One thing that I havn't mentioned in any of my posts is that I have a 26 year old son along with the 4 kids that my wife and I have together. I became a father very young, 15 to be exact. That's a whole other issue but not on this post. I never mentioned it before because I didn't want to complicate the post because it wasn't relevant to what my post was about. His mother and I obviously didn't work out and we never married, not my doing she's the one that wanted to move on. I raised him with my wife and our other kids. In fact, my current JW wife and I married at 19 because she was pregnant at the time. I was a stupid kid doing things I shouldn't have been doing but what can I say, it is what it is. My son is married now with three kids of his own and has a very good job and is a very hard worker and is a great dad. He credits me and my wife for teaching him how to be good parents.
I mention all of this now because I know now that I made a huge mistake in that I took it very easy on my 21 years old son in so many ways particularly in encouraging him not working so that he could focus on his basketball practices and games as it was his dream to give that a shot. I just wanted him to enjoy his high school days to the full as I didn't have that opportunity. Having a child so young I started working before the legal age. Anyway once it was time to look for work, he has been very picky and passing up on jobs that he just didn't want to work. He's studying with the JW's through my wifes encouragement and seems content to continue on. I have yet to discourage him because of fear I will be seen as satan. He know's I'm an opposer as I'm sure my wife and her family have already made him aware. I did take him aside about 4 years ago, after my wife's baptism before he understood anything about the JW's and explained what was coming. I told him I loved him but that my wife's family may begin to encourage him more and more to study with them and that he needed to know why I don't believe in the religion. I mentioned the "false predictions" and how JW's suffered believing in it all. I think he may have forgotten this conversation though. It may seem strange but my wife and her family didn't really push the JW stuff until his late teens when they tried to study with him by phone behind my back. Once I told my wife it was wrong to do this behind my back, it was stopped, or at least it was done very discreetly.
My oldest son once mentioned to me that he thought my JW mil is brainwashed and seems to want to control and brainwash everyone else. I was very very taken back because he was shielded from all the JW stuff, but he nailed it. Anyway the whole point of this post is to give the contrast of my oldest son who is very confident, hardworking, family oriented and spiritual all of which he says he learned from me without me beating him over the head with it. Yet my 21 year old son has associated much more with JW's, especially over the last 4 years, has been love bombed by my wife's family and is beginning to adopt the JW world view. Yet, he has yet to get his first job, wants to go to every meeting, does not have a good sence of reality and is overall just like his mother. I love my wife, but she has always been taken care of either by her parents or me. Has worked maybe 4 years in 40 and has a cynical view of the world, as my son is developing as well. I don't blame myself for all of this but I do struggle with a game plan or questions I could ask to get them to start thinking without it being so awkward since I have been so careful in everything that I say or do. I type this now as my wife and son just went to the meeting with my 8 years old daughter. So hard figuring this crap out...