I can echo the statements of the other posters on this thread and can really relate to their feelings and experiences as a child. I do have positive things to say. Being a JW kid, an outsider, always left out taught me empathy for the other weird kids, who smelled funny or came from bad homes or were poor and dressed funny. I knew how it felt to be ignored - awful - so I reached out to those kids and tried to be thier friend, tried to spare them some pain of lonliness. Being the only kid who didn't get a birthday cupcake and valentines day cards hurt and I became known as the weird kid. Being the weird kid gave me freedom though. I could do anything that I wanted. I didn't have to worry that people would think that I was weird because they already did. Looking back, I think I developed some kind of resistance to JW mind control. (If anyone ever saw the Simpsons episode when they join a cult and Homer doesn't get it - that was me.) I was kind of oblivious to it until I got out of school and mostly associated with JW.
What Was It Like To Grow Up A Jehovahs Witness?
by The wanderer 41 Replies latest jw friends
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AK - Jeff
Richard -
I was one of the 'oddball' Jw kids, I guess. Mom got baptised, and I got the religion. I tried to [starting at age 6 or 7] pull the rest of the family 'in', since Mom and Dad 'knew the truth' and did nothing with it. That effort was massively inneffective of course. Many years of my childhood were then spent in a state of 'limbo' of sorts. I wanted to be a Jw [not because I liked the restrictive lifestyle, but because I became early on convinced that it was the 'truth'], and I could not move anyone else in the family to follow it.
A few more balanced things might have come out of that for me than others. I once joined a summer baseball team. I was in a school play one time. But most other things, were just as stated. Holidays, celebrations of any kind, friendships of any depth, all were out. To me, it kind of felt like I was the citizen of another country, one with very strange customs. And the duplicity of my situation is ironic to me now. Mom was a Jw in name only, yet insisted that her kids live the Jw life in school and socially. If anything - I was more a Jw kid than those with solid Witness parents - since mine was self-imposed and self-controlled. My mom was in the background, giving me the 'reasons', but I was self-enforced, and as a result became more deeply committed to the religion than most of my Jw peers. Yet, as mentioned by other posters, because I was from a non-witness family, I was not included in all the Jw cliques when I finally became involved and began attending all the meetings, in my middle teen years.
Even now the effects are tramautic and deep for me. The regrets are painful. Not being 'different' as such, but 'being different' with no reason, as I am now aware. Kinda like spending your life heading up the committee to 'save the dodo birds', except no one ever told you that it was a lost cause before you got the job. The dodo was extict long ago. Likewise the 'truth' never was, and yet I donated my youth for it. And in my case, it was a personal donation. My parents likely would have not objected if I had begun to move in circles of 'worldly friends', but I restricted myself. Later in life, I angered my parents when I did not attend college. Yet I was convinced that it was not proper to do so, by the religion they had accepted [though they never acted on it]. It was a confusing enigma in many ways. I spent many years afterwards trying to actually move them to action and become the Jw's they always thought themselves to be anyway. That too was a fruitless effort. For that I thank God.
I saw a movie once, in which American soldiers were in a Japanese prison camp on a pacific isle. The Japanese deserted the prison. The soldiers expected that if they dared leave, the Japanese would ambush them and kill them as escapees. If they stayed the Japanese might return and do the same. I felt like that. I was captive to a the concept that Jw's had the 'truth', yet feared that due to the parental failure to act on the same concept themselves, I would likely fall to the sword at Armageddon due to that failure. If I escaped, I was dead. Likely if I tried to stay as a minor, I would die for my parents bloodguilt. This forced me to act quickly when the opportunity arose later to become a full-blown Jw. And I did just that.
When you don't know anything else - it took on a relatively acceptable feeling at times. But looking back - I see how much damage it did to my ability to see the world in realistic terms. I am still making that adjustment.
Jeff
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The wanderer
Dear Brigid:
This was an exceptional comment and so very true.
"But it makes you appreciate the world around you so much more once you are out. I liken myself to an immigrant to a new country. Everything seems wonderful and terrifying and new." ~Brigid
Thank you for your thoughts and personal commentary.
Respectfully,
The Wanderer -
minimus
You don't KNOW anything REALLY, outside of the JW world.
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Tuesday
I may have a bit of a unique expirience because only one of my parents was a witness, but I'll try to comment as best I can about the witness part of growing up.
When they say on the platform "you must be no part of the world" I think as a kid it's the only time you can really feel that way. As a grown up you go to work and associate with your work friends, then go home and you can associate with your witness friends. Not many people hang out with people from work outside of work. Not everyone decorates stuff for holidays. There are corperate rules about holidays. It seems that everything you do seperates you from something.
I always felt like I was walking a tight rope. I had to be friendly with the kids in school so that school wasn't completely miserable for me, but I couldn't be too friendly with them or the people in the hall would label me a bad associate. I had to be friendly with people at the hall, but I couldn't be completely truthful with them because then once again I'd be labeled as a bad associate and would get in trouble. It just seems like you're bordering on being in trouble at all times. You could learn about evolution, but you couldn't believe in it. I kind of felt like an undercover agent everywhere I went. You were playing the role of a normal student while at school, then playing the role of a perfect witness when at the hall, playing the role of a child witness while at home.
It's hard to sum up a childhood as a witness, I guess surpression would be a good way to put it. You can hate going to the assemblies, but you can't say that you do. You can hate not playing sports in school, but you can't say that you do. If a witness kid is getting in trouble in school you can't tell anyone that he's a witness because it might put the wrong light on the orginization. You can't do badly in school because it might put the orginization in a bad light. You can't make the wrong kind of jokes for the same reason, you can't be the class clown, you can't be too smart, you can't be too preachy because then people will associate that with witnesses, you can't be anything. All the problems you have as a child growing up you just have no where to turn to.
It really was like being undercover, you're trying to live in two different worlds and not let those two worlds meet and neither world can know about the other world. I think most kids who are raised witnesses will eventually choose which side to go to, either the witness side or the school side, or they'll suffer a complete indentity crisis. Hell it's only been 10 years for me and I'm still trying to figure out who I am, and still trying to make sense of my childhood. Maybe in another 10 years I'll be able to explain it better
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done4good
It's hard to explain how you can go to school and observe Halloween in October - even wearing a costume to the class party, and then by December you aren't having Christmas. The upheaval in a child's life - going from having a normal relationship with extended family to suddenly viewing them as "dangerous" and Worldly™ - cannot be described. Emotionally, your world gets turned upside down, like a whirlwind has gone through it. You don't really understand why all of these changes are happening, except that your parents say it's important if we want to "make God happy". You trust them... you always have. You have no reason to NOT trust their judgement, because they've always done what was in your best interests.
Ouch, Scully! That just hit way too close to home. I could not have said it better, myself!
j
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done4good
Glad you asked. In my opinion there is a huge difference between someone who enters of their own free will and someone who has no choice and is effected in all the crucial areas of development in life. In a sense you can't really miss what you never had. I reckon everyone born in this scenario can have different way of veiwing there expereince based on how fanatical and obedient there parents are to the watch tower. In a lot of ways it is difficult to separate the parental dysfunction from watchtower crap. For me I never asked for much of anything ever and never got anything ever eitther. Thats cuz I learned at a very young age the answer was no. TO EVERYTHING.
If you asked me that question then,
of course I would say everything was fine and beleive it too. I'm speaking of course from hindsight.
In particular becuse of growing up in this subculture I find that all my school years were most unpleasnt. Unfortunatley brainwashed parents lack the abilty to have there hand on the pulse of there child in regards to what they are expereincing after years of exclusion from any events that normal people do without even thinking about it.
From the earliest time I can remember in Kindergarten asking my mom for a bag for an easter egg hunt at school te following day as the teacher had instructed us to do. I begged her I pleaded. She had a pantry full of bags from shopping. She outright refused and told me to use my pockets. You cant even fit a dime into the pockets of a 4 year old. Well I remember the hunt was on and the kids brought their bags and were dashing about the class. I had entered the doll house and opened a drawer and found the motherload. I just stood there as the whole class raided the stash and I got nothing. I was absolutly seething and hated my mother intensly for that. To a four year old kid that was like finding gold. From that day on I was always asking" why me"? That was my first watchtower induced injustice that I can remember. In gr. 1 was my next injustice. There happened to be a Jw kid in my class but he was a bad seed. He had beaten the shit out of me as he had failed and was from an older grade. He got a little scared when he got home,and lied to his mother about the fight. She got on the phone with my parents and they forced me to apologize to this little cocksucker for pounding the piss out of me. This strange dichotomy happened all throughout my school years with the full support of my parents. They were young in the religion and were very concerned about there image.
I remember, sitting in my class on valentines day and seeing heaps of cards on peoples desks they had specifically liked and mine was always empty.I hated my parents for that too. They used to go specifically to the school to instruct the teachers what I was not allowed to be a part of.
When your young you roll with it. In some cases you might even take pride in the differences you show in public, but after a while they startto add up. No sex education, while everyone is in the library watching the film and asking questions. No freinds as you are considered not only boring but weird. Indeed you start to develop a chip on your shoulder. Always asking why me. but as the years progress you start to adopt it as a way of life. I think one think thats worthy of mention is that I thought way too much about death and the end of the world for a young kid. Almost obsessed with it.
When the teeen years come there is no mercy and only rules. The pressure becomes to much to bear and in my case I snapped. I lost so many opportunities and connections. I think I actually became eccntric and very shallow. You wanna know what the aswer is boy it's the only answer you'll ever need. Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah , jehovah. There was never any talk about real life matters. or phychology, ot coping strategies NOTHING! MY parents either knew nothing or they totally abdicated there minds as parents to the watchtower. Disgusting!
I see my life as having been born behind the 8 ball cuz of this. My naivity was legendary due to the isoaltion and stupid veiw of the world I was taught. I thought I was a freakin genious though. There never seenmed any means of building the self esteem either and the elders in my cong. were particularly cruela nd hateful towards me.
To sum this all up without talking about my entire childhood. It was terrble and I have no happy memories. To this day I have celebrated nothing EVER! It is a feeling of not being listened too. Not having freewill or free thought and complete hopelessness. My parents have not changed one iota in 40 years and still don't realize what they've done and continue to do. There is no bending, no flexibility, and no natural love. I was a talented good looking fellow and they flushed down the toilet with no regrets. To this day they would not care if I was the God dam president. All they ever cared about and still do is the witnesses and will die defending it no matter how much damage and human toll it takes on them. They are both retired and still knocking on doors. That is why I am so bitter and filled with hate even after 20 years of telling them to what they can do with there load of shit. They wern't raised in it and will never understand. Thats why I'm glad you asked.
Tyrone, most excellent post! Very sad, unfortunately. It reminded me of my buddy Jared growing up. Almost too hard to read. Jared, if your on here bud, look me up...
j
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pratt1
I felt so much of the feelings that has already been said, I'll just add this little tidbit.
You are told as a child:
Worldly people are evil.
Worldly people are out to hurt you.
Worldly people will lie to you.
Worldly people are materialistic and only care about money.
Worldly people will msot likely cause you physical harm
Worldly people drink too much.
Worldly people take illegal drugs.
As a child this makes you fearful of worldly people and afraid to even question worldly people about their beliefs, habits, culture.
If you removed the word "worldly" and substituted it with Black, Spanish, White, Women, Gays etc... this would be considered discrimination.
Isn't this one of the ways bigots are created?
Also, Tyrone - I sent you a PM
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done4good
Jeff,
Your childhood was quite similar to mine. Father not in, and mother in, but very weak. I felt as if I never fit on either side. Eventually, I just gave in because I believed it was the truth. Not because I enjoyed the rules. The whole chidhood thing is still really too difficult to talk about, even today, at 34. Bastards!
Jason
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XJW4EVR
What was it like to be raised a JW? Well, it was not the pure hell that many describe, at least not for me. I had an Elder/Presiding Overseer/Watchtower Study Conductor/Organization Man father, and a regular mom. I never saluted the flag, participated in birthdays or holidays. People often asked me if I missed them. The truth is no, I never did. You don't miss what you never had. While most of the worldly kids I grew up with had to wait for birthdays or Christmas for toys, and non-clothing gifts, I got gifts pretty much year round. So that was cool. My dad always tried to replce what was lost with something else. So we had huge get-to-togethers on the day after Thanksgiving. Some on this board would call that hypocritical, and that's fine. I think it was something that the Society should have done from the outset. The only thing that was never replaced was competitive sports. I never understood the ban on sports.
The only bad thing that happened during my High School years, was the ban on attending the local high school sporting events. I bugged my dad about it, and even researched the publications for anything that supported this local ban, and showed him that he and the other Elders were acting on their own. No other congregation that I was aware of had such a ban. Eventually, they relented, but only after I had graduated form High School.
The other negative about growing up J-Dub, and being an Elder's kid, was the fact that I simply could not do anything, including hanging out with friends, or ride my bike to the library, or just sit on the grass in the park without someone informing on me. For instance, I had a Doctor's appointment that I left school early for. I was walking from the high school to the Doctor's office, and some self-righteous J-Dub called my dad to report that I was ditching school! Did the Dub ever think that if I was ditching, which I did my fair share of, I would not be walking down the main street in the town?! I asked my dad who informed on me, and he refused. It just so happened that I was giving the Bible reading in James where James talks about demonstrating your faith by your works. I mentioned in my introduction and conclusion, that too many times Christians see something, and rather than assist, they gossip. I mentioned that if a person sees a teen walking on the street, does not pick them up , and calls their parent rather than talking to the teen, and offering a ride, then they are not applying James' inspired writings, but their own desire to gossip. Needless to say, my dad told me that I was way out of line. However, based on the reaction of one person in the audience, I got the information I wanted, and used it to my advantage subsequently. I know, not the Christian thing to do, but then again I was not a Christian at the time.
Back on topic. I had a very stable upbringing. My parents had their ups and downs, but they loved each other. My dad was not abusive to either of us, but I would say that he was neglectful. The Borg always came first with him, and everything else was second. That was cool, because he was never inconsistent. My mom was never a busy body. She never badgered my dad about Elder business. If she did ask, his answer was always, "I can't talk about that. It's Congregation business." I never saw my dad use his position as P.O. to give himself perks. When the Hotel/Motel lists came out for the District Assemblies, he always made reservations after the convention was announced to the Congregation. I never saw him manipulate the system, even to protect me. He trotted me out in front of three Judicial Committees during my teen years. I have learned alot about leadership and handling power from my dad. He is a very good guy, though still a misguided person within the Borg.