by flipper 50 Replies latest jw friends
Very good point you make that lots of young people are carrying on normal " worldly " lives without their parents knowing or the elders. Then everybody freaks out if they get DFed. It shows you the adults don't know their teenagers like they think they do for sure. Young people are just going to appease mom and dad.
It also shows the lengths a kid will go to look good to the adults, while really saying FU to the religion and biding their time.
DINAH- So true what you say. Kids just try to look good and pull one over on the adults and they do bide their time until they are old enough to leave the house- then they can escape from WT witch mountain ! That's exactly what my son did with his JW mom. He had stopped going to meetings at 17 ( we were divorced by that time ) and his JW mom, my ex told him she would kick him out of the house when he turned 18 if he didn't go back to meetings. So I told him he could live with me as my love for him was unconditional, I didn't care if he went to meetings or not. That shouldn't determine a parents love, Jesus Christ. My ex was definitely hateful towards him. Still is to this day. But he has me and my wife
I don't have any young JW stats for you as my situation is weird on that. (Exposed to it as a child, but took to it as an adult).
I did want to add some age to your statement: If any of you here on the board are between 21 to 35 years of age - it's not too late to make a difference in your life and seek your freedom of mind.
ANY AGE FROM PRE-TEEN TO 100+, not just up to 35. Flipper was just trying to single out a certain segment of the viewers for his reasons. Even an old person deserves the real truth, a real understanding, mental freedom.
Thank God, my Dad was never a witness.
Of all the people my age, very few are still in. I know of one elder and one pioneer the rest are pretty well out. One works for the FBI (which proves to me it all depends on who your parents are if you can get away with that.) and I think 2 are dead.
OTWO, I was born in, df'd at 18. While enjoying my physical freedom, it me 14 more years to wake up mentally.
Had 3 kids, very active as they were growing up, only one left in the borg, pioneering.
Had 3 kids, very active as they were growing up, only one left in the borg, pioneering.
So you brainwashed your kids. Do I give you a cookie?
flipper
As a former 3rd generation JW, I'd say that the stats are really bad for the JW cult, much worse than many JWs want to acknowledge.
My sister quit at age 15 as she was counseled for 'inappropriate dress on the platform' - she married my best friend (a Dfd JW), they have 1 son in his early 20s who hates all things JW. She's recently divorced from my old school mate. His family all quit the cult in the 70s - another 4 young adults.
My brother DAd himself in the late 1980s when his marriage to a JW ended. His JW wife left the cult soon afterwards. Their 3 adult children have all abandoned the cult. His 2 grandchildren are being raised in non-religious households.
I DAd myself in 2003. My 4 sons are all out of the cult, and have first and/or masters degrees. My 2 grandsons are being raised in households without any religious beliefs.
Only my wife stubbornly clings on, although for how much longer, I don't know. On a positive side, Steven Hassan's book is starting to have some effect.
My only local friend from the JW KH started a successful fade shortly after I DAd myself - his wife, also. Of his 4 children, only 1 has anything to do with the cult. He comes from a 4th generation JW family held in very high regard. I shall be attending the Scottish Humanist Society Annual Conference with him next month and am looking forward to the day's events.
I think it is great that so many of my family have been set free from the cult. No one has anything constructive to say about JWs. Whenever an apportunity arises to damage the publics' viewpoint of JWs, they seize it to warn others of the dangerous mind-controlled cult that used to have a hold on them! Their efforts are having quite a negative impact on any (alleged) growth for the JWs.
lifelong humanist
Of the ones I grew up with in the congregation, ALL but me have left. And here I am trying a fade. I was considered the 'good witness girl' growing up, so much so that the young ones in the Kh treated me badly at the meetings and at school. They all left by the time they were about 15. I kept on going and at almost 30 falling away.
I think alot of people become disillusioned with 'the truth'. They also want to have the freedom everyone else enjoys, without feeling guilty.
Lifelonghumanist, I was 'counselled' many times for having a skirt that sat on my knees Apparently it was too short. I was all of 13 when I was first hassled for it and it continued well into my late teens. By 19 I was ready to leave the religion, all because people were so intent on focusing on petty things like the length of my skirt. I was fed up. I expressed my despair to my mum and brother, and they talked me back into staying. Maybe I'm a coward and that's what keeps me 'in' so to speak.
As long as there is a growth in numbers shown (by manipulation of those numbers) I don't think there will be any tipping point.
I remember the exodus of 76-79 and a few apostasy leavers in '81 - I was a mid teen and a lot of my peers left or didn't get baptised but around my then congo the numbers stayed steady afterwards. The numbers at our hall in the late 70's are little different than they are now - helped by higher than average longevity, especially in women and "low quality" mentally or emotionally challenged converts.
We still have a steady turnover, a few die-hards, with numbers staying about the same.
And in my extended family on both sides of my marriage I would say that many of the 17-35 age group have stuck with it, sadly. And that in some form of fulltime service (tm) or MS/Elder unless they have left to have kids. Even those that have got disfellowshipped have "gone back".
This group study change has made quite a difference - less pressure - and I think that slowly this religion will dumb down and require less effort (beyond blind obedience in lip service and money giving) - in our hall two meetings a week and once in the min each week with a bit of padded "incidental witnessing" (tm) and a report of 7/8 hrs = min.serv! Four hours will keep you in "good standing" and let you run a microphone.
