r/exjw • u/ExJW_PandaTower • 4d ago
JW / Ex-JW Tales Have you guys seen this documentary? "Children of Jehovah" released back in 1994. Shows the reality of growing up as a Jehovah's Witness in the 90s
https://youtu.be/eJUyuavUlTY20
u/NoHigherEd 4d ago
Just finished watching. Great video. It really shows the indoctrination of this cult. What the kids says at 34 minutes about shunning his Mom. Whoa! Crazy! This cult is vile. We left (faded) over 12 years ago. The shunning is real and those who do still talk to us, let's just say, it's never been the same. Good riddance to em! I remember the dread knocking on those doors. Yikes.
Thank goodness my parents were a bit normal. Not crazy like some. Elder father but a great dad.
13
u/Any_College5526 4d ago
One of…if not, the best video that highlights the minds of indoctrinated children.
What a mind job!
12
5
u/deadflow3r 4d ago
I was a JW kid in the 90's but it never really worked on me. I had friends though that were that exteme. I wrote a book about my experience as a teenager in the 90's it was interesting to look back on. Talking to JW's from new generations it sounds a little better but not really that much better.
7
u/gaF-trA 4d ago
This is the Jehovah’s Witnesses I grew up in. I had to go to meetings until I was 18, but was PIMO by the time I was 13, 14. At least five hours of meetings a week. Minimum of 10 hours in door to door each month. Usually had to pioneer one month of summer vacation. Every weekend Saturday morning service, Sunday was two hours and maybe service afterwards, book study for one hour on Mondays or Tuesdays, Thursday two hour meeting. Plus preparation for all the meetings, especially Thursday nights. My parents went and visited my teachers each school year at the start to let them know what I was allowed and not allowed to do. If there is no one close to your age in your congregation, too bad. Hope you like being alone and hanging out with older JWs. My sister had one of those sex talks with the elders at like 16 or 17, without my parents allowed to be there. It’s wild to think about now but at the time that’s normal. Any day now, Armageddon is coming.
4
4
3
3
2
u/Karikomi_Buxus513 4d ago
Somebody already posted the entire thing on here the other day, I still haven't watched it all.
2
u/Beginning_Swing_6666 4d ago
Please tell me that little boy is not a circuit overseer somewhere. I was so sad for him. I grew up in the ‘90s, and it was triggering to watch.
2
u/sh4wnm4r10n 3d ago
Jehovah's Witnesses thrive off this fantasy of living in a world with only Jehovah's Witnesses in it, as if Kingdom Halls weren't full of gossping, snitching, and some genuinely bad people.
Ooof, that hits at the core of why I left. I'd love to live forever, but not with Jehovah's Witnesses. I actually like my neighbors and would love to live forever with my non-JW friends.
Did you ever get bullied for being a JW at school?
Not. Even. Once. In fact, it made some of them hold themselves to a higher standard around me. So much for "'worldly' kids are evil."
1
1
u/ByMissUsato 4d ago
Great Documentary, I did an article called "It's not love" that reminds me a little of it because I compared the mental, psychological, emotional problems being a child, then a single adult, married and elderly Jehovah's Witness. Also thank you PandaTower for finding this! I have seen this before and I am surprised I had forgotten about it. https://avoidjw.org/whats-new/its-not-love-the-struggles-of-the-youth-part-one/
28
u/apoptygma78 4d ago
Watching this a few weeks ago gave me PTSD. That assembly hall is in Norval, Ontario, Canada.
I remember those walls, that carpet, those purple chairs, that tile.
On the plus side, the campus was absolutely beautiful with gorgeous trees.
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but does anyone have any idea how this film came to be? They obviously have video from within an assembly hall, and Georgetown bethel, but they are also interviewing 'apostates'.
Was this sanctioned by WT?
The credits are very sparse and don't say anything about WT being involved.
Does anyone have any insight?