Growing up the odd one out.

I'm going to write about something that's pretty personal to me and that is growing up as and currently being a Jehovah's Witness.
I'm not going to write about what we believe in or anything like that, but more of what I had to grow through on a daily basis. I understand everyone has been made fun of one time or another, maybe because of a birthmark, being overweight, braces or maybe too tall. When you get teased for something like that, you don't have a choice but carry around the object of your teasing, but growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, I had a choice on a daily basis if I wanted to endure teasing and ridicule. I could pretend I wasn't a 'witness' today, and everyone would leave me alone. No one would know.
Going through school as a witness (I will refer to being a Jehovah's Witness as 'witness') was hard. As a witness, I didn't celebrate any holidays which included birthdays, nor did I say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. As everyone knows from personal experience, children are cruel, so when children observed me not taking part in Birthdays I usually got made fun of. I didn't mind getting sent to the library to sit by myself while the class celebrated birthdays, I didn't mind having to sit on the bench during chorus because they were singing Christmas Carols. I didn't mind not being able to dress up and go trick or treating....really I didn't, I never felt like I missed a thing. I didn't miss not getting birthday gifts or party.
The only part of not celebrating holidays that bothered me and usually brought me to tears was when I got made fun of, told I was a freak and idiot. Or when I would get ridiculed by close family that weren't witness's, or when they would try to pin me against me mother, because she declined a invitation to holiday party. That hurt. It hurt when I grew up and the same part of my family still didn't understand we had beliefs and we weren't going to compromise those beliefs for them. But even if we did, say for one day we decided "Whatever! Let's go to Thanksgiving dinner!" It always baffled me how this said family would not feel bad for talking some into compromising their beliefs...I don't know. It hurt when that same part of my family tried playing the guilty card by saying it was hard for them .....for them.....hard for them... to grow up with witness's as relatives. It was hard for them to go through holidays knowing we weren't going to be at the Christmas dinner or birthday. It's hard for me to feel bad, especially after all the nagging and persecution I've gone through, I have no empathy I guess.

I want to raise Lilian with good standards. I want to raise her the best way I can. I look back at the job my parents did, I look at the job my in-laws did, and I hope to follow in those foot steps. I need to show Lilian that no matter how much she goes through for sticking to her standards, principles and beliefs, it's worth enduring it.
Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness is something I rarely ever talk about, I don't harp on it, I don't even really think about it. I figure every person has their belief that someone will not agree with, so I am no different, I'm not special. But when family threaten to never let their child develop a relationship with Lilian, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that even after so much we ,as mankind, have broadened out and come to accept others for whatever they stand for, a simple invitation decline can bring down 24 years of a family relationship and future relationship of little cousins. My heart hurts now. But I know I need to stand for my beliefs, because if I don't now, all those years of standing for I believe in will be pointless.




I just wanted to add something. Lauren, here is the answer to your question. Thanks for asking.

Have you thought about what you will do or how you will react if Lillian chooses not to follow in the witness path? Or how you will answer her questions regarding other religions?

I haven't really thought about it, but coming from personal experience, I would have to let Lili do what she thinks she needs to do. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I really wouldn't have a choice. When I was a teenager I decided that being a witness wasn't something I wanted to do. I rebelled in every aspect you can think of, for a while too. But I came back to the religion because I thought it was the right choice for me. And I hope that if anything like that happens with Lili she'll make the same choice.
As far as answering her questions regarding other religions, I would encourage her to do research and find the answers she is looking for, the same thing my parents told me when I was younger. Actually when I was younger, in highschool, I took four years of world religions class to learn about other religions, it was something I wanted to be educated about.