Anyone else raised in a "divided" household?

by dinah 8 Replies latest jw experiences

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  dinah

  Hey folks!

  I've noticed there are many here who were raised "in the truth". Are there any who were raised in a divided household--where one parent is not a JW?

  I'm just wondering how much of a difference it makes when you have one parent who is sane! LOL.

  My mom was baptised when I was just a few months old. My Dad never even studied, but he never stopped Mom from her JW activities. His not being a JW gave me a tad of freedom--still VERY limited by Mom though. It is strange, all the rest of the family were Baptists with the exception of a JW great-grandmother, and a few cousins. There were some other JW relatives but I only saw then when it was time for an assembly.

  It was VERY disturbing to me that my Dad would be killed at Armageddon because he wouldn't attend meetings and go door to door. That REALLY did a number on my mind. My Dad and I were close (still are). He was the greatest thing living to me and it terrified me that Jah would kill him. It didn't help that my Dad was NO MUCH NICER than the brothers at the hall. He was good to me. My father never spanked me, one look of disappointment was all it took for him to keep me in line.

  I guess having a father who wasn't JW helped me grasp onto sanity after leaving (or being put out--damn hormones). It is a relief to know Jehovah doesn't hate him for not "signing up" with the WT.
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  freedomlover

  my hubby ithinkisee grew up in a divided house.
  
  some of his topic history talks about these issues....
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  La Capra

  Dinah,

  That's me exactly. My mom was baptized when I was a few months old....

  My dad's position gave me a tad more freedom, under my mom's tight reign....

  My dad was SO MUCH NICER that the men at the hall...

  If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be college educated,well settled in a teaching career for 15 years, and having a relatively normal life (for someone who was raised like we were).

  It made it that much easier to leave when I got old enough.

  And just the other day, when I received my doctorate, there he was, telling me how very, very proud he was of me, with tears in his eyes. My mom was proud too, but her praise was, well, underwhelming, to say the least.

  Shoshana
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  dinah

  Thinking out loud, but how many JW mothers with un-believing mates felt they had to work overtime to indoctrinate us?

  My mother constantly guilted me into "serving Jehovah". And the fear of destruction was always in the back of my mind: If you date this boy you will break my heart AND be killed at Armageddon--but you do what you want to do, dear." Same speech for going to sleepovers, parties, football games (which thanks to my Dad, I never missed a "home game") ARGHHHHHH

  My Dad never used any kind of guilt or fear. Maybe it's just a mother thing?

  My Dad taught me to be good because it's the right thing to do. I have to wonder if my " wild phase" would have been avoided had it not been for the WT.
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  BluesBrother

  Mum was a Witness, Dad studied once but stopped it - he never opposed , just let us get on with it . Looking back now, I wonder why he never countermanded us kids being taught a religion that he thought was in the wrong? Perhaps he never really got it. Perhaps he thought it kept us out of trouble and taught the Bible so "what the heck?"

  His position never made any difference to me in the congregation. I was more influenced by the WT upbringing than I was by him. I think it made us less close. I only really talked properly to him after my Mother died and he was by then an old man living alone.

  It was strange, we always thought he would probably not be with us after Armageddon, but were affected by the same cognitive lethargy that dubs apply to outside family and neighbours - it did not seem a big deal - we just accepted it .

  You know, writing this makes us seem a cold, dysfunctional family - We never thought so , it just seemed to be the normal way of things..
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  Nosferatu

  I was raised in a "divided household" until my father started studying :(

  Before my dad started attending the meetings, I went once every two weeks or so, and the occasional convention and assembly day. When my dad started full force, I had no choice but to attend everything.
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  Life Is Grand

  In my house it was the exact opposite-My dad was the JW and my mom was most definitely not.

  It was extremely stressful at times. My mom was not pleased that we were out of the house a minimum of 3 days or nights per week and leaving her at home alone. She was going through alot of "issues" while I was growing up-so my dad not being there for her was a real point of contention. There were more arguments than I care to remember over those years. Not to mention-she wanted to celebrate Christmas each year. She would take my sister and I with her to her friends place and we would just celebrate with them every year(for some reason-I don't recall feeling very guilty about it at the time-it was actually alot of fun)-it seemed as though my dad didn't get much say in that matter.

  Funny though-of the two of them-I was always much closer to my father-he was a very gentle man-never raised his voice or his hand to us. My mother was actually the "yeller" and disciplinarian of the family.

  Anyways, all I know is that I swore I would never let any type of religion tear apart my family when I grew up-I would rather have no religion and peace and harmony in the family....
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  Jankyn

  
  Dad became a JW to marry Mom (she's from a big-time JW family in the area--or at least they were back then). He was disfellowshipped 10 years later, and was inactive/df'd for most of the time I was growing up.

  He didn't actively oppose our indoctrination. He just offered an alternative.

  For instance, at Halloween, she'd want to hole up in a back bedroom and study the WT with all the lights turned off in front. Dad would say, "Do that if you want to, but I bought some candy for the neighbor kids." And he'd answer the door, comment on the costumes in a loud enough voice to be heard, and pass out candy. He also made sure that he bought way too much candy, so that there was plenty left over for us kids. After all, we shouldn't let perfectly good candy go to waste, now, should we?

  Same thing at Xmas. We always went back to school after vacation with new stuff.

  Then there was the encouragement when we took up a "worldly" interest. He went out of his way to pick up magazines or equipment about the stuff we liked--skateboarding and hot rod stuff for my brothers, rock-n-roll and politics for me. He bought me a subscription to Rolling Stone when I was fourteen, and kept it up all through high school.

  Mom knew what he was up to, but was powerless to stop him. They fought a lot, but kept us kids out of it for the most part. And yes, she kind of turned into a super-JW to counteract his "worldly" influence. Or at least, she tried to act the part.

  And, when each of us in turn hit our teens and told Mom that we no longer wanted to attend, he stepped in and backed us up. His exact words? "You've had x number of years to convince her/him that it's 'the Truth.' You're done now."

  Okay. Now I'm really missing my dad. He died a couple of weeks ago, and this grief thing really sucks. But as I mentioned in another post, he was surrounded by friends, his three kids and their spouses/partners, and his grandkids. As my youngest brother pointed out at the funeral (which was not a JW funeral), "Dad won."

  None of his children/grandchildren are JWs.

  Hang in there, you UBMs with kids. It's a tough road, and I'm sure my Dad would have had it easier if he'd just bailed on us, but it worked out in the end. He led by example.

  Jankyn
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  Midget-Sasquatch

  My father became a dub when I was around 5. My mother stayed roman catholic for another 2 decades or so. My father also had a friend in the same congregation who had an unbelieving mate. While my father was obssessed about the whole "head of the household" thing, and rabidly fanatical when it came to the "truth", that other guy had a christmas tree set up in his house. He said his wife was vehement about it and he wanted to respect her wishes. Not my Dad. We couldn't celebrate anything "babilonica" in the house and he was always ready to go off on his rants anytime my mother even hinted at a contrasting view to wt dogma. He was very oprressive that way.The religious differences caused alot of quarrels, exacerbated the already tense atmosphere of the home, and in all the real ways that mattered, killed their marriage. My parents never separated or got divorced, because of us children and because they felt obligated by old Italian cultural norms.

  My mother demanded that we stay and go to catholic school though. She would secretly give us birthday gifts once in a while, until my sibling became just as fanatical as my father about jws. I'd say that I'm naturally disinclined to believe anything supernatural and the jw experience has only sharpened my aversion to religion and dogmatism. I have to give credit though to my catholic educators, who were more open minded and actually tried to have the real world ammend some of their views and beliefs. They tried to honestly address, rather than suppress questioning or distort the facts. (Although I could tell they weren't always happy with where the questions were going). I'd say they, and not the jws, were the ones who sowed that kernal of interest in exploring spirituality.