AndersonsInfo

http://watchtowerdocuments.org/did-you-know-having-children/#comment-474

Here's the short article found in the "Did You Know?" series found on Watchtower Documents, and, underneath it, is the unusual comment:

Did You Know? (Having Children)

…Jehovah’s Witnesses were told not to have children?

As far back as 1938 the Watchtower was urging Jehovah’s Witnesses not to marry and rear children because of the “urgency” of the witnessing work. Hence, many Witnesses from that era did not marry or have children. (The Watchtower, November 1, 1938.)

Less than 40 years later a 1974 Awake! magazine clearly stated on page 11 that since the evidence that destruction of this entire system of things was “now imminent,” many couples are remaining “childless so that they would be less encumbered to carry out the instructions of Jesus Christ to preach the good news of God’s kingdom earth wide before the end of this system comes.” (Awake!, November 8, 1974)

Once again, during the 1987 District Assemblies of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a lecture was given entitled, “Responsible Child-bearing in This Time of the End.” Watchtower speakers encouraged young brothers and sisters to stay single and married couples to remain childless because of “the nearness of Armageddon.”

In the provided audio presentation below you can hear exactly what the attendees heard on Day 2 of those conventions during the summer of 1987. Watchtower district and circuit overseers read the exact, word-for-word talk to audiences in the United States and Canada. Similar talks were given to international audiences of Jehovah’s Witnesses that same summer and later that year. Most of what those speakers presented in the following talk was reinforced by articles published in The Watchtower for January 15, 1988 and the Awake! for January 22, 1988.

[The audio presentation link was omitted from this JWN post.]

Many JWs missed out on ever having children…

Below read the comment made regarding the information provided in the short "Did You Know" article:

"I’m a Witness. This pisses me off to no end. It’s completely true. https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2000565 That’s a 2000 article. I have 4 kids. In 1994, I was told by a prominent elder in my congregation when I was 2 months pregnant with my first that I was making a bad decision. The System was going to end any day, this system is evil and we are having times hard to deal with. “Why would I want to subject someone to this cruel world” in shock I walked away. I was told this again by another elder. Then two other sisters. I felt shunned in my congregation because my husband and I were not towing the line of “dedication to field service” instead of “pursing a worldly life an career” I did this 3 more times happily!
Fast forward 22 years later. There are NO SINGLES for my kids to date. They’ve had to travel endlessly in search of other Witnesses their age to date. It’s a missing generation. I can go on about this for hours. This is completely true and dangerous."

steve2

It's really sobering - and sad - that the normal desire to marry and have children has been so adversely judged in JW organization at the behest of Rutherford. Even so, here in New Zealand, there was a baby-boom among JWs after 1975. I wonder why?

My mother told us she was at the 1941 convention when Rutherford - who would be dead within a year - "released" his book Children and it was distributed to all children in the audience. She loved books - whether or not written by him. For her it was a vivid memory - although as she got older, she was somewhat confused about where the convention was and whether it was Rutherford who gave the talk.

Whatever the case, it's a good thing she did not follow the admonition in that book to remain unmarried and childless in the remaining "months" of this system of things - otherwise I would not be writing this over 75 years later.

snowbird

I remember both the 1974 and 1987 admonitions.

I don't think anybody in this area paid it too much attention.

jp1692

Millions now dying will never live. They are all in the JW cult.

WHATSGOINGON

Thanks Barbara.

I found this quote from the article disturbing

Bernice, a Nigerian, has been married for 19 years and remains childless by choice. For the past 14 years, she has served as a pioneer. As she approaches the time of life when it will no longer be possible for her to bear children of her own, she feels no regret about devoting her life to disciple making. She says: “I feel happy to see my spiritual children growing up. Even if I had children of my own, I doubt that they would be closer to me than those I have helped to learn the truth. They treat me as though I were their natural mother, discussing with me their joys and problems and asking for my advice. They write letters, and we visit one another.

Thats crazy talk, how can you not be closer to your own flesh and blood, your own children that you brought into the world !!

Nuts

WGO

Finkelstein

Yes another sad culpable story about the WTS and its aggressive control over its adherent followers.

Children were seen as a crippling obstacle for people going out in service distributing the WTS's literature.

J Rutherford saw and looked only whatever was going to strengthen his religious publishing organization and time consuming children was not on that list.

stillin

I remember an assembly speaker saying that our having children was NOT where the Great Increase was meant to come from.

Yet...

ctrwtf

I live fairly close to Bethel. Subsequent to leaving their assignments, quite a few stay in the area. It's so sad to see the emotional toll that being childless has taken on these couples, especially on the sisters. This is one of the most heinous policies thrust upon them. Just sickening.

Etude

It's ironic. My one JW sister told me years ago that the main reason for sex (according to the infinite wisdom of Jehovah) is solely to procreate. I was marveling in a conversation how nice it was for Jehovah to give us that extraordinarily delicious pleasure. She had resented my mention of all the sexual references in the O.T. contrary to her perception of Jehovah as a husband and father, rather than a cheated person whose wife spread her legs at every opportunity. "She lusted after them like the concubines of men whose male members are like those of a donkey and whose genitals are like those of a horse." Ezekiel 23: 20 NWT

My sister had 3 kids. Before all of this, I was newly arrived at Bethel and wondered why a married couple was "checking out", leaving Bethel. Thinking that there must be some hardship for leaving, when I asked them why, they simply told me that they wanted to start a family. That was back in 1974! Obviously, some people just didn't buy it, including my sister.

Etude.

gma-tired2

Let me say in 1967 as I was pregnant with my first child how many of the sister asked if I realized how hard it was going to be to have a baby during the tribulation into Armageddon that baby will be 50 his next birthday. I was never to grow up 70 my next birthday.

Want to read a surprising comment/complaint posted on my website about JW's encouraged not to have kids. Who would have thought!