Not once in my adult life have I ever felt saddened by my lack of childhood birthday presents.  Not once.  Worldly people who didn't grow up in The Truth have the hardest time understanding that and imagine that I must feel a tremendous amount of anguish over missing out on birthday cakes.  Their take on things is usually, "Oh how sad!  How terrible it would be to not have birthday or Christmas celebrations!"

So to those folks, I would like to say, "Get a grip."  Defining my youth by your birthday cakes and Xmas presents is not only superficial, but is gauging someone else's life by your own.  The fact that you might have unwrapped a gazillion birthday presents in your childhood does not make me feel slighted any more than I feel impoverished for missing out on a bar mitzvah.  I'm not Jewish and I grew up as a Witness, so none of those celebrations were on my radar screen.  They were never in the realm of remote possibility for me.  You only know what you know, and I have never once thought that my life would be more complete if I had blown out a few birthday candles during childhood.

I have however, often wondered who I might be today or how my childhood might have unfolded if I had been allowed to play baseball with some buddies.  Or heck, maybe I would have joined the chess club.  I didn't have any buddies in school and chess was considered a war game so I wasn't allowed to play it, but I think it would have been a lot of fun to hang out with chess playing kids... but alas, as a Witness, those classmates and activites were labeled as bad association, a la First Timothy 4:8 and First Corinthians 15:33, so I missed out on them.

From kindergarten to twelfth grade, I attended 12 different schools in three different states.  Most were in small towns where I was the only Witness in my age bracket within miles, so not once did I invite school acquaintances to come over to my house to play.  Not once.  There were no other Witness kids where I lived, so I largely spent my youth without friends.

Unless you count Scott Smithson in sixth grade.  He was a Witness too, so I got to visit him once for dinner.  He lived out in the orange groves in southern California, and I spent a single night with his family in their double-wide trailer.  Being that it was 1975, we spent the next afternoon building animal traps in the shelter belt on the far side of his barn as a practice run for Armageddon, trying to perfect the intricacies of snaring rabbits for dinner when persecution showed up.  We never killed anything, but I had fun with Scott Smithson that day.  Not long after, I moved to Wyoming and never played with him again.

I thought I was the only Witness kid in Wyoming.  The whole state was overrun with children who were not in The Truth, which meant that the school baseball team was off limits to me.  Same for the chess club.  I walked home every day after school, wondering if all the other kids had fun staying after and socializing.  I wondered what it would be like to join a sports team.

So today, I sometimes think that by growing up as a Witness, I might have missed out on some great stuff, but do birthday omissions make me sad?  Nah, that doesn't sound like such a big deal.

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written by Tori , August 20, 2009

I was not raised as a witness from birth. I do recall birthdays and Christmases and Halloween as a child. I also recall when we stopped celebrating those things. Even as someone who did know those things I did not feel like I was missing anything. I felt moral and spiritual for avoiding them actually. It was a positive feeling.

I am still stunned today when I tell someone who has never been a witness about the guilt complex I still struggle with, about the trauma of running away from every single person I knew and cared about, losing God's favor and suddenly being very isolated and their response is general disgust that I had been denied birthdays and Christmases. They cannot believe someone could do such a horrible thing to a child. I'm floored. Every time.

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written by JoJoJones , August 21, 2009

Though I wasn't raised as a Jehovah's Witness, I can recall wondering just what was so wrong with celebrating birthdays as an adult Witness. To me they are an opportunity to let people know how glad I am that they were born. It's not honoring them as though they are on pedestals at all. I love to celebrate people's lives, though I worship God, not the people. The examples given by the WTBTS for not acknowledging people's birthdays seem so extreme and farfetched to me. I know about John the Baptist and the tragedies that occurred at some other celebrations, yet those things that happened were so off the wall. They are not typical. I feel bad for kids who miss out on other things that are so important to them personally, whether it's sports or socializing after school, thus causing great lonliness for many JW kids. If they are not allowd "worldly" friendships and don't have any JW friends, then I think that is a tragedy. Children need friends and socializing and fun activities. I just hate to see kids grow up with that emptiness caused by a rigid, black and white world caused by the WTBTS. It's pathetic.

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written by Rob , August 27, 2009

I was raised a JW. It's not birthdays and presents that are missed. It indiviudality and self-worth that is missing. This is as planned by the WTS. It's why JWs have to conform to such lenghts. The Society is scared to death of thinking.

That being said, it seem odd that when a baby is born, it's a joyous event. Even in a Witness family, it is common for presents to be given to the baby. And after all, isn't that what a birthday is, a celebration of that joyful date of birth?

When Jesus was born, he certainly had a birthday party, complete with wise men, presents, and the opening of the heaven and the joy angels.

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written by Scott , August 27, 2009

Hey Rob...I love your comment. I think you are correct. Banning birthday celebrations is about eliminating individuality...although the point in my blog is that I didn't know that as a kid. I thought I was a righteous holier than though Jdub for having no celebration. I did however, as a kid, wonder why we celebrated baby showers. That just didn't add up in my head, but then again, my head was full of The Truth and I was "scared to death of thinking" for myself......In reference to your comment about Jesus having a bday party, I'm wondering if that is in fact correct. The JW outlook on that, as told to me when I was a kid, was that the wisemen only went to see Jesus at the request of King Herod (is that right?), and was guided to Him by the star that was put out by Satan....of course, my mind gets a little jumbled after all these years, and maybe I am not remembering that correctly....

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