Look raising kids is stressful! They have a knack of pushing you as far as you can be pushed. They are kids, it's their job. JW families live under so much pressure it's hard to describe. The meetings are endless. The kids are always rushed. The parents are always tired. No one ever has a day of if they are good dubs and work in service on Saturdays. Little ones can't sit through those meetings. It's not reasonable to expect them to do so. Then as they get older, they have to sit through a day at school, and come home to sit through a night at the meeting. The homework load gets heavier and sometimes takes hours. But not on meeting night. Homework can't trump meetings. Then the kids hit puberty and try to stretch their wings a bit. But EVERYTHING normal that they want to do is WRONG. On going tension in the house.
Let's not even start on conventions and assemblies.
I did not abuse my daughter. Yet there were times I had to close myself up alone in my bedroom. There was just ALWAYS so much pressure. I missed meetings. I was tired. My daughter was tired. Then I'd look at families that never missed, whose kids always behaved, and I'd wonder what was wrong with me. I didn't have a study with my daughter. School was stressful for her and she needed tutoring in her early years to help her read. She was tired. Asking her to read more when she was working so hard was cruel. She loves to read today. I would take her out of the main hall and let her rest from the crowd and play. GOD I just couldn't bring myself to force her to be a little robot.
This org is enough to drive a non-abusive parent to abuse. That light yoke they carry is very very heavy. If I had done everything they told me I SHOULD do---who knows. I like to think I never would have been too harsh, hit to hard, or used threats. But who really knows?
NC