Ya know, for as much as VP groused about no one knowing which end of a shovel to hold, how many people can say they witnessed HIM putting in a hard day's work?( ie: scrubbing toilets, polishing doorknobs, etc,)
I guess I would wonder what made the person think they had a right to criticize you in the first place? Have they walked a few miles in your shoes? Do they really have any idea of what it is you do?
I also wonder why you would let someone else's opinion of you supercede your own opinion of yourself? Why would you grant that much power to another person?
Thank you all for your responses. Abigail -- I needed to hear that!
(((Outfield)))) It took me a long time to learn how to ignore ignorant, unwarranted, and unsolicited opinions from others. First, I had to spend years and years spinning myself in circles trying to please everyone. Eventually, it just became exhasting, dizzying, and nauseating. I still spin a turn or two here and there out of habit, but I'm getting better every day. :)
It has just really been bothering me -- something that won't go away. A "debil spirit" maybe? I had just read something similar on the LEAD thread and wondered if this is how "The Way" treated everyone. Sleep depreivation, endless seminars, plus home study, witnessing - living on 4 hours of sleep?
But to get 8 hours of sleep you're lazy? It just irked me.
I'm having a problem. I have always considered myself a hard worker. To me, work is defined as laundry, cooking, being a wife, doing chores, and possibly holding a career. Anything can be considered work when you are doing something.
I recently had an ex-Way member routinely say, "yeah it takes work" acting as if I did nothing.
I have read in previous threads where this was really big in the Way and Wierwille often criticized (I believe it was LEAD) that they didn't know how to work.
It has really begun to bother me because I always felt I was a hard worker and for my efforts to be criticized -- really bothers me to where I want to do nothing.
Anyone have any input?
vpw REGULARLY criticized the work-ethic of anyone else.
Right in "the way:living in love", he said (page 234) that the kids "would rather read than work."
Mind you, they went there specifically TO read (to learn the Bible), so that's what they expected.
Meanwhile,
vpw himself would lecture the kids and say HE knew how to work because he grew up on a farm.
However, growing up on a farm didn't teach vpw to work.
His own father testified to that
(page 77) when he said "You haven't even learned to work well on the farm."
"Uncle" Harry said vpw was frequently missing for hours at a time when he was supposed to do farm chores.
As vpw grew up, he specialized in mugging for attention, and went straight from school into preaching.
He never seems to have HELD a real job, done actual labour of some kind or another.
He also criticized some of the corps grads.
See, they took time off of work, travelled to hq on their own money,
and performed manual labour for free, setting up the materials for the ROA during the preceeding
"Corps Week."
Some of them, after working for a week, went home during part of the ROA.
That's almost certainly due to other committments- work, family, etc.
vpw criticized them for not working the entire ROA as well.
No "thank you for the week's labour you did and paid to arrive to perform", or anything like that.
It occasionally came as a surprise to those people who never actually WORKED for a living
(vpw went straight from school into pastoring, lcm went straight from school into the way corps),
but REAL jobs have REQUIREMENTS and RESPONSIBILITIES.
All these people made arrangements for a VACATION WEEK from work (for some of them, this was their ONLY vacation, or was unpaid leave),
paid to travel to hq on their own from all over the country, and WORKED for a week, unpaid.
Now vpw had the nerve to say "Not good enough-work MORE for free!"
NO!
These people have families to support, jobs to perform, and lives to maintain. If they leave, it's because they HAVE to, not because they WANT to, simp!
At the very least, you owed them profound thanks. To insult them after they worked for free
is lacking in character, lacking in integrity, and lacking in Christian values.
Right on, WordWolf! Reminds me of the time when paying a mortgage was declared unacceptble. LCM said on a tape, "I never owned a home and it hasn't hurt me any!"
He never had to, the SOB! Mommy & Daddy to college to TWI to the castle in the woods! He lived under mortgages all right, he just never had to make the payment!
Regarding work:
Abigail, you have great insight and provide healing words to others. Thanks. I, too have been under bondage to the words of those who would run my life. Nowadays, if someone would dare say my house isn't clean enough, I'd hand them a mop and say "Go for it!"
Knew a WC grad once a long time ago who got up at 4:00 am and went to bed at midnight. Her house was totally clean all the time. Her children had to pitch in. Even the two year old folded washcloths and diapers when the laundry came out. There was no kindness, no compassion, no empathy emanating from that woman's life, just Clorox and Parson's Sudsy Ammonia.
my house is a mess, so im embarrassed to have people come over and that is the root of that problem.
how one defines work is up to them and their own beliefs.
a sense of esteem comes from being part of a community that is able to provide for yourself and family.
money is power, deny it and lose all of yours and we can talk.
i have a person in my life who loves to cook and would invite me and my family over to eat and then want us to do all the dishes, i said NO and she got angry.
well then when you invite people over because you love them and want to cook food for them , lay out the conditions before i accept, i have the ability to cook and clean up after my own self , she went after my girls when they got old enough and my teen daughter told her "I do not do dishes" and she never did we always had a dishwasher!!
so she told me to make her i told her my daughter was right she doesnt do dishes, what a scowl i got.
I think it comes from that generation believing the youth should take care of the elder and using them to work when they are to lazy to do it . well times have changed even in the country farm generations children no longer have to work the farms for the family. and that is the mentality of those ohio farms, i know i grew up on a farm. thank god i was a girl. it was bad enough. the boys had it worse.
Thanks to everyone who responded. There was some great insight.
I don't know why I let it bother me -- it just did.
Haha about the dishes! That's why dishwashers are great. But, yeah, I usually offer to help however usually the person declines my help. And, I would never ask a guest to do the dishes, if they didn't offer -- I'd just remember it for next time.
Thanks everyone. I just can't live on 4 hours of sleep. I have to get at least 7 hours to function properly. It just made me upset I guess because when I hear the word WORK -- I think of a paying job. But being a mother is work, being a wife is work, keeping a house clean is work, taking care of your body is work, cooking is work, etc.
I've just been learning alot throughout these boards of where this person got that mentality.
Thanks to everyone who responded. There was some great insight.
I don't know why I let it bother me -- it just did.
Haha about the dishes! That's why dishwashers are great. But, yeah, I usually offer to help however usually the person declines my help. And, I would never ask a guest to do the dishes, if they didn't offer -- I'd just remember it for next time.
Thanks everyone. I just can't live on 4 hours of sleep. I have to get at least 7 hours to function properly. It just made me upset I guess because when I hear the word WORK -- I think of a paying job. But being a mother is work, being a wife is work, keeping a house clean is work, taking care of your body is work, cooking is work, etc.
I've just been learning alot throughout these boards of where this person got that mentality.
But being a mother is work, being a wife is work, keeping a house clean is work, taking care of your body is work, cooking is work, etc.
Your darn RIGHT it is WORK!!! Being a mom, especially a stay-at-home mom, is one of the hardest jobs there is. Add to that, you do not get paid and rarely even get a thank you until the kids are grown and have babies of their own!
Anyone who can criticize someone for being a stay-at-home mom has probably never actually done it before!!
I think everyone needs to be ok with who they are and what they are doing in life.
yet if a person says he/she wants to be a stay at home mom yet can not afford to it is not healthy to justify the "work" they do. but if your fine then who cares what others say?
well i was a working mom often two or three jobs at a time, and "stay at home moms" think working moms are less than and certainly not as capable of meeting the childrens needs as they are!
they think somhow in the scheme of things their children are happier healthier and better off than a working mom and wife.
and that isnt right and hurts. so it goes both ways.
my own daughters have been instructed to not depend on men to support them all people need to have a clear sense of indepence and self and be capable of meeting their own goals and needs. it is very unfair to rely on another to make your life whole. a temporary absence from reaching goals or working can be done only if your self esteem and ability to maintain a healthy personal and financial perspective, regardless of the person supporting the household.
i see alot of unhealthy relationships whee one hold alot of power over the other because of the money.
Pond, I am sorry if I didn't communicate clearly. I wasn't trying to put down working moms. I am a working mom too. It is equally challenging, just in different ways - different challenges.
Perhaps I should have simply said being a good parent is one of the most difficult jobs there is, and we don't get paid for it, nor do we receive thanks for it until our own kids are grown and have kids of their own.
Well one can hope when they grow up and have children they can recognize the sacrifice, maybe on a good day, yet unfortunately i see alot of grand children being raised by their gramma.
Outfield, I have not seen you work so I can not offer an opinion.
I used to work in modular homes or component plants where the demand on a person is brutal. I set records at plants I worked in and did so because I out-hustled others, worked smarter and was better organized.
For example, when nailing up wall frames for a 56-foot house, the nail gun would not have enough ammo to get me to the end, so right where I would run out is where I stacked boxes of nails so I didn't have to walk back down the line to reload, or carry spares in my tool pouches. This seems obvious, but I had to fight management over it at one plant.
I trained my crews to economize motion so that everything was sort of choreographed. Saving ten seconds here and twenty seconds there added up when it came to meeting a weeks production schedule.
My crews were always the best.
Many confuse being occupied with a task with really working.
To me, to really work, one hustles every minute on the clock, concentrating on the task at hand.
Chatting is for break time.
i have a person in my life who loves to cook and would invite me and my family over to eat and then want us to do all the dishes, i said NO and she got angry.
Pond, you were correct to say no.
It is downright rude to require guests to work for their meal. It cuts at the very reason one asks people over to dine.
Now, it is nice to offer to help with the dishes (and I frequently do), but manners dictates this is the option of the guest and it is rude for the host to try to make them wash dishes afterwards.
Her anger shows this poor woman just hadn't been taught good manners.
Many confuse being occupied with a task with really working.
To me, to really work, one hustles every minute on the clock, concentrating on the task at hand.
Chatting is for break time.
Okay, Deciderator...
I'm not about to say that what you described isn't "work." I'm just not sure how it translates to other jobs - teaching for example. What about keeping a house clean while taking care of 4 kids all under the age of 5?
Of course most people would know that teachers are working and not just occupying time. They are "on task" all the time. ( pardon the teacher pun there)
But you can be occupied reading the funnies, watching TV, playing games etc and not be really working.
There is a time and a place for everything. Playing cards or watching TV or joining a Bowling League is important. We all need time during the week to decompress.
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Jim
No job is too difficult for the man who doesn't have to do it.
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waysider
Ya know, for as much as VP groused about no one knowing which end of a shovel to hold, how many people can say they witnessed HIM putting in a hard day's work?( ie: scrubbing toilets, polishing doorknobs, etc,)
Oh, sorry. He was busy "working" The Word.
My mistake.
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Abigail
I guess I would wonder what made the person think they had a right to criticize you in the first place? Have they walked a few miles in your shoes? Do they really have any idea of what it is you do?
I also wonder why you would let someone else's opinion of you supercede your own opinion of yourself? Why would you grant that much power to another person?
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Outfield
Thank you all for your responses. Abigail -- I needed to hear that!
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Abigail
(((Outfield)))) It took me a long time to learn how to ignore ignorant, unwarranted, and unsolicited opinions from others. First, I had to spend years and years spinning myself in circles trying to please everyone. Eventually, it just became exhasting, dizzying, and nauseating. I still spin a turn or two here and there out of habit, but I'm getting better every day. :)
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Outfield
Thanks,
It has just really been bothering me -- something that won't go away. A "debil spirit" maybe? I had just read something similar on the LEAD thread and wondered if this is how "The Way" treated everyone. Sleep depreivation, endless seminars, plus home study, witnessing - living on 4 hours of sleep?
But to get 8 hours of sleep you're lazy? It just irked me.
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waysider
Dean Martin did a song back in the '50s or '60s that went like this:
Lucky, lucky, lucky me
I'm a lucky son of a gun
I work 8 hours
I sleep 8 hours
I save 8 hours for fun
:)
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WordWolf
vpw REGULARLY criticized the work-ethic of anyone else.
Right in "the way:living in love", he said (page 234) that the kids "would rather read than work."
Mind you, they went there specifically TO read (to learn the Bible), so that's what they expected.
Meanwhile,
vpw himself would lecture the kids and say HE knew how to work because he grew up on a farm.
However, growing up on a farm didn't teach vpw to work.
His own father testified to that
(page 77) when he said "You haven't even learned to work well on the farm."
"Uncle" Harry said vpw was frequently missing for hours at a time when he was supposed to do farm chores.
As vpw grew up, he specialized in mugging for attention, and went straight from school into preaching.
He never seems to have HELD a real job, done actual labour of some kind or another.
He also criticized some of the corps grads.
See, they took time off of work, travelled to hq on their own money,
and performed manual labour for free, setting up the materials for the ROA during the preceeding
"Corps Week."
Some of them, after working for a week, went home during part of the ROA.
That's almost certainly due to other committments- work, family, etc.
vpw criticized them for not working the entire ROA as well.
No "thank you for the week's labour you did and paid to arrive to perform", or anything like that.
It occasionally came as a surprise to those people who never actually WORKED for a living
(vpw went straight from school into pastoring, lcm went straight from school into the way corps),
but REAL jobs have REQUIREMENTS and RESPONSIBILITIES.
All these people made arrangements for a VACATION WEEK from work (for some of them, this was their ONLY vacation, or was unpaid leave),
paid to travel to hq on their own from all over the country, and WORKED for a week, unpaid.
Now vpw had the nerve to say "Not good enough-work MORE for free!"
NO!
These people have families to support, jobs to perform, and lives to maintain. If they leave, it's because they HAVE to, not because they WANT to, simp!
At the very least, you owed them profound thanks. To insult them after they worked for free
is lacking in character, lacking in integrity, and lacking in Christian values.
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Watered Garden
Right on, WordWolf! Reminds me of the time when paying a mortgage was declared unacceptble. LCM said on a tape, "I never owned a home and it hasn't hurt me any!"
He never had to, the SOB! Mommy & Daddy to college to TWI to the castle in the woods! He lived under mortgages all right, he just never had to make the payment!
Regarding work:
Abigail, you have great insight and provide healing words to others. Thanks. I, too have been under bondage to the words of those who would run my life. Nowadays, if someone would dare say my house isn't clean enough, I'd hand them a mop and say "Go for it!"
Knew a WC grad once a long time ago who got up at 4:00 am and went to bed at midnight. Her house was totally clean all the time. Her children had to pitch in. Even the two year old folded washcloths and diapers when the laundry came out. There was no kindness, no compassion, no empathy emanating from that woman's life, just Clorox and Parson's Sudsy Ammonia.
WG
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pond
I believe in work.
my house is a mess, so im embarrassed to have people come over and that is the root of that problem.
how one defines work is up to them and their own beliefs.
a sense of esteem comes from being part of a community that is able to provide for yourself and family.
money is power, deny it and lose all of yours and we can talk.
i have a person in my life who loves to cook and would invite me and my family over to eat and then want us to do all the dishes, i said NO and she got angry.
well then when you invite people over because you love them and want to cook food for them , lay out the conditions before i accept, i have the ability to cook and clean up after my own self , she went after my girls when they got old enough and my teen daughter told her "I do not do dishes" and she never did we always had a dishwasher!!
so she told me to make her i told her my daughter was right she doesnt do dishes, what a scowl i got.
I think it comes from that generation believing the youth should take care of the elder and using them to work when they are to lazy to do it . well times have changed even in the country farm generations children no longer have to work the farms for the family. and that is the mentality of those ohio farms, i know i grew up on a farm. thank god i was a girl. it was bad enough. the boys had it worse.
we have labor laws , for a reason .
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bliss
When someone invites ME over for dinner and cooks for ME, I OFFER to do dishes. It's the polite thing to do.
You know, act like Jesus.
I am sure He would've done the dishes. It's called service.
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Watered Garden
Me too, Bliss.
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Outfield
Thanks to everyone who responded. There was some great insight.
I don't know why I let it bother me -- it just did.
Haha about the dishes! That's why dishwashers are great. But, yeah, I usually offer to help however usually the person declines my help. And, I would never ask a guest to do the dishes, if they didn't offer -- I'd just remember it for next time.
Thanks everyone. I just can't live on 4 hours of sleep. I have to get at least 7 hours to function properly. It just made me upset I guess because when I hear the word WORK -- I think of a paying job. But being a mother is work, being a wife is work, keeping a house clean is work, taking care of your body is work, cooking is work, etc.
I've just been learning alot throughout these boards of where this person got that mentality.
Thanks to everyone who responded. There was some great insight.
I don't know why I let it bother me -- it just did.
Haha about the dishes! That's why dishwashers are great. But, yeah, I usually offer to help however usually the person declines my help. And, I would never ask a guest to do the dishes, if they didn't offer -- I'd just remember it for next time.
Thanks everyone. I just can't live on 4 hours of sleep. I have to get at least 7 hours to function properly. It just made me upset I guess because when I hear the word WORK -- I think of a paying job. But being a mother is work, being a wife is work, keeping a house clean is work, taking care of your body is work, cooking is work, etc.
I've just been learning alot throughout these boards of where this person got that mentality.
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Abigail
Your darn RIGHT it is WORK!!! Being a mom, especially a stay-at-home mom, is one of the hardest jobs there is. Add to that, you do not get paid and rarely even get a thank you until the kids are grown and have babies of their own!
Anyone who can criticize someone for being a stay-at-home mom has probably never actually done it before!!
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pond
I think everyone needs to be ok with who they are and what they are doing in life.
yet if a person says he/she wants to be a stay at home mom yet can not afford to it is not healthy to justify the "work" they do. but if your fine then who cares what others say?
well i was a working mom often two or three jobs at a time, and "stay at home moms" think working moms are less than and certainly not as capable of meeting the childrens needs as they are!
they think somhow in the scheme of things their children are happier healthier and better off than a working mom and wife.
and that isnt right and hurts. so it goes both ways.
my own daughters have been instructed to not depend on men to support them all people need to have a clear sense of indepence and self and be capable of meeting their own goals and needs. it is very unfair to rely on another to make your life whole. a temporary absence from reaching goals or working can be done only if your self esteem and ability to maintain a healthy personal and financial perspective, regardless of the person supporting the household.
i see alot of unhealthy relationships whee one hold alot of power over the other because of the money.
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Abigail
Pond, I am sorry if I didn't communicate clearly. I wasn't trying to put down working moms. I am a working mom too. It is equally challenging, just in different ways - different challenges.
Perhaps I should have simply said being a good parent is one of the most difficult jobs there is, and we don't get paid for it, nor do we receive thanks for it until our own kids are grown and have kids of their own.
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pond
Well one can hope when they grow up and have children they can recognize the sacrifice, maybe on a good day, yet unfortunately i see alot of grand children being raised by their gramma.
it is worth it i think it was.
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Deciderator
Outfield, I have not seen you work so I can not offer an opinion.
I used to work in modular homes or component plants where the demand on a person is brutal. I set records at plants I worked in and did so because I out-hustled others, worked smarter and was better organized.
For example, when nailing up wall frames for a 56-foot house, the nail gun would not have enough ammo to get me to the end, so right where I would run out is where I stacked boxes of nails so I didn't have to walk back down the line to reload, or carry spares in my tool pouches. This seems obvious, but I had to fight management over it at one plant.
I trained my crews to economize motion so that everything was sort of choreographed. Saving ten seconds here and twenty seconds there added up when it came to meeting a weeks production schedule.
My crews were always the best.
Many confuse being occupied with a task with really working.
To me, to really work, one hustles every minute on the clock, concentrating on the task at hand.
Chatting is for break time.
Pond, you were correct to say no.
It is downright rude to require guests to work for their meal. It cuts at the very reason one asks people over to dine.
Now, it is nice to offer to help with the dishes (and I frequently do), but manners dictates this is the option of the guest and it is rude for the host to try to make them wash dishes afterwards.
Her anger shows this poor woman just hadn't been taught good manners.
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doojable
Okay, Deciderator...
I'm not about to say that what you described isn't "work." I'm just not sure how it translates to other jobs - teaching for example. What about keeping a house clean while taking care of 4 kids all under the age of 5?
Just wondering...
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krys
Of course most people would know that teachers are working and not just occupying time. They are "on task" all the time. ( pardon the teacher pun there)
But you can be occupied reading the funnies, watching TV, playing games etc and not be really working.
There is a time and a place for everything. Playing cards or watching TV or joining a Bowling League is important. We all need time during the week to decompress.
t
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