by The wanderer 44 Replies latest jw friends
It felt like what a suicide bomber must feel like. Its all normal. In the end instead of 78 virgins (what the hell are suicide bomber women supposed to get) we were promised some JW paradise.
It was a wasted life sacrificed for nothing that we did not get to choose.
I almost forgot: Field service. Field service with my parents (mostly mom), that sucked the worst. Terrified of meeting kids from school, all dressed up like a dork. And when leaving to go to the meetings, all dressed up, the kids in my street would make fun, saying stuff like "oh, you`re going to see the king" (we have a royal family in my country), etc. That sucked. Now, as an adult, I hate suits. I own one suit, I had to buy it when my mother died. It is sewed in a different style than traditional suit, kind of like a chinese communist-uniform (you know, like Mao always wore), but all black. Very nice suit. I wouldn`t be caught dead in a traditional suit like the ones the "brothers" all wore.
"Peter Gregerson once said on a television program in Vancouver, B.C. that being raised a Jehovah's Witness was like being raised in an insane asylum with retarded parents." Jim Penton May 14, 1996
Sorry I came late to this party but I just wanted to drop my two cents....
like most things, it is hard to generalize. Even though most born-in JWs do have some common experience, their individual situations and circumstances and their own reaction and development out of these are so unique that one JW's experience can differ significantly from another's.
The largest factor involved seems to obviously be the PARENT(s) and both their own manifestation of the JW life together with their own personal baggage (which is of course intertwined). If a JW child had strict JW parents, it is likely their experience sucked in many ways - though even then any deprivations like missing Christmas or getting birthday presents is not much different then children of other circumstances that also underwent such deprivations but for different reasons (e.g. Muslims, Jews, the impoverished, etc.)
On the other hand, if the JW parents were less strict or even liberal then the JW child's upbringing was probably closer to the norm.
The second largest factor is probably whether there were any JW peers or not. To the extent that the JW child had non-JW friends and peers either because there were few JW peers of the same age or because the parents allowed them to associate with non-JWs, then their experience was probably closer to the norm.
To answer your personal question personally, even though my parents were long-time Witnesses and my father was the presiding overseer and big elder while growing up, I was able to participate in sports, school activities, extracurriculars, prom, homecoming, etc. and had non-JW friends almost exclusively. I was also not pressured to participate in field service and in fact never went out (except as a small child with my mother a few times) as a child or a teen. We didn't celebrate any holidays, nor like some Witnesses, did we even skirt around "officially" celebrating anything, except for perhaps going to watch the local fireworks show on the Fourth of July -- so that part of growing up sucked I suppose. Leaving school early during the holiday celebrations, turning down Barbara Baker's birthday invitation, and not getting to do Boy Scouts with my best friend were also downers as a kid.
On the other hand, there are and were a lot of positives about growing up a Witness too. I won't go into them here so as not to draw the ire of the board.
Anyways my experience being a born-in I would rate as better than the average Witness and I am grateful to my parents for allowing me to make many of my own choices in life. (You may know that when the time came for it, my parents were uninvolved and didn't pressure me in any direction to attend or not to attend college and I applied and enrolled back in 1989 a few years before the softened stance towards higher education was implemented.)
As for the second question, I always had concerns and doubts about the Truth and the Organization growing up, so it wasn't a big surprise to finally conclude the fundamental fact of it all not being "The Truth." But it was surprising and interesting at the same time to learn all the little things and this continues to this day, each time something new is learned or something new develops in the Org.
-Eduardo
The largest factor involved seems to obviously be the PARENT(s) and both their own manifestation of the JW life together with their own personal baggage (which is of course intertwined). If a JW child had strict JW parents, it is likely their experience sucked in many ways - though even then any deprivations like missing Christmas or getting birthday presents is not much different then children of other circumstances that also underwent such deprivations but for different reasons (e.g. Muslims, Jews, the impoverished, etc.)On the other hand, if the JW parents were less strict or even liberal then the JW child's upbringing was probably closer to the norm.
Yes, the parents degree of following WT rules was key in how we as JW kids were raised. As I mentioned in my experiences, my parents were pretty strict compared to some other JW parents, so much so that even other JW kids were wary of me.
But there were some parents more strict than mine. The difference was that I wasn't wary of their straight-laced kids, but was more understanding of what they must be going through. I made friends with some of them and tried to get them out for some fun. That may have also caused some concern for the more hip JW kids...I dared hang out with the "loser" kids.
We didn't know it then, but we lived in a very cliqueish environment. Not only did we have school cliques to deal with, we had KH cliques to deal with. If you didn't fit in there, well, you were pretty much doomed to living a lonely life.
On the other hand, there are and were a lot of positives about growing up a Witness too. I won't go into them here so as not to draw the ire of the board.
There are some positives, I'll agree with that. It's not bad to teach kids to not worry about being different from everyone else. Be proud of what you are and what you believe. Teaching virture and morality is not bad. Kids don't need to be having sex or drinking or smoking. I have a good friend, still a JW, who suffered not one bit growing up a JW. He relished it. He's about as well-adjusted a person that I know. He's not the norm from all the kids I grew up with, but it does show that it is possible and for some people, the JW way does work.
I think the thing for many of us who ended up leaving, was that deep down inside, we didn't want to be that weird religous kid. We were forced to be something we weren't. It's one thing to stand up for what you believe and to be different because you want to be or because you don't agree with the majority. It's another thing to be forced to be different when you don't want to be.
I appreciate your viewpoint...sometimes we get in our bitch mode and forget to look at the issue from a more central viewpoint, so I think its good when someone says, "yea, but..."
