Avi...you crack me up...don't hold back tell us how you really feel.
LOL
I was thinking of forbidding my wife from taking the kids out in service
by Check_Your_Premises 167 Replies latest jw friends
-
EvilForce
-
Gill
Hi, I just thought I'd add my two pence worth here.
There was a lovely sister in the cong we went to and her husband was a policeman, also a lovely person.
He allowed her to take her three children to whatever meetings she wanted, no problem, but forbade her from taking them out in field service, ever. He remained kind and friendly with the elders and everyone else. Only one of the children became a JW the other two left as soon as they turned fifteen. He remained cool and calm over the whole situation....to his credit.
-
vitty
I forced my son to go out in FS and he hated it. Now hes out, thankgod. My daughter went out cos all her friends did, but hated it and now only goes out if she has to.
My friends husband forbade his kids to go out ( she took them anyway, on the sly) One hates it the other doesnt mind.
My other friends husband forbade it and they werent allowed to go to meetings either, she never took them out they never went to meeting till they were 16 years, it was all such a fantastic mystery that they couldnt wait to go. They where all baptized within a year of being allowed to go to meetings and now the three are all IN.
The big thing is neither opposing father ever gave them an alternative way of thinking they just allowed their wives to indoctinate them.
You must tell your children why YOU dont think its the truth. I know you dont want to anilate you wife but you must protect your kids.
-
TheListener
I've appreciated almost everyone's comments here. Thanks for asking a good question cyp. I might start a new thread about some other comments I've been thinking about.
-
stopthepain
don't let your children be magazine peddlers,they will thank you later IMO.
-
Check_Your_Premises
Well well well. I leave a simple thread with a few comments, thinking I have gotten my answer, and don't return for a day.
A lot sure can happen in a day.
So AFIN, apparantly you have decided to pass judgement on my quality as a parent based on a single word, and my desire to see them not participate field service. It appears I don't have to go to a great deal of effort to defend myself, since others here have done that ably. But still it is important to hear from the horses mouth.
First of all, don't get the idea that my lack of response in any way indicates that you got me with some sort of irrefutable, decisive zinger. I simply didn't look at the board. So all of your cheap bravado and taunting about "nobody has refuted me" is kind of silly to me. I wasn't here to read it. You probably cock off to people on tv alot don't you.
Second of all, you chose to label me as an uncaring parent based on a single post with no other knowledge of myself or my family. Kind of ballsy. I wonder if you would be willing to subject yourself to the same standard. I think we should all be glad that I am a Christian, dueling is no longer legal, and I don't know where you live. Otherwise it would be pistols at dawn, and you would lose.
As to my use of the word "pawn". I am admittedly irreverent and careless in my speech at times. Guilty as charged. In my defense, I was mostly looking at it from my brother's perspective. He would have to bear the brunt of choice I make. I am just naturally adverse to putting my problems on other people I guess. I would love to have them spend time with me instead, I love spending time with my children. As many here speculated correctly, I have a job.
As to my wanting to prevent them from field service. It is interesting that you used this example as proof that I am an unfit parent. The very reason I want them to avoid field service is because I want what is in their best interests. I do not feel it is in their best interests to participate in a religion that I find frankly to be blasphemous in claiming a divine appointment without any unique, and irrefutable evidence on par with the other known messengers of God. I also don't appreciate the way the group enforces/indoctrinates it's members with this belief system by use of well known and effective mind control techniques used by many similar groups ("where else can we go?" You would be surprised just how many groups are virtually identical).
Their mother is free to supply them with any information she sees fit. I am free to do the same. The children are free to make up their own minds in our household free from any coersion, judgement, or unethical indoctrination techniques.
This is my final word and the end of the discussion as far as I am concerned. Feel free to respond. I won't lie and say I won't read it. I probably will get bored and wonder what other words of mine you have picked out to attack me. I will not respond though. So don't flatter yourself again into thinking that my lack of response is somehow evidence of us all cowering in the face of your towering intellect. I simply have better things to do then respond to your inane, ignronant, and silly gibberish.
I do understand that I am criticizing your faith and that is difficult to hear. It is troubling when someone does not agree with our most cherished beliefs because it presents the possiblity that those beleifs might not be true. We are a communal animal you see. We use those around us to verify and validate our perceptions and conclusions. It keeps us from getting to detached from reality. It keeps us from engaging in wild fantasies and self-aggrandizing delusions. That is likely to happen to any of us in the absence of that constant reality check from our peers. You see it is simply human nature (pride) to imagine that world thinks us a lot more important than we really are.
Unfortuanately if you get around several people who share your delusions it can provide our fantasy with an illusion of reality! So much so, we are able to hold very tenaciously to those delusions. Then when someone does come around who challenges those most cherished beliefs, we are forced to rationalize it. The cheapest, easiest, and most cowardly way around this little challenge is to attack the person in question, and assume that they have dishonest or questionable motives. The fact that you were so willing to attack me so personally with so little other information makes me suspect that this particular method was used by you when you were met with a criticism of your most cherished beliefs.
I think all of us who are familiar with the witnesses are familiar with this technique. Anyone who does not accept their self-aggrandizing claims are always presumed to have dishonest and illegitimate motives. It is never considered that a person could possibly conscientiously disagree. Well sorry I am not putting up with that treatment and I therefore do not apply that treatment to anyone else. Hey, that sounds like a biblical principal I heard of... I can't put my finger on it though.... something about doing to people as you would have done to you.
Thanks to all my friends here who took up for me against all the cheap shots I took when my back was turned. See you in the trenches.
CYP
-
Chia
Excellent, CYP. You said it better than anyone else ever could. Ultimately it is your decision. And whatever you do, I know it'll be only after a lot of careful thought. It's only because you care for your children so much that you're even bringing this issue up, otherwise you wouldn't care what happened, you'd just let your wife take the kids and do whatever.
Some people are ignorant and don't know what they are talking about.
-
carla
I liked Johny cip's reply, that's just how I feel. If husband EVER tries to take child to the hell, it would truly be over my dead body. call 911 time!!! Never, ever in a million years. My family even worries if he alone with one of the kids in the family for any period of time. All the parents have warned their children not to listen to anything he has to say regarding religion. Poor uncle so& so is caught up in a cult. So sad. He was always the go-to-guy for many in the family for various problems. Now he is just too whacked out. carla
-
blondie
RR and Chia, definitely have a good perspective on what can happen.
I grew up in a "divided" household. We would have rather stayed home with our father, except he was sexually abusing us. Going to the meetings was a better choice rather than being home alone with him.
Be aware though that your wife and other JWs will do a guilt trip on your children. That is what the WTS teaches them to do. If you don't go to the meetings, that means you don't love God; Daddy doesn't love God because he doesn't go to the meetings.
Do have discussions, even study with your children; show them what the Bible reallys says, what the WTS leaves out. As Scully and others have pointed out, have fun things scheduled for them to do instead of going to the KH. I would have rather gone to a movie or stayed home and watched Star Trek with my father's permission (except for the distasteful fly in the ointment). My father would take the family out of town for the weekend to visit his friends so we missed the Sunday meetings frequently. Can you arrange outings like that?
Love, Blondie
-
M.J.
Carla, let me know how things pan out for you! I really would find it interesting. But at the same time, Johnny cip's situation and yours are similar in that the mother is the "opposer". I suspect that the mother naturally has more of a connection with the children, spends more time with them, and ultimately has more sway in their decisions and loyalties. I think its much easier for a father to be alienated from the rest of the family than the mother. So with the father being the "tyrant", I think the potential for disaster is much higher.
Throughout these years of being an "unbelieving husband", I've learned that I started out with a lot of the same hangups that I accused my JW wife of having: closed mindedness, fear of self-examination, and prejudice. Now that I've made strides in those areas I think that today she values my opinion more than ever and is much less prone to put up a shield when I talk to her. To some extent I think the same principles apply when trying to maintain a close connection with your kids.