The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah Witnesses (page 3)

JimmyPage

bttt because I'd never heard of this book before but it sounds like one that more people need to know about.

garyneal

Hey, the poster, TSR, is the author of this book. How cool is that.

ziddina

Hmmmm...

I want this book!!

Too bad I can't be on the "Secret Santa" list this year - but this book would make a GREAT gift!!

Marking...

JT speaks-out

I know this thread is old, but I'm going to comment anyway because I think this topic is really important.

This sort of thing didn't stop after the 70s and 80s, not everywhere anyway. My mother was baptised in 1992, when I was four years old, and I went through this and so did many kids in the hall I grew up in. The parents I knew who weren't beating their kids at the meetings were looked down on and other families didn't want to associate with them because their kids weren't "properly disciplined".

I'm going to try to get hold of a copy of this book.

JT speaks-out

I've just added this to my to read list on goodreads.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5354193-the-spanking-room

cultBgone

JT is correct. I (sadly) brought my kids into the Borg in the early 90s and was told by the other moms to keep a wooden spoon in my bag for spanking. I was fortunate in that my children weren't rowdy, but it was the norm for moms to take their kids to the bathroom for "discipline".

I was tempted to say they dragged their kids, but of course that would have looked bad to any visitors. What they did was a forced march and the kids were terrified because they knew there was no way out of a whooping in the bathroom stall.

I also remember hearing "counsel" from the platform that parents should always take crying babies out of the hall (wouldn't want to disturb that intense b[ible] s[tudy] for everyone else. The direct advice given was to place your hand over the child's mouth to lessen the noise.

As for a parent choosing between J and their child...THAT was a stumbling point for me. I knew I would never be able to turn my back on my babies...so I always felt some "disloyalty" to god but I couldn't change how I felt. Family first.

BU2B

Has anyone noticed that the behaviour and disrespectful of children has gotten worse concurrently with the new trend of you cant even lay a finger on your child?

Londo111

At one hall I went to they told parents to 'discipline' their children discreetly. Many passerby were noticing children getting beat in front of the Kingdom Hall. Sometimes my mother acted as an enforcer to 'quiet' children of single mothers. I’m sure to them she was like Darth Vader.

In times past, with two midweek meetings, a two hour Sunday meeting, with no functions or provisions for children, it could be more torturous than it is now. Goodness knows, the meetings were dull enough for adults. Most adult JWs don't want to be there either.

GrreatTeacher

I routinely got dragged to the basement to get whacked. I screamed so loud that a pioneer gleefully reported that another little girl thought there was a monster living in the basement.

But, what got me was that bringing coloring books or other things to occupy children was looked down upon because it wasn't spiritual. All you got was the Book of Bible stories and that was boring.

Darth Fader The Sequel

BU2B- Your question/comment bothers me. There is absolutely no correlation between the beatings that are obviously described in the book referenced in this thread or the anecdotal stories from the other comments in the thread and "behavior and disrespectful of children". Are you actually suggesting that the beatings described are justified? I will allow you to clarify your position before I say anything else.

The Spanking Room: A Child's Eye View of the Jehovah Witnesses

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