Spankings at the hall.

avishai

I knew some parents who really beat the hell out of their kids. Anyone else remember this? Seems like when I was a kid, you could'nt go to a meeting without hearing screams of pain from either the b room or the bathrooms. Any memories? And why did'nt the elders counsel some of the obviously more extreme cases of abuse, some happening right there at the hall?

freedom96

Apparently, when my mom was studying, I was acting up, (I was only about 2) and my mom took me outside. A nosy lady from the hall followed my mom out, and offered to spank me for her.

God help someone who would ever try to offer to beat my child.

blondie

Spanking didn't work with us, so my mom quit. She would just take us in to the back room until we quieted down. Imagine saying, "stop crying or I'll beat you." I did offer to take children to quiet them down to save them from a spanking. To this day, I pick up babies and they stop crying.

I once took a wooden spoon away from a sister using it on her child's bare bottom, full of bruises. I broke the spoon and handed it back to her. She switched congregations right after that.....was it me? I bet she wondered why she got investigated by child services.

Blondie

DebraDoll

Mine continued untill my late teens-hit ANYWHERE (face, neck, back, breasts, legs, buttocks, etc...) that the back of my father's hand, thick leather belt, hair brushes, shoes, horses bridles, and even the heavy ornate antique wooden door-moulding (he ripped off the doorway) could strike. When I became engaged at 18, my father (an elder) rushed out of my house to meet my fiance in the street, with a sucker punch (by an ex-marine mind you to a 17 y/o newly baptized BOY!) to his jaw, breaking it. How's that for memories? God help me if I didn't jump up, in a friendly mood, from bed the FIRST time the alarm went off! My brothers still shudder at the memory of the sounds of agony from upstairs-made them into choir-boys! Now wouldn't that make ANY kid LOVE and OBEY Jehovah?!? PTOOEY!

Lady Lee

When my first daughter was 2 weeks old I had a sister tell me that the way to make her stop crying in the hall was to spank her!!! grrrrr

My mother was dragging us all to the hall with whelts and bruises from her beatings. No one ever said a word.

And then they joked when both my brothers had broken arms that it was from my mother's beatings (they weren't but I'm amazed she never broke anything)

avishai

((((Debradoll)))) Sounds like your dad was a real man, what wiht having to beat up little kids & sucker punch people. I hope he went to prison where monsters like that belong.

czarofmischief

Us kids used to act up - and then we'd get dragged out the back and spanked. But it wasn't really abuse. And we WERE acting up. I remember once my dad was conducting the watchtower, saw me acting up (in the front row, of course, we were model dubs) and he stopped the study, handed it over to the reader, came off the platform, and spanked me in the back room.

Talk about a fundamental shift in my world view! My assumption that my dad would never come off the platform and get me was shattered. It was like a wild card landing and spoiling your royal flush.

I know that there is a lot of abuse going on, but most of the time, what can I really have done about it? I was young, and then I got out. We were bad kids, and there was nothing to be done but beat us. We shouted and fought and got bored and drew on the watchtowers and eventually I started reading the bible until I practically had it memorized.

Which was to the WT's ulitmate downfall in my book...

CZAR

Celia

once took a wooden spoon away from a sister using it on her child's bare bottom, full of bruises. I broke the spoon and handed it back to her. She switched congregations right after that.....was it me? I bet she wondered why she got investigated by child services.

Blondie : Not an easy thing to do, to get involved when you see a parent abuse a child.... but certainly the right thing to do. I applaud you.

ApagaLaLuz

Yes, I was one of those kids that got the hell beat out of them at the hall. Till I got to big to be dragged out by my arm and had the hell beat out of me at home

Euphemism

I have hardly any memories from before I was 4 years old... my parents have told me, however, that both my older brother and I would get spanked if we wouldn't sit still at the KH, starting from when we were around a year old.

The WTS is the same the world over; when we were in Spain, I remember being at bookstudy and hearing the sounds of a little boy (2 or 3 years old) being spanked in the kitchen. Before the study, the mom had shown us all the plastic ruler she had in her purse... I guess she meant to assure us that her son wouldn't be any trouble.

The congregation I spent most of my teenage years in was an easygoing one; I hardly ever saw or heard a spanking at the hall. When I switched to the Russian, however, there was one particular couple with a two-year-old daughter, and her parents (ex-bethelite husband, pioneer wife) would demand that she sit straight up and absolutely still at the meetings. Even if she wasn't making any noise, she would get spanked just for not sitting still. Sometimes I dreaded going to bookstudy just because I had to watch how they treated the girl.

I certainly wouldn't compare these things to the beatings that Lady Lee or DebraDoll suffered; but I still think they constitute abuse.

Spankings at the hall.

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