My teen daughter is being pressured to get baptized :(

by lola-rabbit 26 Replies latest social family

  • lola-rabbit
    lola-rabbit

    My oldest teenage daughter (15) is a publisher and goes to all meetings with her father (we divorced, he picks her up). I try to get her more involved in school and to spend more time with friends outside the congregation. I'm to the point where I'm going to simply forbid it and send her off to collage early! I keep telling her that until she is 18, she is not an adult and can not make a smart decision concerning something so important that is going to control every aspect of her life. But I'm scared she will be convinced to do it. Please give me advise, and send me some "SMART WORDS" that could impact her.

    I haven't preached in over 6 years and I'm slowly dimming myself out. I have many conversations with her on some of my points of view on the org. and she listens,... but her father has a convincing tongue and I don't want her to be pushed.

  • N.drew
    N.drew

    Hi! I don't remember if I said welcome lola-rabbit. WELCOME

    Is Jehovah pressuring your daughter to be baptized? Of course not!

    Ask her to meditate deep and long about why she might be baptized.

    Her dad wants her to? WRONG

    Her friends think she should? WRONG

    She wants her own soul be saved by baptism as JW? WRONG

    She wants to present herself to do God's will, not her own for the rest of her living days?

    Tell her she can do that privately , she doesn't need water baptism to do that for now.

  • Prefect
    Prefect

    A few weeks ago at our circuit assembly it was announced in baptism talk that a 9 year old was going to be baptised.

    Everyone thought that was great. (Clapping)

    I think not.

    Not a good idea.

  • diamondiiz
    diamondiiz

    She has to come to her own conclusion that wts is a cult and that wts will make her life harder in the real world. If GB are just self appointed men why get baptised only to get possibly shunned by friends and family down the road. Get her to find friends outside of the congregation so she can pull away from the cult that's pulling he under.

    Try to get her to stop going to the meetings as it is very influential on youth who are just discovering the world and you don't want wts influence - before you know it she'll shun you because you don't agree with GB.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    LOLA, what is your standing in the congregation? From your post about preaching, I assume that you used to be a JW. Are you being shunned? If so, reason with her that as long as she remains unbaptized, she can still talk with you without guilt. What happens after baptism? Will she be pressured to move in with her dad?

    Tell her the true cost of baptism. Don't hold back the evil horrors of being shunned. Make her imagine her life with her father and closest friends turning their backs on her in times of need, illness, and even death. Make her understand the evil filthy side.

    NC

  • Scully
    Scully

    Jesus didn't get baptized until he was 30.

    The WTS cautions people from getting married too young, or too quickly. Baptism is supposed to be even more serious than marriage, so it should not be rushed, and shouldn't be undertaken too young, because of peer pressure, or because the congregation or her dad thinks it's time. Think of some people she might know who got baptized young, and then got in trouble and ended up DFd. Nobody goes into baptism with the intention of eventually being DFd, but circumstances change, and you don't want her to have regrets.

    Baptism is merely an "outward display" of a personal dedication to god. Just like a wedding is an "outward display" of a couple's intention to spend their lives together. She probably knows that there are people who shouldn't be married, or ended up divorced or separated, and sometimes a few of those divorced couples can still be friends. But that's not an option with baptism when you're a JW. You want her to keep her options open.

    She's got lots of time to decide on baptism, but she needs to focus on her education first. Finish high school. Go to college or university. Start a career and have marketable skills. Show her some career options and pay expectations. Show her what it costs to rent an apartment, buy a house, feed a family, what her clothes and make-up costs, how much a vehicle and its maintenance costs. Jehovah ain't payin' for all that... she will have to, and she won't be able to afford nice things if she's Pioneering™ or has to take minimum wage employment to support herself. Show that she will want a good job with benefits and a pension plan so she won't have to work like a dog until she dies.

    The WTS shoots itself in the foot by discouraging education of its young people. When I finished high school in the very early 80s, I was pressured into getting baptized - Armageddon™ was Just Around the Corner™ back then too. It's been over 30 years since I got Baptized™, and now I wish I had trusted my gut and waited. I can't have a relationship with my JW siblings [I'm not DFd or DAd BTW, they just think I'm Bad Association™] or my nieces and nephews by them. My kids aren't allowed to associate with their cousins [nobody among them is Baptized™, but again, my kids are Bad Association™]. My never Baptized™ siblings have a relationship with the JW ones... and they do way worse $h!t than I ever did. It's just so unfair and messed up and ridiculous, but that's what my life turned out like, just because I changed my mind and decided I couldn't - in good conscience - be a practicing, believing JW anymore.

  • lola-rabbit
    lola-rabbit

    I was censored 6 years ago, and out of anger stopped preaching completely. My entire family is JW, and all thou I do not preach and I've been inactive all these years... I do attend some meeting to make my parents happy. The elders have spoken to me and have offered to remove my censorship and welcome me back to full "previous", and I have rejected them, and stated that I am fine and happy the way I am. Since, I keep this front with my family, (sitting on the wall, just waiting to leap)... I don't think my daughters will be taken away from me if I completely stop attending. The father will just continue to take them to meetings and preaching.

    My older brother was never baptized, and when he was 18 he was "disfellowhipped".... I was 10 and I remember the day they made the announcement on stage, it was as if a family member had passed away.... it turned my family's life upside down... one year later the GB stated that if a person was never baptized they could never be dis-fellowshipped since they never truly committed to God. Incredible, all the suffering they cause our family, to then later just take their words back.

    True Jesus did not get baptized until 30, and she would never get married at 14... so then why make such a huge commitment at such a young age. I was baptized at 16, and I never attended a collage because Armageddon was around the corner... I don't want my kids making the same mistakes I made.

  • flipper
    flipper

    LOLA-RABBIT- Welcome to the board , if I didn't say so before ! I'm sorry to hear your daughter is being pressured to get baptized so young. Having been raised myself in the JW " religion " I knew the pressure of getting baptized at 13 yrs.of age. Suddenly you have this pressure of not being able to get too close to a prospective girlfriend at age 16 - 18 because of the threat of disfellowshipping. So it forces young people aged 18-20 to get married way too young because they know they'll get DFed if they don't get married as no sex is allowed for unmarried people.

    So , it's not only that a person is too young to make a life altering decision like baptism as a teenager , but if they DO get baptized at that age- it forces them into making decisions to get married too young so as to remain approved by the WT society. Yet most people this age 18-20 are too immature in an emotional way to marry at that point. So early baptism forces a young person to make other decisions they are not prepared for. So that might be something to discuss with your daughter as well. Good luck to you, I know it's not easy

  • ziddina
    ziddina

    Crazy suggestion, Lola... And welcome to the board, by the way!!

    Anyway - crazy suggestion...

    Tell her that you'd be thrilled if she got baptised, you'd be proud to attend her baptism - if...

    IF !!!!!

    She follows Jesus' example [he's the "Great Teacher", remember?? ] and waits until she's thirty years old to get baptised...

    Tell her you'll buy her a car, instead, if she waits until then...

    Now, if she's already champing at the bit to get baptised now, then I doubt that this will work...

    You could do what the Watchtower Corporation does - use guilt and fear to manipulate her...

    Oh, wait... That wouldn't work.

    Because, unlike the Watchtower Corporation's attitude towards your daughter, you actually LOVE her!

    But seriously. Keep throwing Jesus' example up to her. If it was good enough for him, then it's good enough for her.

    Zid the She-Devil

  • ziddina
    ziddina

    Whoops, Scully already said it... And Flipper... And a few other people...

    Serves me right for not reading the entire thread before I replied...

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