How do you think your kids were affected by your involvement with twi?

[Watered Garden]

When we were in the upper left corner of the country, the TC's were a couple we had known for years. They now had four children. The woman looked down on my son and was always seeking an excuse to yell at him for something. One time she had baked a cheesecake for twig dessert. Her children were small, one yet in diapers. She cut each of them a tiny slice. She then gave my son, a strapping 12-year-old, an identical slice. He scarfed it down AND ASKED FOR MORE, PLEASE! She castigated him up one side and down the other for his bad manners! No one EVER asks for seconds on dessert! He needs to learn to take tiny bites and SAVOR his DESSERT instead of eating it down like a DOG! Then she started on me. I pointed out that he was not a tiny two year old, but 12. She had brothers, right? She should know how much fuel an adolescent male requires.

Another time she jumped all over me about "nervous habits." Seems her eldest had begun drumming his fingers on the table. She was sure he had learned this from my son, as he was a jumpy kind of kid. She informed she DID NOT PERMIT her children to have nervous habits and I was to forbid my child to do so, as her precious angels might learn something bad from him!

Right before my son took what was the last PFAL class in the area, she and her husband "invited" me to plant flowers in the planter at their front door. This was a big, permanent brick thing. The husband kindly provided the flowers and she called us to come over in a downpour to plant them. Son and I came over. He was freezing and asked if he could stand just inside the door. She refused, because she didn't want him around her children. She actually told him he was a bad influence and she didn't want her children picking up his bad habits and attitudes. Then she and her husband got into a fight, him screaming in her face, while she smiled sweetly up at him, right in front of the open front door.

I took my son and we left, without planting the rest of the flowers. Once they settled their differences, he called me and apologized and she actually drove over to our apartment to get me to come plant the rest of the flowers. I wish I could say those flowers were soon growing where the sun can't find them, but I cratered before the combined force of their will and their conviction of their own perfection and planted them, but I left my kid at home.

It is absolutely amazing to me when I look back on my TWI years and think that I tolerated any of this madness. If someone even twitched at my grandson, let alone said such hateful things to him, she would be wearing cheesecake from head to toe, plus a few bruises. Live and learn, I guess.

PS: The cheesecake wasn't even all that great. My father-in-law can bake a cheesecake to die for. Put them side-by-side on a table, and hers would slink away in shame.

Oh, and he makes sure the grandson gets extra helpings! (my kind of great-grandpa)!

WG

[happyheart]

When we were in the upper left corner of the country, the TC's were a couple we had known for years. They now had four children. The woman looked down on my son and was always seeking an excuse to yell at him for something. One time she had baked a cheesecake for twig dessert. Her children were small, one yet in diapers. She cut each of them a tiny slice. She then gave my son, a strapping 12-year-old, an identical slice. He scarfed it down AND ASKED FOR MORE, PLEASE! She castigated him up one side and down the other for his bad manners! No one EVER asks for seconds on dessert! He needs to learn to take tiny bites and SAVOR his DESSERT instead of eating it down like a DOG! Then she started on me. I pointed out that he was not a tiny two year old, but 12. She had brothers, right? She should know how much fuel an adolescent male requires.

Another time she jumped all over me about "nervous habits." Seems her eldest had begun drumming his fingers on the table. She was sure he had learned this from my son, as he was a jumpy kind of kid. She informed she DID NOT PERMIT her children to have nervous habits and I was to forbid my child to do so, as her precious angels might learn something bad from him!

Right before my son took what was the last PFAL class in the area, she and her husband "invited" me to plant flowers in the planter at their front door. This was a big, permanent brick thing. The husband kindly provided the flowers and she called us to come over in a downpour to plant them. Son and I came over. He was freezing and asked if he could stand just inside the door. She refused, because she didn't want him around her children. She actually told him he was a bad influence and she didn't want her children picking up his bad habits and attitudes. Then she and her husband got into a fight, him screaming in her face, while she smiled sweetly up at him, right in front of the open front door.

I took my son and we left, without planting the rest of the flowers. Once they settled their differences, he called me and apologized and she actually drove over to our apartment to get me to come plant the rest of the flowers. I wish I could say those flowers were soon growing where the sun can't find them, but I cratered before the combined force of their will and their conviction of their own perfection and planted them, but I left my kid at home.

It is absolutely amazing to me when I look back on my TWI years and think that I tolerated any of this madness. If someone even twitched at my grandson, let alone said such hateful things to him, she would be wearing cheesecake from head to toe, plus a few bruises. Live and learn, I guess.

PS: The cheesecake wasn't even all that great. My father-in-law can bake a cheesecake to die for. Put them side-by-side on a table, and hers would slink away in shame.

Oh, and he makes sure the grandson gets extra helpings! (my kind of great-grandpa)!

WG

It's amazing that they couldn't see what wonderful friends they had in front of them. Really, for as bad as it was for you-they are the real loosers. They could have relaxed and had some wonderful believers as friends. I bet she was influenced by all the wrong doctrine on child rearing and suspicious since believers were not encouraged to adopt.

I'm glad you have a grandson. It's awesome being a grandma, isn't it? God bless you Watered garden.

[Watered Garden]

Actually, the final straw came when we were told that God does not honor adoption and we were to "get rid of" him. This was a different person who said this. However, we knew of a couple who were family WC grads who adopted a baby with the help of B*** Gr**ne! So apparently God honored some people adopting children, just not us.

What a bunch of inconsistent, unloving, godless dummies!

WG

[Bramble]

On the good side, my kids really like to help others, which is what hubby and I were so motivated to do in TWI, and many of the people we loved in TWI were like that. I can recall people helping others find jobs, letting them move in, giving money, food etc in very personal effort to help someone in the twig.

Right now we are actually filling out DFS paperwork so a best friend of one of my kids can move in with us(family imploded, the kid's step siblings have a relative to go to, this kid has nobody and was going into a local juvenile facility for displaced teens.) The parent is consenting ( voluntarily entering a residential addiction /mental health treatment program) so the case worker sent over a stack of papers. The kid is over here all the time anyway and has been for years, but basically it was my kid who made all the noise to get their friend to live with us.

Funny, my sister( never TWI) had two teens living with her while finishing highschool, friends of my niece and nephew. She had five teens living at her house at one point. I wonder if this is a common thing--teens whose families can't or won't raise them?

[rascal]

My mom did the same thing for several of my sisters and my friends, back in the 70s.

[Tamar]

The wooden spoon was a big turn-off for me. The first time I saw it being used I wasn't a parent yet, but I was horrified none-the-less. I was at the home of 'leadership." They had a floral arrangement on their coffee table. Their daughter was just toddling around- she must have been about 12 months old. She kept reaching for the flowers on the coffee table and her mother kept hitting her hand with a wooden spoon. I asked, "Why don't you just move the flowers?", which got me a thourough a#*-chewing. Several years and states later, I had a sweet little baby of my own. I got another a#8 chewing because I didn't hit her for fussing during a twig meeting- she was 6 months old. That was my last twig.

[Bramble]

Good for you, Tamar. What a doctrine-- shush the babies with whacks!