by Room 215 63 Replies latest jw friends
Room,
After coming to this site for about a year I have to say this is one of the best post I have ever read. Your insight and concern for those who share the embarrassment and confusion of being a JW kid is very touching. I remember those days, the flag salute, the leaving early for holiday parties at school and all the other things that taught us to be socially retarded.
Thanks, you just made my day.
Dave
Aww Dave! You realize showing us your pink under-tummy makes us see your little softer side! Not that we're complaining!
I remember trying out for Choir in highschool and having to explain to the music director that I couldn't sing holiday or patriotic songs or be involved in any type of school production as it took away from my meeting times. After about 2 choir classes I realized everything they sang was either patriotic or holiday related. After another week, my parents made me quit. I remember being devastated.
I've always been petite with an athlectic frame and pretty outgoing and made good grades. I had several teachers recommend I join the cheerleading or pom pom squad. I wanted to so desperately, that I practiced for weeks and weeks on dance routines and practicing splits, knowing full well I'd never even be allowed to try out. One of my teachers even offered to talk to my parents for me, but that mortified me. If she talked to Mom and Dad, they'd think I put her up to it and then there would really be hell to pay!
I still cry for that little girl who never got to have a normal childhood. Dave, you are so right! "Social retards" is such a great description!
Andi
What a good thread on being a witness kid,its good to know other people who went through the same things.>>>Hey yo-yo,reread this thread and you`ll be able to make up a better story next time...OUTLAW
Andi,
As I said before, Neil is one lucky guy. He must be an incredible person to have won the heart of a woman such as you. My hat is off to the man.
What's up with this underbelly stuff? Just cuz I'm old doesn't mean I have an under-tummy! Hold on a sec, let me check....................................as I was saying, Neil is one lucky guy.
Alan F. and I had a great conversation about social retardation when he came to visit. After I called him a social retard I told him that I knew he was one because it takes one to know one. That's why I come here, that's why I love this place. If you think about it, people with Downs Syndrome and others with some brain dysfunction are the most loving and non judgmental people in the world. All us so called normal people call them retarded. Maybe the truth is, they are the only normal people on the earth and we are the ones with the real problem.
Don't cry for that little girl, what she experienced and what she had to endure has built her character and made her the understanding and loving person that she is today. Most people do not have the insight of what it really means to feel emotional pain. Think about it.
Thank you sweetheart, you are one of the people who keep me coming back here.
Big hug,
Dave
I picked up my little boy from creche today and he was pleased to hand me a folder with a collection of paintings and decorations he had made for Christmas. We'll spend tomorrow morning putting these up around the house.
This evening, we went to a pretty little Cornish fishing village to see the Christmas lights which festoon the sides of the houses and harbour walls. These lights, in turn, reflect off the water turning the whole harbour into an arena of light.
Earlier this week, we wrapped presents, using brightly coloured paper, ribbon and bows. My son was so proud to give the carers at his creche a box of "special Christmas" biscuits this morning.
I could never remember what I was meant to say when anyone at school asked me why I didn't celebrate birthdays or Christmas - I felt stupid because I had logical answers for most other things. Thank goodness that my little boy is free to enjoy a few simple joys of childhood without the religious crap handed down from a few old men in Brooklyn who have no idea about who we are or how we live.
And lets stop attacking each other guys. Let's concentrate on our kiddies. Let's give them the freedom to grow up expressing their own opinions and making their own decisions. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Much love, Amanda.
YoYo,
Are you a national yoyo champion by chance?
sKally
What an amazing thread! I experienced alot of horrible things as a JW kid. I remember not being able to sing certian songs, watch a movie that I had so looked forward to, receive gifts, or go to parties. And not like most JW kids, I didn't sit in the hall or go home. I had to sit there and watch everyone eat their birthday cake, give valentines cards, and give each other gifts. I remember being put in the front row in the center (I was a short kid) of the choir on concert night and having to just stand there. Oh and, even though I knew why we didn't celebrate everything, I never got the chance to explain. I had two other JW kids in my class and they alway beat me to the punch line "we don't celebrate (insert holiday or special occasion" and that was enough for most of the kids in my class. There was no.."well why?"..they were to busy having fun. (The cool (sarcastic cool) part was sitting at meeting and hearing the other kids tell how wonderful they felt when they were able to tell the kids at school why and blah blah...and how proud their parents where. When my family was viewed as slackers and non-improving ones and I was the one who actually tried to make a stand!)
Actually I was talking to my Grandma awhile back about Christmas (she's a JW) and she launched into the JW's big explaination of how Christmas began with warriors drinking the blood of the inncent or some such nonsense. I wanted to yell "Look around! Do you think that has anything to do with the celebration today? Are you stupid?".
Christams has such a better meaning and I hate the JW's double standards. If anything at all, can't they at least be consistent with their pagan crap. I wonder if the pagans ever went door to door(for anyreason)...or congregated in groups to discuss their pagan worship...now if we could find that do you think that they would say that has anything to do with what they are doing today. They do it for Christmas, why not with everything else. (I know the answer, just sit there...out in the middle of nowhere...and wait for God to come (1914..the other comings...) ...maybe next year? -- wouldn't that be grand?)
I put up with alot of crap from JW's and their kids. In fact I still put up with it. Your simpathies are held close to my heart and valued.
Another social retard here.
In 7th English had to write thank you letters for xmas gifts in class. Lucky for me,I had 1 thankyou to write - to my grandfather who lived about 5 miles from me.He sent me some $.I saw him only 2 times in my life. Why you may ask, cause he was going to die in this Great War coming upon mankind.And we didn't want to die too. What a screwy religious cult.
The more emotional pain one goes through - and you survive - the stronger one becomes.
I can remember like it was yesterday, Christmas, Grade 5, 1961 one of the worst episodes of my young life.
Just as any child of fervent Jehovah’s Witnesses I was taught that the exchanging of colorfully wrapped department store items on a particular day was the epitome of despotic pagan degeneration propagated by the soon to be destroyed instrument of the Devil, Christendom and to have any part in a Christmas gift exchange meant forfeiting my very life…so far, so good.
However, as a child if I had received in-depth instruction on how to respond and deal with the psychological stigmatism resulting from complex social altercations while interacting with other children regarding ‘my’ stand on Christmas, I must have missed it.
I took great pride being the best student I could to please my favorite teacher Mr. Fairweather, he was the best. A talented teacher, a wonderful sense of humor, wore great suits, and drove an immaculate Ford 2 door with bucket seats and a hardtop. I had great respect for him as a teacher and looking back he was a mentor, my own father unfortunately couldn’t hold a candle to him as I understood him to be at that time of my youth.
This year’s class, Christmas took a profound turn over previous years because students in Mr. Fairweather’s class were required to take responsibility for their actions by pulling names out of a hat and spending a limit of one dollar on a gift and wrapping it ourselves. I had never personally participated in this type of activity and was bewildered and terrified as to how to deal with it because this may be the year someone would 'blow the Whistle' on me.
I was torn between having Jehovah destroy my life by compromising ‘my’ beliefs (what would my parents think!) or draw attention to my self and have my classmates refer to me as ‘one of those wacky ‘Jehobo’s’’. But more importantly what if I caused difficulty for Mr. Fairweather and disappointed him.
In addition, my parents did not appear to have a lot of loose change to spare during my childhood and during that Christmas I didn’t have a penny to my name.
Neither was it customary for me to ask my parents for spending money not only for a gift but I would have to devise a method of subterfuge to acquire transportation as well as buying wrapping paper. Besides, if I wanted to solve my current dilemma I would have to lie to my parents if I did ask for money because I couldn’t tell them I needed money to buy a Christmas present for a classmate. So I took the child’s easy way out.
I would try to ignore the problem until the fateful day was to arrive on the last day before Christmas break when the gift exchange would take place. I agonized every day and night until I cried myself to sleep worrying about having to face that fateful day and what I could do to get out of it including everything from feigning sickness to fantasying about what method to use to break a limb.
When the day of gift exchange finally arrived I was in a state of internal panic and internalized every dreaded feeling of foreboding making it impossible to concentrate on lessons taught by Mr. Fairweather because I still didn’t have a gift and as yet had not divulged my little secret that I was a nine-year-old Jehovah’s Witness on the brink of destruction.
That afternoon, students were asked to walk up and deposit their Christmas gift onto Mr. Fairweather's desk for distribution. Most of the class was too excited and talking with their neighbors to notice I didn’t have a gift in hand. As I walked up to Mr. Fairweather and exuding abject embarrassment, I told him I didn’t have a gift for the name I drew because I was a Jehovah’s Witness (I don’t believe I went into any great specifics other than ‘we’ don’t believe in Christmas).
His mouth dropped and his face turned red and grimaced with an anger and disappointment I had never experienced. He quickly told the class to break out pencil and paper barking out commands to perform some menial task in an effort to keep busy. He quickly asked another teacher across the hall to monitor us then he disappeared without saying a word to me. His silence hurt the worst because sub-consciously I was hoping he would say something like, “ Gosh, I didn’t now that! Doesn’t your family and Church know it’s not fair to force a child into a 'damned if you do, damned if you don’t' position?”
My worst nightmare had come true. I sat in complete misery not knowing my fate but having hurt and disappointed one of the most important people in my young life, death would have been merciful because I could see him through our classroom window off in the distance running down the street in just his suit, tie flapping over his shoulder during a gray, cold winter day heading to the nearest grocery store to return a while later with something in his hand.
Mr. Fairweather finally returned to class and placed a small plastic box of chocolate covered coconut fingers on his desk and proceeded to pass out the presents according to name and like the hypocrite I was, too stunned to turn down the gift a classmate had brought for me.
To this day I can’t remember the comment Mr. Fairweather made to me about my behavior for waiting so long to tell him because at the time, I was still in shock but I doubt even he realized the predicament circumstance, if not out of my control, beyond my understanding put me in.
Mr. Fairweather never commented to any of my classmates about my religious persuasion and they never knew what occurred that day. As a side note, I learned that regardless of how terrible you think others might view yourself or your activities, it quickly passes because invariably, others have their own problems to worry about.
Even though I agonized day and night before the incident, it faded into oblivion as far as Mr. Fairweather has concerned and he continued to treat me fairly and without prejudice while helping me distinguish myself in other school activities during two more years until I moved on to Junior High.
Perhaps Mr. Fairweather and his treatment of me after I felt I had let him down, was a most important example of how full of crap the WTBTS is and how much many of our lives are wasted helping that ridiculous ‘religious’ publishing company profit.
Flip
PS As we remember the almost three thousand souls lost at the WTC lets also give equal thought to the innocent civilian lives lost in Afghanistan. All, gone, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for doing what they were trained to do.
Happy holidays everyone and lets all work towards a better New Year than the last.
Hi all, especially to those who've come aboard since last December; thoiught I'd resurrect this one.
