It's not what my experience was (I was 19 when I first met someone from twi)... but I DO know there are people here that have shared that growing up in twi thing with you.
While sheltering our children from bad influences can be a good thing, I have seen cases where this was taken to an extreme in religious families, especially in twi. I have a young friend who was raised in twi and is still in. She was never allowed to have any friends outside of twi, never allowed to date (because there were no boys her age who were in twi in the area she grew up in), never allowed to listen to secular music, and never allowed to watch a movie that was rated anything harsher than G.
She is a very sweet girl, but she has no clue about life. While she was sheltered from the "evil" that flourishes around her, she also was never exposed to anything harmful where she could actually see what was happening around her...
It reminds me of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty where it is fortold that when the princess turns 16 years old she will prick her finger on a spindle and die... Her parents, in an effort to protect the princess, destroy or hide all of the spindles in the entire kingdom, thereby making it impossible for the princess to prick her finger, right?
WRONG. They miss one, and because Sleeping Beauty doesn't know what a spindle is, when she finds the spindle she immediately touches it, pricking her finger and fulfilling the prophecy.
Wouldn't it be better for them to show her the spindle and explain the truth of the situation? Sleeping Beauty would have then been aware of the evil and the danger, and therefore coule have protected herself.
Now this friend of mine is in her twenties and finally out on her own (kind of)... She is still controlled by her parents because she has no life experience and they are afraid she will make stupid decisions without their oversight. They still control who she dates, what job she has, and who she hangs out with. Hopefully she never comes across the spindle. I don't know what would happen to her then.
i find myself very angry that i didnt get a chance to make an actul connection with another person untill adulthood. everytime i see someone with a "best friend since kindergardern" i get a little jellous.
being raised to feel better than everyone else... calling unbelivers animals, being told that they were pawns of evil spirits obviously leaves one distant and judgemental.
the idea that god would bless you all the time, so if you were unhappy you were obviously sinning dosent mesh well with the early teen years.
I was fortunate enough to have a best friend from childhood who I got involved with twi - and who got out the same time I did. Praise God for small miracles! We are still very close.
And yes, being a teen in twi was not an easy thing to do - and from what I saw, for the most part, it led to a few different paths...
1. Child is afraid to do anything outside of the prescribed routine of twi and becomes a Way-bot adult because all ability to think on their own was completely squelched when they were small.
2. Child becomes completely rebellious once they have any freedom at all - gets involved with drugs, alcohol, and sex (think of all those kids at ROA...)
3. Child becomes depressed because of the inability to live at the standard set for them - and has no where to turn for help because they are obviously sinning if they have an emotional problem
4. Child ends up with a combination of all or some of the above.
All in all, it is a sad situation - their parents think they are doing the right thing... but the end results are not so good. I know more children of reverends in twi that used drugs on a regular basis and slept around with the other teens in their area than I care to think about. Then again, maybe they were really following their parents' lead in some cases.
Would changing certain aspects of my childhood really have made me better off? I don't know. I doubt it. I'm fairly happy now. Certain things sucked, some a lot. Life wasn't perfect. I wasn't protected. Somehow, though, I still managed to make it through without getting into drugs, having a lot of sex, getting in with the "wrong crowd." Outside of my brothers I didn't have a lot of TWI kids in the areas we lived. Maybe that was a good thing. I had friends that smoked cigs and weed and drank and bragged about their sexual escapades, but I only drank a little on occasion. My genetics would say I have a 50/50 chance of being an alcoholic. I guess I got the non-alcoholic side of that chance.
I never had the urge or thought or understood why people drank or smoked.
I was a dirty, skater, art kid as a teen.
Outside the "cool" groups.
My parents were pretty hands off when my older brother an I were teens.
We couldn't afford getting a car for me. So I rode with crazy friends or took the bus or skated most places.
School was a mix of getting in fights, being picked on, and slowly making friends. Welcome to the REAL cool club.
Looking back the family corps was a weird idea. I mean we were living on a compound in the middle of BFE farmville Indiana for two years. It was ok for me though. I know it wasn't for everyone, but we worked we played... we were hit with spoons and bibles (which was f'ed up) but it's not like it scared me for life or anything.
Gong WOW was bizarre and we lived with a lady who had a son who would torture us. A lot of people have that kid around though. Not just cult members. Of course, when us geeks and fringe freaks grow up, that dude is in jail while the rest of us are decent well rounded people.
I feel worse for my parents. They're still in, locked in, hooked in, what ever. They don't see anything wrong with what IS and has been so wrong. They have spent most of their adult lives in the way. Adulthood in twi was what sucked for me. Childhood was mostly fun. Of course, my parents were pretty cool, for the most part. If you don't have that, childhood is going to suck a lot more.
I must say, I think more than anything what helped me get through some of those tougher times was having my older bother around (even though we did pi$$ each other off a bit.) We laugh about it now. *shout out to my bro*
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Rocky
It's not what my experience was (I was 19 when I first met someone from twi)... but I DO know there are people here that have shared that growing up in twi thing with you.
P-Mosh, for one... but I'm sure there are more.
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copenhagen
Growing up in the way has pros and cons.
I was never raised in the way, my life sentence started in my 20's.
That being said the world is crazy and kids nowdays have a lot more
life experience a lot sooner then I did.
The postive is my kids usually only hang out with other way kids.
I can trust the way kids a lot more then others. Waykids take care
of others way kids hearts. They are postiveand supportive.
If something
comes up you know the parents will get involved and get the truth.
This superior thinking or mindset of way parents helps limit what
boundries kids will push if they know their parents care and stay
involved in their lives.
All my kids have never been in trouble did drugs and get great grades.
They also are very caring and do not have an eliete attitude.
Trust me drugs and sex are everywhere it started in
middleschool, and got way worse in
highshool.
We live in a good area and our school is in the top five in the state.
The downside is at times they catch some grief from other kids because
we will not let them go to wild parties or just hang out at the mall.
I do not feel they are missing much because,what they want to be exposed to
is what I regret doing as a teen.
In the big picture of life,
I hate the way int and do not trust their doctrine and leaders.
I hate that my family is blind and still drink the kool aid.
If I can see one bright side to it,it is that this little cult from
the arm pit of Ohio helps keep my kids away from the madness of the world
by giving a safe haven and great group of friends.....
copenhagen
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JavaJane
While sheltering our children from bad influences can be a good thing, I have seen cases where this was taken to an extreme in religious families, especially in twi. I have a young friend who was raised in twi and is still in. She was never allowed to have any friends outside of twi, never allowed to date (because there were no boys her age who were in twi in the area she grew up in), never allowed to listen to secular music, and never allowed to watch a movie that was rated anything harsher than G.
She is a very sweet girl, but she has no clue about life. While she was sheltered from the "evil" that flourishes around her, she also was never exposed to anything harmful where she could actually see what was happening around her...
It reminds me of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty where it is fortold that when the princess turns 16 years old she will prick her finger on a spindle and die... Her parents, in an effort to protect the princess, destroy or hide all of the spindles in the entire kingdom, thereby making it impossible for the princess to prick her finger, right?
WRONG. They miss one, and because Sleeping Beauty doesn't know what a spindle is, when she finds the spindle she immediately touches it, pricking her finger and fulfilling the prophecy.
Wouldn't it be better for them to show her the spindle and explain the truth of the situation? Sleeping Beauty would have then been aware of the evil and the danger, and therefore coule have protected herself.
Now this friend of mine is in her twenties and finally out on her own (kind of)... She is still controlled by her parents because she has no life experience and they are afraid she will make stupid decisions without their oversight. They still control who she dates, what job she has, and who she hangs out with. Hopefully she never comes across the spindle. I don't know what would happen to her then.
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copenhagen
JavaJane,
I agree with you 100%, my kids have a balance to life with
sports and school activities.
Movies graded according to age and its rating.
Sex no violence is ok most of the time.
The example you shared I have seen many times over.
The way puts a sranglehold on life but it is what kids need.
In our area the parents give them freedom just not
the exposure teens do not need to see.
I guess my area is lucky because what you described we all
have seen, so we teach them to think not blindly put them in the corner.
copenhagen
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nick
i find myself very angry that i didnt get a chance to make an actul connection with another person untill adulthood. everytime i see someone with a "best friend since kindergardern" i get a little jellous.
being raised to feel better than everyone else... calling unbelivers animals, being told that they were pawns of evil spirits obviously leaves one distant and judgemental.
the idea that god would bless you all the time, so if you were unhappy you were obviously sinning dosent mesh well with the early teen years.
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JavaJane
I agree, Nick...
I was fortunate enough to have a best friend from childhood who I got involved with twi - and who got out the same time I did. Praise God for small miracles! We are still very close.
And yes, being a teen in twi was not an easy thing to do - and from what I saw, for the most part, it led to a few different paths...
1. Child is afraid to do anything outside of the prescribed routine of twi and becomes a Way-bot adult because all ability to think on their own was completely squelched when they were small.
2. Child becomes completely rebellious once they have any freedom at all - gets involved with drugs, alcohol, and sex (think of all those kids at ROA...)
3. Child becomes depressed because of the inability to live at the standard set for them - and has no where to turn for help because they are obviously sinning if they have an emotional problem
4. Child ends up with a combination of all or some of the above.
All in all, it is a sad situation - their parents think they are doing the right thing... but the end results are not so good. I know more children of reverends in twi that used drugs on a regular basis and slept around with the other teens in their area than I care to think about. Then again, maybe they were really following their parents' lead in some cases.
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lindyhopper
This is a hard one for me.
Hindsight
sliding doors
the paradox of time travel
Would changing certain aspects of my childhood really have made me better off? I don't know. I doubt it. I'm fairly happy now. Certain things sucked, some a lot. Life wasn't perfect. I wasn't protected. Somehow, though, I still managed to make it through without getting into drugs, having a lot of sex, getting in with the "wrong crowd." Outside of my brothers I didn't have a lot of TWI kids in the areas we lived. Maybe that was a good thing. I had friends that smoked cigs and weed and drank and bragged about their sexual escapades, but I only drank a little on occasion. My genetics would say I have a 50/50 chance of being an alcoholic. I guess I got the non-alcoholic side of that chance.
I never had the urge or thought or understood why people drank or smoked.
I was a dirty, skater, art kid as a teen.
Outside the "cool" groups.
My parents were pretty hands off when my older brother an I were teens.
We couldn't afford getting a car for me. So I rode with crazy friends or took the bus or skated most places.
School was a mix of getting in fights, being picked on, and slowly making friends. Welcome to the REAL cool club.
Looking back the family corps was a weird idea. I mean we were living on a compound in the middle of BFE farmville Indiana for two years. It was ok for me though. I know it wasn't for everyone, but we worked we played... we were hit with spoons and bibles (which was f'ed up) but it's not like it scared me for life or anything.
Gong WOW was bizarre and we lived with a lady who had a son who would torture us. A lot of people have that kid around though. Not just cult members. Of course, when us geeks and fringe freaks grow up, that dude is in jail while the rest of us are decent well rounded people.
I feel worse for my parents. They're still in, locked in, hooked in, what ever. They don't see anything wrong with what IS and has been so wrong. They have spent most of their adult lives in the way. Adulthood in twi was what sucked for me. Childhood was mostly fun. Of course, my parents were pretty cool, for the most part. If you don't have that, childhood is going to suck a lot more.
I must say, I think more than anything what helped me get through some of those tougher times was having my older bother around (even though we did pi$$ each other off a bit.) We laugh about it now. *shout out to my bro*
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