being born in you miss most things and it's easy to grow into a very dysfunctional adult, and your social skills and ability to integrate are often affected.
it's easy to list the things from being a kid, no kid wants to go out door knocking every week, for hours and hours, have to do the days text every morning at 7am, family study every week, not be allowed to have friends in school, meetings 3 times a week, have to prepare the watchtower and books and parents check to make sure you have, give talks from the age of 6... dad was account servent when we were very young, so getting to bed before 11pm on a thursday was an impossibility, no birthdays or xmas, even though these were the same day for me, so now in adult life i celebrate nothing because it just seems a waste of time...
for a few years we were banned from seeing my grandma because she was a catholic... she is in fact the sanest person in my family, we were never guided in any direction for work or education, ever, so i guess we missed out there too... if you were to ask me when i was happy in life, i would say 'never', meaning i can't recall a time when i just felt 'ok'... so i guess i missed a lot of things that childhood should have been, but never was.
if the question is, did i give up my childhood... it's hard to say because what i had is all i know, i have nothing to compare it to except other kids i see, and what i would perhaps like for my own kids if i had any, i don't really think i gave it up, because it was never there in the first place, i just had a different life... i haven't liked it too too much, but to be honest i probably wouldn't change it.
(edited to add... i probably wouldn't change it, because it's mine)
