**
Annie ... you see filip as seeing hypocrisy and nonesense ... I see a kid who found an audience on the net that makes him feel good. No rules ... don't obey parents ... life (outside org) is just a bowl of cherries.
Whatever his views *are*, the prospect of being a JW and the WTS "religion" is not appealing to him or will bring him happiness. As I pointed out earlier---he may change his mind and accept it down the road. (Don't GO there, yakking about the End is near-no time to mess around, etc)
I raised six kids in the WTS and all but one were very unhappy all through their childhoods. They hated every aspect of it. I would do anything to have been another kind of Mom to them---and I *would* have had the normal rules to live by. Just because people don't live the worthless WTS ratrace doesn't mean that they're all failures as parents.
That's another WTS fallacy.
When you said that helping a child go against his parents is a terrible thing---it makes me think of something *I* did a year before I left the WTS. There was a 15 year-old girl that had been studying and wanted to get baptized. She lived a few miles from me and we planned (with the elders permission) to bring her bathing suit etc out here the day before when her parents weren't home. The DC was the next morning and she came with a family that picked both of us up. Her parents knew she was going to the DC but didn't know the rest......
So I helped her to "go against *her* parents" in an underhanded way and it was hunkey-dorey with everyone at the KH. Theocratic warfare and all that. I'm just doing and saying what my heart tells me---I always have.
**Life can be a lot tougher if you don't have family. He has that.
Yeah, the WTS has sure screwed MINE up. I know that for sure! Only two of my five birth children speak to me now.....and even *that* took time after I left the WTS. They were so confused, upset and angry that after ALL I had put them through and deprived them of---that I changed my MIND after 30 years!!!
You say "he has that" but WHO would be at fault in seeing that his parents would even consider putting him out or disowning him??? What you seem to overlook is that the JWs take first chair in the orchestra and the WTS/conductor calls the shots. Good grief---even the Bill of Rights or the Constitution (whichever) guarantees the pursuit of happiness and the WTS says that you can have happiness but do it OUR way!
Yes, Filip is only 15, but *I'm* not---and I have been "on punishment" by the WTS rules because I chose to change my mind when confronted with facts I had not previously known about them. It's my RIGHT---but the WTS doesn't recognize that. How pompous is that?
**He isn't too pleased with his family right now ... most teens aren't. Helping a child go against his parents is a terrible thing.
As I said---I've raised six teenagers and I know the pitfalls and surprises.
**Your slant on the WTS is just that ... another opinion. As long as filip lives at home, his parents deserve respect and, yes, obedience. When he is an adult, then he can decide what path he should take.
For the most part I agree with you here, but the word "obedience" carries a lot of unseen and unspoken nuances doesn't it? Seeing as how he is a pretty well-rounded kid otherwise, and that the problems seem to stem around his inclusion in the WTS---the dynamics are different than one who is skipping school or selling drugs.
As much as his parents surely do love him, they're making him miserable by intimidating him about having to "get out", etc. They ARE desperate, and I totally know where they're "at" right now. I've walked that path too. It was said that they have lost control---and that's the absolute heart of the matter. They are grasping at straws-just like I did. It's scarey! But my kids were brought up with good values, morals, compassion, kindness and are good people.Just because they decided not to become JWs does not automatically make them evil. Filip can still be a child to love and be proud of even if he isn't going to be a JW!
I'm not saying that they didn't do some really stupid things and some terrible judgement calls---but didn't we ALL do that? It's the basics that shine through after they reach maturity---and you can't change that.
Standing in my shoes, I would have done things so much more differently. I loathe the day I acceted a "home bible study" and SO wish I could undo the last 30 years.I live with this every day and mourn the loss of what could well have been a Norman Rockwell painting of my own. And skimming this close to the parents wrecking their family forever frightens me ---for them. They'll be the ones who will suffer all the after-effects, and the WTS will still go on being a cold and impersonal business with loyal followers.
It's such a shame.
Annie
PS-Incense: I have what you posted up on my fridge---it was given to me at a support group for handicapped kids. I always love it.
