Did/does your Kingdom Hall have a Spanking Room?

by WilliamCoburn 35 Replies latest jw friends

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  CoonDawg

  Dad almost always hauled us to the bathroom, by the method my brother and I still call "the Spock Shock" in honor of the Vulcan neck pinch thingy. We made so many trips to the back...usually for fighting over an arm rest or something. A couple of older sisters tried to plead with my dad about his regular beatings of us. My dad's reply was - and I quote: "Kids are like sugar cane. To make 'em sweet, you gotta beat the pulp out of them."

  That sums up my dad's theory.

  When I had kids of my own, I was pretty hard on them at the time. It's all I knew. It shames me that I spanked a child for being fidgety at the meetings when I was bored out of my skull too. I have apologized, but it still saddens me to think how easily I was influenced by this mindset.
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  WilliamCoburn

  My mother used good old fashioned hair pulling till it was banned because "that method of child extraction was too loud"
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  WilliamCoburn

  I will be revealing WHY I made this post middle of next week. stay tuned!
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  freetosee

  Our hall had three levels, used by many congregations. The restrooms were downstairs, that where we got the beatings. The brothers serving as attendance were instructed to keep the doors of the main hall closed in order not to cause distraction...
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  White Dove

  Coondawg,

  That was my experience, only it was my mother. I'm so ashamed that I carried it over to my kids for the first years of their lives. I, too, appologized. They are grateful that I did. Our relationship now is great.
• 

  WilliamCoburn

  Here are the results so far on my Spanking Room polls (posted on 8 sites) Out of 126 votes 9 (10) people said their Kingdom Hall had a “Spanking Room”. Let me start by saying that I was in no way implying that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only religion that may have gone overboard with discipline to the point of child abuse. It was the 1970’s. I am NOT anti spanking but I believe it must be used “almost never” so when it is needed it is effective. Example: the one time I spanked my 4 year old was the second time he ran into the road with stopping or looking. So WHY am I gathering this information: I wrote a book about growing up a one-parent Jehovah’s Witness. The title of the book is THE SPANKING ROOM: A Child’s Eye View of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The reason for the title is simple: the first thing that pops into my mind when the religion is mentioned is the Spanking Room. So, it was very important for me to find out if my Kingdom Hall was the only one to ever have a Spanking Room. While it is very possible all 9 people who voted YES were from my Hall the written posts indicated that at least 2 other Halls had “Spanking Rooms”.