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In Reply to: uh-huh - this is what I'm talking about posted by LL on April 27, 2004 at 13:18:08:
Thanks for all of your thoughtful posts... very interesting. My own experience with leaving The Family was probably more unusual than anyone on this board. I was very young (about 6) and my parents did not leave entirely voluntarily. People here in S. Fla had a problem with us because my parents had so much kids, it was hard for them to take care of all of us (well, my dad didn't help much either b/c he was more interested in TF's "hobbies"). Anyway, shepherds in homes over here thought that we should leave because there wasn't enough good litnessing spots to go around and we weren't contributing enough to the home. They "suggested" that my parents leave the state, which was impossible at the time, so my parents stayed here and my dad got a system job...
Well, I guess that my whole point of this story is to say that my dad pretty much employed the same practices for raising us kids. I remember that I was one of the few kids that couldn't watch TV., listen to non-Family music, or read books that weren't the Bible or Family materials. We still had to read Berg's book and call him grandpa (once I started public school, I realized how weird this was). To this day, my dad still thinks it is the best org on Earth.
I remember, I used to feel like the devil's spawn sometimes. I used to sneak books into my room, and I can't count how many times I got spankings when I was caught. I thought I was evil because sometimes, I used to think, "What if 'Grandpa' is not really the prophet of God." It was hard to finally allow myself to consider that possibility without deep feelings of guilt. In my teens, I completely rebelled against TF ideas/beliefs. This was easier because I no longer lived with my father (he still doesn’t know how I REALLY think about The Family.
