I'd say you're right except for their days being numbered. They'll find a way to keep the kids. Nobody really knows how many are in just to keep the parents happy, but while they're in it's not like they're rebellious or even cynical. They still donate, they still con their kids into it.
sass_my_frass
JoinedPosts by sass_my_frass
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22
Older generation JW's are being sacrificed by the Society? Why?
by nicolaou inwhat has changed in the last few years?.
cheap paperback books.15 minute rule.reduced pioneer requirements.public/private watchtoweronly one pair of mags to public per month.doctrinal changes re 'generation', 1935 etcpublic talk cut to 30 minutes.and now the book study kicked into the long grass.this is an organisation that, since the big 1995 'generation change', is clearly slimming down and planning it's future srategy.
real estate is being sold and essential operations are being relocated to more cost efficient locations.
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60
Well I'm Out!!!!
by ImFreeatlast init took a long time, but i can finally say i'm out and i took my family with me.. this is my first post but i have been reading here for a while.
i was brought up a witness, in a family that was very 'strong' (or so everyone thought).
i didnt have a relationship with my perents at all other than the 'family study'.
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sass_my_frass
Nice one!
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7
A little advice?
by Lo-ru-hamah ini would like some advice from any that are willing to offer it.. we have a neighbor that we have been developing a friendship with her and her husband.
my son likes to play with her boys of the same age as well.
she has four kids and they run all over her.
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sass_my_frass
Don't worry about it. She was asking for advice; you gave yours. Sounds like it was probably accurate. You probably helped her, even if she didn't like it. We can't get everybody to love us.
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sass_my_frass
No, this isn't the end of the topic. This has only just begun for you. Be more gentle on yourself though - step back from 'making a choice' for a while, and see what happens.
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23
Update on Husband...
by cognac inthis is really torture sometimes.... he made a run for it from this site, went out in service for 2 days and is back into full-fledge more jw.... that totally sucks... ackkk... i wouldn't care so much if he wanted to be a jw, it's just he's always pressuring me to be it also and live my everyday life the way that he wants to me to live it.
i feel like i'm being totally controlled... .
this is not going to happen like this forever.
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sass_my_frass
I'm sorry to hear that. I worry about you guys and others in your situation. It was nearly my marriage - my husband was willing to take that on; he knew I'd be trying to get reinstated and had no idea if I'd ever intellectually break free.
You must find things that you can do together that you both enjoy. He'll have to learn that this is what it's going to take for you to make it.
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23
WHEN YOUR PARTNER WANTS A TATOO AND YOU DONT WANT THEM TO!!!!
by Summer wine ina bit of backgound info................my husband and i, after being in the org for 20 , high pressured years, faded about 4 years ago and after the usual feelings , anger, sadness, joy etc we had quite a upsetting change of circumstances.
recently my husband told me he didnt think he was in love with me anymore, decided he had missed out on what he really wanted to do with his life.
he wants to get a high powered motor bike, go off and get new friends ( i have no objection but hes blamed me cos he hasnt got any) and now has got a big tatoo on his arm from the shoulder to the elbow.. ive never been really keen on tatoos but sort of gave my inital reluctant support and actually went with him when he had it done!!.
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sass_my_frass
I'd say:
- you'll have to live with the tatoo
- he'll have to live with you not liking it
- consider enhancing your budgeting by setting up accounts into which a small amount of 'piss up against the wall' money goes each pay. You get an automatic 200 pound credit in yours to start with, because you haven't had a tatoo done. Stuff like this, which is entirely personal, has to come out of the Wall account. He can spend his on tatoos or save up for a bike or whatever he wants. You can spend yours on whatever it is that you want.Equity = respect.
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16
Would you have gone in SERVICE if you hadnt been required to report time?
by LovesDubs ini remember reading...i think it was ray franz's book (how is ray anyway?
) that the gb said that the sheep "couldnt be trusted" to do anything voluntarily and therefore they couldnt stop the reporting arrangement because nobody would go.. since the statistics clearly clearly clearly indicate that going door to door doesnt work and in fact the number of hours spent bringing just one person into the organization amounts to like 8 hours a day every day for a year...youd think the society would get with the times and eliminate that method.
and...jesus never went door to door anyway.
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sass_my_frass
No, and I'm pretty proud of all the JWs who fake their hours, stretch out the service using the pioneer walk, drive from not-at-home rvs all day from one end of the territory to the other, take big donut breaks, little shopping excursions, stop for petrol, start time early in the morning with the one call who you know is always out... I don't care that they have to do that to get through the ridiculous requirements. Every time they do it, it breaks down the wall a tiny little bit. It makes them care about it less and hate the preach more.
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Jw upbringing and retarded social growth.
by AK - Jeff ini was raised a jw, by an inactive jw mom.
looking back, and reflection on my childhood, causes me to wonder.. i honestly did not miss the holidays, for example.
i never had them, so nothing was taken away in that regard.
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sass_my_frass
I've thought about this. I think I would have been quite the nerd even if I wasn't a JW, and the JW-factor actually worked in my favour in that I got a lot of pity. A few years ago I remembered that teachers used to say that I was so 'mature', but they stopped saying that in my early teens - I was years behind the other kids, and actually stayed that way right through my twenties. I think they meant to say 'well-behaved and respectful' rather than mature, because for most of my life I've been pretty judgmental and self-righteous, and quite a bore. But I know a lot of JWs who don't take that road - they're pretty together, and can balance the JW games and build an almost-normal life around the JW lifestyle. If I'd been that type of person it wouldn't have mattered whether I was a JW or not.
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42
What was your saddest day as a JW?
by jambon1 ini had many days like this but i will never forget the time that a 'prominent elder' publicaly declared that he wants to see the worldly people die at armaggeddon.
"i hope that i can look out the window & watch it all happening".
i went home and thought; 'wtf am i a part of here'?
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sass_my_frass
A lot of days come to mind but the first one I thought of was one of the last DCs I attended, big international, 80000 attendance or something. We'd done the hours of flying, staying in cheap accom. My flatmates were in full find-a-man mode and I had been hanging out with my now husband in secrecy for a while, he'd proposed endlessly and I was traumatised by what I knew was coming - I knew I wanted life with him but wasn't quite ready to make the break. I was surrounded by 80000 people and felt totally alone all weekend. I had been fighting my depression for a couple of years and the conventions were always the worst place for that.
My flatmates had been leaving the hotel room early in the morning, I'd get to the session late and seek out my family by sms directions. At lunchtimes I'd sit eating with them and staring out at the field. After the Sunday session I hung with the family for a while and then headed out to the train, the place was just about empty but there was this *moment* - I saw my flatmates walking down the corridor and was cheered by seeing somebody who would talk to me. I smiled and looked down to my camera to get a shot of them because they had really made an effort. I looked up, they posed while walking, and then just walked right by me, like I was a ghost. There wasn't another person around in acres. That was the moment I stopped caring how they'd feel if I left.
There were some pretty sad JW times after that for a while; surprisingly, being disfellowshipped wasn't the worst of them. By then I'd found the resolve to live and LIVE. My life completely changed on finally hooking up with Mr Frass - infinitely better. It made the disfellowshipping an almost insignificant blip. The next year after the disfellowshipping I was back at the same DC site, the week before my wedding. My family had told me that they couldn't make it to the wedding, using the excuse that they couldn't travel that far, but they were at the convention (in the same city, a six-hour flight from home...) I didn't care; I knew I was going to be okay. By the end of that year, all the sad JW times were over, because I knew I could never get reinstated and that it wasn't my fault how much that hurt my family.
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21
I was "disinvited " to my younger brothers babies shower
by sosad inbecause one of the jw invitees heard i was coming and was now part of babylon the great.
just to clarify - i am part of nothing in the religious sense- my kids and husband are very catholic but i am not.. i was invited and trying to get the address after making considerable efforts to attend due to plain old busy life.. it seems "new light" says i, a fader of over 20 years is not welcome to a gathering where jws are present.
but - not just jws - there would be many other religious denominations present in the form of aunts, grandmothers, parents etc.
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sass_my_frass
Yeah that's pretty poor. I've concluded that the only way to get them to behave maturely is to ensure that they know that non-witnesses know what's going on. They try to whitewash it but when it's plain in-your-face stuff like that, there's nothing they can do, so they have to make a big deal of how proud they are to belong to an organsation that upholds standards that way. Sometimes they can hear how crazy that sounds, and how very wrong they are about what people think of them. Not often enough.