Yes, but not like you think.
I know they did love me, in their own WT-influenced way, but that didn't translate very well into real life.
I grew up lonely because of my mom's hangups. I love my momma like crazy but she's not the most sociable person around (understatement). When there was the opportunity to befriend other witness kids in the congregation, mom always managed to find fault with them and their parents and regular association outside the KH just never managed to happen very much.
We started out pretty poor and managed to maintain that. Even when my [step]dad was making decent money, it was all on paper. Never many toys at all as a kid, always hand-me-down meeting clothes, always shitty k-mart and outlet store clothes for school. Mom insisted on giving me haircuts until I was about 15 and finally talked her into letting me use a professional.....and then, oh boy did she ever nit-pick that to death! Up to then it was a "bowl-cut" and me making it look totally fu*ked up trying to style it myself.
I'll give them credit, they didn't physically abuse me though.
Only once did my [step]dad whip me hard enough to raise welts, and he kinda sorta apologized later for that but it was still ultimately my fault. It was all emotional with those two. I was ALWAYS wrong and I don't think I ever got to finish a sentence when they were "talking to me". I say "talking to me" but what they really were was what I called "gripe sessions". For an hour or two they'd sit there and go on and on and on about what I was doing wrong and how bad I was and keep on until I was reduced to crying. "Your attitude" was the old fave. I'd just listen and then ask "well what did I say/do that brought this up? Tell me so I know and can work on changing it". That would be the only complete sentence I'd ever get out. Then it would devolve into things that were either petty trivial stuff that I'd always apologize for and say "I wish you'd said something then....", stuff that they actually made up on the spot, or shit that had happened years ago. Seriously, when I backed them into a corner they'd start bringing up stuff from as far back as when I was like 7 or 8. What I hated worst was when my [step]dad would serve on a judicial committee with other young folks. It could be a different congregation and I may not even know the kids, but he'd go into a tirade and basically treat me like I was them. He even resigned as an elder once and blamed it all on me.
So why do I say they raised me right? Because they did. Kids learn by example, good or bad. I learned by example, by a bad example, and fortunately I've been smart enough to learn the right lesson from the wrong example. I learned that you bring stress on yourself and taking out your frustration on others doesn't fix anything. I learned that I don't want to have kids because I might very well turn into my [step]dad. I learned that every little infraction doesn't require immediate harsh punitive response, that sometimes simply talking things over calmly and with an open mind fixes everything. I learned to handle problems when they're small instead of letting them turn into big ones. I learned to admit when I'm wrong by watching my [step]dad never once admit he was wrong and I was right. (and he argued with me over some really stupid bullshit, believe me. Like once he didn't believe me that my bicycle tires carried 80 p.s.i. of pressure. He actually ended up literally yelling at me and threatening to put me on restrictions if I was wrong. Once I showed him the words imprinted on the tire, he just walked back into the house and didn't say another word to me that whole day. And never admitted he was wrong) I learned fairness by watching the big difference between how they treated my little brother and how they treated me. I learned how to listen by never being allowed to finish a sentence. And I learned that I'm not nearly as bad as they constantly told me I was or how I'd turn out to be.
So yeah they did a good job. Not the right methods, not by a long shot. But a good job if you take the view that it ain't the method, it's the result.
Mike.
