexual urges at the time when they are at their most intense.

They are constantly under pressure and living in a JW environment that's not particularly loving, understanding, or supportive they will probaly tell them: if you feeling down do some more field work to cheer up. No wonder why so many leave.

What were your experiences growing up in the dub land?

diamondblue1974

You pretty much hit the nail on the head really and my experiences growing up were almost identical to those you describe...what made it more difficult though is that whilst I was not allowed wordly association there was no real effort made for me to socialise within the congregation either...my mother was a single parent and was quite snobbed by those with families...they were never nasty to her as such but even so I would struggle to get an invite to anything socially despite being a normal kid trying to grow up; this changed when another single parent came along with kids but this when I hit my early or pre teenage years. Nobody would speak to her daughter so I decided I would make an effort and we became and still are firm friends. Dave who is about to be my best man at my wedding also is exJW and a childhood friend from the same era...

It seemed that any of the genuine friends I made have all since left the witnesses which says it all really, it was our intelligence, determination, and a heightened sense of spirituality which refused to be repressed which carried us out of the Borg. Children in the witnesses generally are not developed and well adjusted kids (unless they have liberal parents) and that is extremely sad.

I am firmly of the belief that any child that believes him or herself to be happy whilst being a JW is completely dillusional...content maybe given that they might not know anything else but happy definately not.

DB74

jula71

Children in the witnesses generally are not developed and well adjusted kids (unless they have liberal parents) and that is extremely sad.

Man, how true is that?!?!?! I'm a social wreck having been raised thinking how bad "worldly" people are and trying to avoid contact with them. Now I'm trying to grow and adjust in a way that normally would have taken place in my adolescent years.

iggy_the_fish

Happy birthday Jula-smurf-guitarist-dude, (assuming your avatar is telling me the truth that is)

Ah yes, about worldly people we were GROSSLY misinformed.

ig.

blondie

My father wasn't a JW and my mother was.

If my mother hadn't been a JW, some things would not have changed. My father never got us a birthday gift or a Christmas gift though we saw him buy them for others (that he wanted to impress). There would have been no money spent on gifts for us kids, no money spent on a tree for our house, not because my father was a JW but because he was a selfish, cruel man.

So I didn't miss those things because I realized in our house they were not the result of being JW (sort of anyway).

Blondie

PaulJ

I used to find it so hard to concentrate in meetings. In 'dubdom' there was always a focus on measured activity. You could go out on the ministry, but unless you placed something or did more than a couple of hours, you never felt like you had achieved anything.

I Aux pioneered a few times, but it was always a struggle, cramming meaningless, pointless hours in. I never really had a sense of acheivement when I finished either. Answering up, doing talks etc are like waves- you ride them for a short while then you are drowning again!!!

I guess i was trained not to miss xmas, birthdays etc. This probably explains why Im such a big kid with these now!!

Having to miss school assemblies was awkward- I hated that.

lisaBObeesa

I hated being so different, so apart, so alone.
And Christmas? Who cares! I just wanted to be able to have some FRIENDS. I was so trapped, so stifled, so bored. And when I became a teenager, I was depressed and angry. I remember on New Years Eve when I was about 15 or 16, my whole family was asleep and I would get up and sit on the front porch in the dark and listen to the fireworks and people cheering and laughing in the community around me and I would just ACHE to be out there WITH them. It wasn’t New Years Eve I wanted, it was to be with the rest of the world, with PEOPLE.

orion

I was told when i turned 17 that I have to get a job and pay rent or pioneer. I tried pioneering and then got sick of it and got a job. I LOVE having my b-day now and christmas. I threw my husband a big Paintball b-day party and it was a total suprise...he loved it....said it was his best b-day yet....:)

Big Dog

I always felt like the poor kid with his face pressed up against the big window at the department store at Christmas, looking at all the toys but not being able to have any of them. That's how I felt growing up, you could see all the good stuff going on "out there" but you couldn't participate in any of it.

mrsjones5

When my daughter came of age to be a Brownie I signed her up because 1. she really wanted to and alot of her friends were joining and 2. I had wanted to be a Brownie/Girl Scout when I was in school and never got the opportunity because jws dont do that.

I told my mother that Jocelyn was a Brownie. Mother wasnt too happy about it but there was nothing she could do. She did ask me why and I told her the above reasons. Mother said that she had never wanted to be a Brownie (she said this with a superior air). I found this quite hard to believe, remembering how it felt when my best friend became a Brownie, seeing her were the uniforn, and knowing she was having a lot of fun.

Now that I have my daughter in Brownies, I dont see what the fuss was about other than the society using this resriction to further isolate children.

Josie

The unpleasantness of growing up in the jw world.

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