With all of the recent publicity being given to the plight of sexually abused kids, I thought that we shouldn't lose sight of what is an absolute travesty for most sons and daughters of JW parents. These are kids whose childhoods are ruined, not through sexual abuse, but through criticism and unreasonable demands on behaviour and upon how they perform as "little witnesses".
I well remember how my own once doting parents, suddenly, on becoming converted to the witness religion, became demanding and critical. Years later it still rankles that my love for my own children is totally unconditional, yet some tin-pot religion convinced my parents to demonstrate that I had better perform but good if I was going to ever re-gain their once lavish approval.
Witness kids, generally speaking, have a terrible childhood. They're isolated from their schoolmates and often from their teachers. They have to attend meetings that bore them rigid and knock on doors preaching, which most of them loathe with a vengeance. Tragically, they can rarely admit to their dislike, because to do so would distance them from their parents affections and care. Instinctively, as they mature, they know that their actual survival depends on going through the motions so that their parents will not disown them.
Is it any wonder then, that the vast majority of witness kids leave the religion once they have reached an age at which they can look after themselves?
The pity is that so many of them literally become damaged goods. For them, the "good news of the kingdom" so liberally impressed upon them by witless parents, was never anything more than a method by which their childhoods were ruined. In turn, their own ability to form good relationships is severely limited by the critical imprinting that they have received. Conversely, the children who do stay in the religion, often become even more critical and demanding than their own parents ever were, with the result that they actually finish up criticising and disapproving of them!
Truly, the witness religion really messes up minds and spirits to an extent that beggars belief.
Englishman.