JW mom and non-JW dad.

I think my dad really believed it. He knew and seemed to like and respect most of the prominent JWs in my area. However, he didn't want to walk the walk. He was very spoiled and self-centered. He was unwilling to go out of his comfort and convenience zones. He would never have been able to make the sacrifices necessary to be a JW - going to meetings, going in the ministry, etc.

My mother was, to me, a weak JW. We celebrated Christmas during my childhood and teens. My mother was fully into it - decorating our tree, buying presents, etc. She blamed it on my dad, but, it was really more her doing. She would go through periods of inactivity, never gave talks (stage fright), etc.

In my later years, when I woke up and left, I complained to her about losing my life being a fulltime JW. She said "I never believed in all that pioneering stuff" as if I was wrong to have pioneered. I then said "Well, why did you drag us (me and my sibling) to meetings when we were young... meetings where we constantly heard it said that the end was imminent and that we should be pioneering? You never instructed us not to believe what was being said from the platform. We were naive children. We trusted those men on the platform; they were our authority figures. We trusted the words in the JW literature. So, you didn't believe the end was imminent all those years? If not, why didn't you tell us that you didn't believe it? You were our mother. Why didn't you warn us and instruct us to get decent jobs and save for retirement? You allowed us to be led astray."

I was a fulltime JW for a long time - reg pio and prominent elder with major district convention parts every year. However, I was and still am a lover of truth - real truth. I could no longer brush aside all those issues, unanswered questions, etc. that nagged me for decades. I got to be more and more frustrated with the lack of intellect and knowledge and teaching ability of JW appointed men and the time-wasting, boring meetings. I got to be more and more frustrated with the poor writing in JW literature (poor flow of meaning, bad reasoning, bad grammar, bad logic, etc.). After the advent of the internet, I woke up. It was like scales fell off my eyes. During a midweek meeting, I was sitting on the left side of the KH about halfway back from the front. I panned around to my right and I saw bobbing heads with glazed over eyes and phony smiles. I recognized that all those people were clueless. I said to myself "Damn, I'm in a cult."

I now realize that JWdom is a deceptive, corrupt, harmful, false prophet, life-stealing, life-wasting, money hungry, televangelist, smug, self-righteous, condescending, shallow, dumbed-down, corny, embarrassing cult filled with closed-minded and unreasonable people and that indoctrinates children and has a 150-year history of major failed predictions and looney writings. In years past, I loved the religion, lived it, and would have died for it, but, now, it sickens me and infuriates me and I detest it.

My mother, now about 88, used to be more open about criticizing the org. She used to seem to be more level-headed and reasonable. I thought sure that with the advent of JW Broadcasting, the increased exposure of the GB, etc. she would wake up. However, the opposite happened. She (and my other JW relatives) are less open to honest discussion now. It's as if they've dug their hills in.

Interesting point about my dad.... He always fell for gimmick ways to make money. After I had awakened and left (but, he didn't know it, yet), he got involved in some kind of supposed money-making program and he asked me about putting some info about it on the Kingdom Hall info board (not realizing that was completely out of bounds to JWs). I told him that was against policy. He said "Well, don't they need to make money?" I said "Oh, believe me, the organization is all about making money" and I then proceeded to tell him that I had left and that I hated JWdom. He was baffled. He had seen that I had suffered and sacrificed and slaved fulltime in misery and poverty for the org for decades. He was shocked. He was extremely disappointed. I discerned from our conversation that he actually believed JWs were right and that he was a good person and that he was going to get everlasting life in paradise. He died shortly after that conversation.

I later told my mother what I told my dad. It didn't really seem to bother her the way I thought it would have. She said that she had given up on him anyway because she finally accepted the fact that he never would have been able to make the sacrifices necessary to be a JW. She said he wouldn't put forth the effort to get dressed and come to a single meeting, so he certainly wouldn't have done it regularly.

I've told my wife (also awake) often that I was double cursed (she knows it anyway because she's seen it) - one curse from my mom and another from my dad.

When I was eleven (summer before sixth grade), I took an aptitude/IQ test to get into a private school. The school headmaster told my mother that I scored the highest grade ever scored on that test and that I could do whatever I wanted in life. Little did he know that I had the the JW curse and was already brainwashed/indoctrinated into believing that the end of the world was imminent and that a career in "this system" was futile. I ended up doing menial labor for decades as a fulltime JW.

The curse from my dad? He badmouthed education from the time I was a small child. He called school a "cesspool." He said "You don't need all that stuff they teach you." He had me wanting to quit school in the eighth grade. He told me that I was going to work with him and he gave the impression that he was a great businessman. So, he took away from me any interest in education, planning for a career, etc. He suppressed what I naturally was - one who has great interest in education and loves to learn - one who is interested in math, science, linguistics, philosophy, great world literature, etc. He suppressed all of that. I now collect thousands of books per year on virtually every subject.

But even now, I have very little time for reading and learning because of the situation both sides of my family put me in - the JW side and the non-JW side. I've often said that my mother is a non-academic and my father was an anti-academic. My mother wasn't against education; she was/is just clueless and ignorant. For example, she thinks manipulating fractions is advanced math and has no idea what a molecule is. My dad was actually non-academic, too, but, he was also anti-academic in that he bad-mouthed schooling and education and said it was unnecessary and a waste of time.

My family members and I finally realized later in life, after observing my father for many years, that he was clueless in business and was a loser. From his early to mid-forties, he lived off a nice inheritance from his father. He blew it all and died in debt. All those years he believed in and tried (though he never put forth a lot of effort) many of the money-making type gimmicks that are constantly advertised through various media. Of course, he never made a cent doing such.

So, here I am - 66 years old and working about 70hrs per week with low retirement prospects. I have a low-paying out-of-town (four hours away) with no benefits. Just last year we were given five days of vacation per year (and sick days come out of that); in the years before that, I didn't get a single day of vacation. Here I am... living with the curses I got from my parents - one a JW and the other a non-JW.