Growing up in Jehovah Witness home
Here is one story:
I need to preface my answer with this: everyone’s experience is not going to be the same. While I hold the religion in extremely low regard (not the members themselves) for it’s clear cult practices, the guilting, the child sex abuse scandals, the personal effect on my mental health, etc., you can at least expect a baseline of a typical crummy JW childhood: no birthdays/holidays, no “worldly” friends, etc. Your parents are the ones who are going to make it somewhat bearable or a literal hell.
I had the unfortunate luck to have controlling and abusive parents.
I used to get beaten if my parents found out my Watchtower wasn’t studied (which entailed not only highlighting the answers but reading every scripture cited (unless it was already quoted) and writing it down in the magazine) for that Sunday. I still remember every Saturday night standing before my stepdad handing in my magazine for him to judge whether it was adequately studied or not.
The other thing I hated was the end of assemblies/conventions. As soon as we were on the road the dreaded question came up: “what did you like about the assembly/convention?” If I was fortunate enough to go last I could think of a BS response from whatever notes I took; if not, my usual response was “I don’t know”. That would result in getting berated about my apparent lack of spirituality the whole ride home, and on arrival, a beating or whatever punishment was deemed fit.
I was taken out of school and put in homeschool which effectively locked me in the house from 12 years old to when I finally was kicked out at 18. What is more, my peer relationships at the Kingdom Hall was even restricted depending on their “spirituality level.” If they were good enough in my mom’s eyes, at most they could come over to our house. Anything less and I couldn’t even work in field service with them. This, to this day, has severely hampered my social skills and had made me become severely judgemental.
https://qr.ae/psYtaw
I need to preface my answer with this: everyone’s experience is not going to be the same. While I hold the religion in extremely low regard (not the members themselves) for it’s clear cult practices, the guilting, the child sex abuse scandals, the personal effect on my mental health, etc., you can at least expect a baseline of a typical crummy JW childhood: no birthdays/holidays, no “worldly” friends, etc. Your parents are the ones who are going to make it somewhat bearable or a literal hell.
I had the unfortunate luck to have controlling and abusive parents.
I used to get beaten if my parents found out my Watchtower wasn’t studied (which entailed not only highlighting the answers but reading every scripture cited (unless it was already quoted) and writing it down in the magazine) for that Sunday. I still remember every Saturday night standing before my stepdad handing in my magazine for him to judge whether it was adequately studied or not.
The other thing I hated was the end of assemblies/conventions. As soon as we were on the road the dreaded question came up: “what did you like about the assembly/convention?” If I was fortunate enough to go last I could think of a BS response from whatever notes I took; if not, my usual response was “I don’t know”. That would result in getting berated about my apparent lack of spirituality the whole ride home, and on arrival, a beating or whatever punishment was deemed fit.
I was taken out of school and put in homeschool which effectively locked me in the house from 12 years old to when I finally was kicked out at 18. What is more, my peer relationships at the Kingdom Hall was even restricted depending on their “spirituality level.” If they were good enough in my mom’s eyes, at most they could come over to our house. Anything less and I couldn’t even work in field service with them. This, to this day, has severely hampered my social skills and had made me become severely judgemental.
https://qr.ae/psYtaw
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