I've always been a good swimmer and diver my non believing father was a local hero of sorts in his town in Europe and taught us well. I was asked to be on the swim team in High School after the Coach saw me swimming in PE. I didn't even consider it after seeing all those dramas and demo's. at the assemblies I knew what the answer would be...."no can do...that's bad association" Mom's JW rules trumped Dad's wishes so instead I went home where there was notihing to do after school and watched reruns of Gilligan's Island and can remember the plots verbatim to this day. How I wished I could have had that simple pleasure and experience.
I decided that my kids weren't going to have this happen. I put my boys in the local basketball league l at age 6 and they continued with that until age 12. It was great to see the impact it had on them in terms of gaining confidence and social skills. Both of them were on the swim team and wrestling team through junior high and High School with much supervision from us. We allowed them to go to the dances and my youngest Son was voted Homecoming King but We couldn't discuss any of this with any of the relatives but when they and other JW's saw their trophies or pictures in the paper, there was much pursing of lips and concerned looks. It would have been nice if their Pioneer Grandmother or aunts and uncles would have came to one of their matches or events.
Now that the Boys are grown, they play Hockey and Lacrosse locally. When I see them able to interact well with others and still enjoying these activities, I'm glad they can look back on their childhood and youth and not feel like they missed out on everything because I let some religious fanatic old men or judgemental relatives decide how they should be raised.
