When my son was 18, he told his father and I that he no longer wanted to go to the meetings. His father immediately kicked him out of the house. I remember it was the Friday of the CO Visit. My heart broke that night, the terrible gut-wrenching sobs that you never really recover from.
I was forbidden tohave anything to do with him, or to help him make his way in the world. But I disobeyed. I kept in touch with him against his father's wishes, gave him money, a job and the things he needed - dishes, sheets, towels, etc.
The people my son had grown up with, the people who had watched him grow up, his grandparents, aunts and uncles....it was as if he had died, but there was no funeral, and no one talked about him. It was as if he never existed. I believe only one person ever asked me how he was doing.
The part that bothered me was that we heard experiences at the assemblies and read them in the magazines about how WORLDLY people would cut off family members who became Witnesses, and this was proof of them being led by Satan. How was this any different? It doesn't make sense.
My son's own father was rejected by his Catholic family when he became a JW - but it was a brief rejecting. They weren't happy but they accepted him as part of the family no matter what he believed.
I have made it clear to my children that there is NOTHING they can do that will make me reject or shun them. It's been hard to convince them of this, because of their experience with the Witnesses.
Like Loz, I wish I had come to my senses and gotten my kids out earlier.
Palmtree, that was incredibly hard reading. It must have been awful for you. I really believe that it would feel like a death to have to have nothing to do with my children as adults.
The way Jehovahs Witnesses act in this regards disgusts me & anyone that I speak to about this issue feels the same.
JW's - Take a good look at yourselves. You are destroying lives!
