A little girl is crying...
A little girl is crying at the seder.
She is hungry. She is not crying because there is no food; she is crying because her Mommy made fancy food to impress the guests and now she has nothing to eat. All she wants is some chicken and potatoes, but instead there are piles and piles of dishes with unpronounceable names.
She has no place to sleep. She is not crying because she has no bed; she is crying because her parents insisted on having a seder out and now she is tired, but her comfortable bed is far away.
Her clothes are no good. She is not crying because her clothes are tattered and old; she is crying because they are super-starched and uncomfortable. The white lacy collar is already crimson-red from grape juice and her mommy gave her an ugly look and shook her head.
She is tired. She is crying because this seder is dragging on too long, and she long ago lost interest, lost her place in the hagaddah, but the host wants to boast next morning that they had the longest nirtzah on the block.
She feels lost. She was trying to ask her Mommy today about the haggadah, but her mommy was too busy solving her friend's potato kugel crisis over the phone, so the girl was waved away.
Maybe she is not at the seder at all, she is crying because she is home with a babysitter while her parents are having adults-only seder, with fancy wine and even fancier conversation. She is not sure what her teacher meant when she said that seder is about kids asking questions. Who is she supposed to ask questions of?
A little girl is crying....
A little girl at risk.
A few years down the road, her parents will be crying because she won't be at the seder at all.
Please make your sedarim so that your kids would WANT to be there.
This is why I stopped hosting guests. They'd rattle through the haggadah at breakneck speed, pausing only long enough to give some 20-minute drasha that held no interest for my offspring. Now, my kids are the center of attention at the seder. They made their own haggadot. And they love it.
ReplyDeleteGood point, here is a similar story about a regular life (beware of Russian, but it's a very good one):
ReplyDeletehttp://toldot.ru/jfamily/children/children_8655.html
However, as usual, reality is not really black and white -- parents need Pesach too, and some of us are in a simple position -- either we invite some people to the Seder, or no one will invite them at all. How to balance the two -- the kids and the adults on various levels -- is a lost artform...