Born-In Girls--Did You Have a Doll at KH

by Band on the Run 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Band on the Run

  When I was preschool, I had several dolls. Meetings were so hard at that age. In fact, they were agony my entire life. My mother allowed me to take a single doll if I were quiet during the meeting. If I made noise or cried, she promised to take the doll away. When I brought my French fashion doll, Suzette, to the suburban KHs, she was welcomed. I had great trouble putting on her outfits so she arrived naked. A brother who gave the public talk and was an old family friend, bend down for a formal introduction. It did not go so well at the city KH. She was condemned.

  I am wondering if any others had experience with dolls or other toys.
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  blondie

  No toys allowed except a picture book cobbled from WT magazine/book pictures. No coloring books--children wrote on chairs. Parents who disobeyed were talked to.
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  Listener

  Toys were considered completely inappropriate. The only things we were allowed to hold were songbooks, the bible or publications.
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  rayelynnlee

  I have never seen a doll in the KH. A worn copt of my book of bible stories and a notebook to doodle in is all I've seen for little kids.

  I feel like there's a spotlight on me if I have bottle of water in the hall, nevermind a coffee cup Saturday morning. It's so weird.
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  mynameislame

  Interesting, I don't remember thinking about this before or any specific rules but I also don't remember ever bringing toys to the hall or seeing anyone with them. Some moms brought wooden spoons.

  What a weird religion.

  It's like they use a dartboard to choose the rule uh I mean suggestion of the week.
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  GrreatTeacher

  No toys allowed, though once I smuggled a Barbie in and settled her within the leafy branches of one of the fake trees on the platform. She wasn't discovered by anyone except some other children whom I let in on the joke earlier in the evening.
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  zebagain

  never saw a doll in kh. I recall some kids (pre-schoolers)had little cars in their pockets and played with them quietly on the floor.

  GT: Good 4 you.
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  CWstudy

  We were never allowed toys of any kind at our hall. I grew up in the 60's when the JW ranks were growing in leaps and bounds because everyone thought the world would end in 1975.

  I was never allowed to miss a meeting and was expected not only to sit and listen attentatively but I also had to "comment" during the Watchtower study.
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  Band on the Run

  So, Suzette was a trailblazer. I thought so. Why in my dotage am I suddenly realizing all the ways my mom resisted within her own sphere. I suppose I should have dressed her. My sister played thumbkin endlessly. I see the Sunday School kids having so much fun and I feel tears well up. When the teens do Ireland or something, I am so jealous. I am very happy for them. Perhaps I should volunteer to chaperone.
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  SecretHeart11

  when I was really little , we weren't allowed to go to the KH with my mom so I was slightly older and I don't remember ever bringing toys, just notebooks and maybe pencil crayons or coloured pens. Sometimes for "fun" we got to tally up how many times they said certain words during meetings. Lol.

  Now, even before being mentally out I would bring my kids one or two quiet toys, small books (those horrible worldly books, you know the ones that teach abc's and such!), stickers and notebooks and pencil crayons. I never was spoken to. Although my mom would give me looks and say "you only ever had your theocratic items". Then I reminded her she never had toddlers or preschoolers at the meetings.

  I would totally let my kids bring dolls. It's ridiculous that they expect kids to stay up way past their bed time and sit completely still during a meeting that even adults find painful.