I'm with you JW rogue, I missed out on early sexual experience and higher education. To some degree I did make up for both in my post witness life but the timings were not ideal. I devoured with relish a number of adult courses at universities but frankly it would have been so much more useful to have had the foundational bricks in place at the earliest opportunity. To extend the analogy; it is easier to lay the foundations of a building down at the start rather than the more tricky business of underpinning it later. I'm forced to look back and know that regrets of wasted time don't help the present.
A couple of months ago I spoke with a leading British philosopher, a polymath, a living library with a phenomenal memory to boot. Whilst not imagining I would be at his level, had my parents directed me to expect success in the world and nurtured my earliest learning, I'm sure I could have enjoyed some worldly success--but I'm not complaining!
As it was, I thought I knew better than my parents (who were not witnesses) and instead I was prepared to be taught by the brainless operatives of the brainless JW cult that higher education was undesirable, if not downright wrong. I stupidly believed them, it was therefore my fault.
So we cannot change our past but if we have children, we can give them two things: unconditional love as the first requirement and an expectation of a happy, successful life based on a good education. Higher education can be a ticket out of the depressing social values delivered by both JWs and by poverty-- if it is done with positive goals in mind including financial independence and control over your own life.