Not sure if IABU or not?

[welshbyrd]

Just had a knock on the door, answers it, to find I would say a 60ish old white lady, holding hands with the most gorgeous colored 4-5yo boy I have ever seen in my life.
I said 'hello?'
she said 'We are Jehovah witnesses'
Im never rude when they come to the door, but I am stern in saying sorry not interested,anyway I did this, went to close the door, and caught another glimpse of this boy, and could not contain myself saying 'OH my God, you have a little boy with you? he should be playing in the park or something not walking around door to door?
Anyway she asked why?
I could not saying anything else except Im sorry but Im closing the door now

Perhaps I have lived a secluded life, but I have never seen anything like this before

I don't think you're being unreasonable. It's unreasonable (imo) for people to knock on your door and waste your time trying to indoctrinate you into a religion, personally I find this quite disrespectful (it seems to preclude the possibility that you might have some beliefs of your own and that you may actually be quite happy with them). If they want to do that that's their business I suppose. And it's my business to make sure I politely cut them off at the earliest opportunity so as not to waste either of our time.
Children shouldn't be indoctrinated into religions (again, imo) - I think children should be left with an open mind so that they can decide for themselves when older and [hopefully] wiser. So taking a child with you when you attempt to convert others (which as said before I take as being disrespectful to other people's faiths) is inappropriate. I agree with you that the child shouldn't have been there. Why they are there is another matter, but not one I'd be particularly concerned about as I wouldn't agree that the adult should be there either.

Jw's do take their children as part of what they deem normal religious practice and a responsibility to what they refer to as 'the truth` and is the same as sending young children to be indoctrinated at sunday school etc or made to do religious assemblies at school. To be honest its not that bad and they often encourage the children to go with others from the congregation who are friends as they think of each other as family.I remember what it was like and as a very shy child it actually helped as when young i believed in the religion and felt i had to make the effort to spread the word and so had to remove my shyness from the equation. Also quite often some were rejected by their own families or had for some reason lost touch/had no family left so elder members would become surrogate aunts,uncles and grandparents so maybe this explains why they may not have been related. Also to the person who made the comment about exploitation of people with disabilities or elderly people,I can honestly say that even though I no longer follow any religion the JW's are one of the least exploitive religious groups and yes i have looked at other religions. In fact they are probably one of the most supportive and helpful ones and even though I decided not to continue some of the people who I know I could turn to in an emergency now are the ones I grew up with as extended family.
I hope this gives you an answer as to why they do it

BTW if you do not wish JW's to knock your door just either have a no salesman/religious caller sign or ask any that do knock to make the rest of the congregation note that you are a do not call they are then obliged to not call on you