JW since you were small....did your parents expect too much?

wantstoleave

A couple of other threads made me think about this.

Do you think that JW parents expect far more of their children than non-JW parents?

Even if we discount the religious side of things, do you think you were more answerable to your parents? You had fears of disappointing them?

I wonder how many others feel like me, raised in the truth (since age 3), oldest child and that sense of obligation to ones parents that probably goes beyond what it should. For instance, feeling the need to tell my parents everything that goes on in my life, like it's expected of me. Including them in everything I do because they don't have their own friends. The feeling of disappointing them hanging over my head like a cloud full of rain.

My younger brother is no longer a witness. My baby sister recently got baptised. I am the oldest and I feel so much more is expected of me. Not secularly wise (I have a degree), but in everyday decision making etc. Whereas my brother and sister never feel obligated to tell my parents their business, or visit them as often as I do.

Have you ever felt like this? If so, how did you overcome it?

Black Sheep

Yes, and 40 years later they are still pissed off they didn't get it.

yknot

Of course!

They pass on the demands of purity they themselves are subjected too!

Having knowledge of 'Troof' made you responsible for doing your part in the harvest work, similar to the poor 5 year old who could pick a hundred pounds of cotton daily to help support his family back in 1928.

.... the Western world's view of childhood has greatly changed in the last 100 years, so I know the demands could have been more and the opportunities less when I look at what was and still is happening to girls in Islamist countries.

Yknot......harvest worker since the age of 3.

blondie

My father was not a jw and was more demanding and expecting perfection than any jw I have ever met. I thought my name was Stupid until I was about 5.

Snoozy

A lot of Catholic kids have the same problem.. A lot of times it is just the parents.

WTWizard

It might be the parents sometimes. However, when you hear at every a$$embly things like "Make it your goal to pio-sneer as your career", or "Develop your children to go to Beth Hell", or (for men) "You should be reaching out to be a hounder" (I hear them at the Circus Meeting also), I think it's the religion putting pressure on the parents to develop their children into pio-sneers, Beth Hellites, and hounders.

babygirl30

I am a grown 'arse' woman and my parents STILL expect 10x more out of me now as they did when i was growing up. Always supposed to be a walking, living, breathing - example to all. It was stressful and really has given me 'issues' because I always feel like I am NOT doing the 'right' thing....when in actuality, the only thing I'm doing is making my OWN choices for ME - not for mom and dad anymore.

Farkel

:JW since you were small....did your parents expect too much?

Come on! You know the answer! It's a self-answering question!

Farkel

wantstoleave

Farkel, more of wanting to hear if others felt the same is all

bluecanary

It's an individual thing with parents. I have a wonderful mother who was always happy with us. And I had a lousy stepfather whom I was never good enough for.

The religion itself is a different entity. It's like the third parent for whom you are never good enough.

JW since you were small....did your parents expect too much?

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