in search of realistic parenting advice

I finally got around to reading "No Drama Discipline" based on a recommendation of a friend. I am reading the book and nodding my head: yes, connection, yes, a behavior is a cry for help, yes, regain composure. Slowly but surely a seed of doubt crawls in: this is all nice and well, but the parent has to always control herself, not to react, act loving, be comforting, suppress the impulse to yell, to release tension, Moreover, all the examples conveniently have only one child that the parent has to connect to at any given time, and somehow that connection happens fast enough not to interfere with the rest of life.


Overall, I have nor found any super new, earth-shattering material (I am about a hundred pages in). I have been applying a lot of the advice in this book in my parenting already: talk to the child, spend a lot of time in his or her world, connect, calm them down, redirect, be present, look at the big picture instead of immediate behavior change. But what the authors of this book (and other similar books) do not mention is how exhausting all of this is, how mentally draining. Now throw in more than one child and you got a situation ripe for a disaster.

My husband is on call the entire weekend. Somehow that very important piece of information slipped my mind, so I invited a friend over for Shabbos. Then I tried inviting other families who have kids in the similar age range to her kids, so all of a sudden, the Shabbos table had to be set for 20. Naturally, that is the very Shabbos that my husband got called up to deliver a baby before lunch even started. So I am madly prepping food, my kids are in shul unsupervised, my baby is running around in pajamas, and I should go over to shul to get those kids and guests. My friend helped and helped. My guests all pitched in. But naturally, this is the Shabbos that my 2 yo will not go down for a nap, I have people gathering downstairs that do not know each other, my daughter is trying to find girl-centric space in a house heavy on the boy side... My sobbing 2 yo just needs her mommy to hold her and rub her back to fall asleep.

But I end up trying to host this lunch, and with everyone helping and being easy-going, it ends up working out.The 2 yo does not end up napping. I am stressed already. I mentally make a note of making a better job scheduling large company when my husband can get called up. But now I host, serve, talk, take a drink of wine.

The guests leave, sweetly taking 7 yo and 4 yo with them. The older boys leave for shul with their friends. It grows quiet. And 2 yo decides it is time for connection. I talk to her, I read to her, I make myself a cup of tea, but I spend more time finding animals in her book than reading my book or drinking. I feed her some sort of dinner.

Everyone comes back for havdalah. My husband rushes out to round in the hospitals. And I am left trying to get everyone to collect laundry and into pajamas and into bed. I need to recharge and I know it, but instead I get a sulky teen and cranky daughter who does not want to go to bed and 4 yo who needs to go and get an ice cube to suck before falling asleep. And can they have computer time? And don't they see the state of the house?!

I wake up in a sour mood, but I try to cheer myself up with a quiet cup of coffee before everyone resurfaces for the day. 4 yo is peeking out from his room and HE wants to cuddle on the couch. so I do (connection, right?) but I miss my chance at a quiet cup because more and more kids wake up and they all want something. And I want boys to go to minyan that is at 8 so I am rushing them to be ready. And I'm trying to make pancakes because I'm hungry and who does not like pancakes? But my kids do not touch them, as my husband comes downstairs, at five to 8, phone pressed to his ear, scheduling a procedure at 9. So I shove the boys out the door to superfast shul while 2 yo makes maple syrup handprints.

And then they are back and everyone ignores my third polite request to please start sorting and folding the clean laundry. I become more direct with 13 yo: either you fold the laundry and I get 2 yo dressed, or vice versa. He picks his sister (aw, sweet!) and I go to the basement to make the guest bed witrh clean linens.

When I come back up, I am greeted by wails from upstairs. 11 yo comes down and pointedly asks me don't I hear what is going on and why am I ignoring her? I go upstairs where I find 2 yo manically trying to remove her diaper while 13 yo is tugging in vain to keep it on. They are both screaming in frustration. I take the baby who sits on me, butt-naked, sobbing and direct the rest of the kids back downstairs to sort and fold laundry. They go. I am connecting with her, but not with them. I see that she has a diaper rash and offer her a quick bath. She is delighted. She takes her time. I holler downstairs for someone to please bring me a towel and a bath mat because they are in that laundry. No response. I do not want to leave the girly alone in the tub, so I holler again.I am informed that those items are still wet in the dryer. I quickly run to get a spare.

By the time the leisurely bath with a calm 2 yo is coming to an end, I am hearing wails of 4 yo from downstairs. He comes up crying that he has way too much to fold and sort and he cannot do it. The truth is that I have been usually doing his laundry for him, so I am sure his siblings just made a large pile and that is overwhelming. Hearing her brother cry, 2 yo starts whining again. I rush to get her dressed before she loses it and come downstairs.

7 yo is exasperated because she has been trying to train her younger brother in the art of clothes folding, but he was having none of that. I pick up crying 4 yo and let him melt into me. Connection, right? Now 2 yo runs over and tries pushing him off, making space for herself. Neither of them is happy. I end up folding clothes for 4 yo that he puts away through tears. 13 yo is sulking, again. 11 yo pipes up how what I am doing is unfair, again. I see a large pile of leftover unsorted socks, again. And I have a few more loads to run.

So when 7 yo decides to open the blinds a few minutes later, she yanks on the cord a little bit harder than usual and the whole molding falls down, with the blind still attached. And it is Sunday right before New Year's day. And there is a large nail protruding. and a nice gash in the wall, And I lose it and yell all the frustration and all the connection that I have been giving away without getting anything for myself, without getting a break, without time to recharge, to even read about what is supposed to happen after all the connection. And I yell a little bit harder than the situation calls for. And I break all the connections that I have been building. 7 yo runs away from me, screaming. Two younger ones disappear.A few minutes later I get a hand-delivered note saying that she is sorry and I can do with her whatever I want. Poor child, one minute your mother is a saint and the next she is a raving lunatic. I sit next to her, I pick her up and hold her and tell her that I am sorry for yelling at her. I just did not want a broken wall.

And I do not get to finish because her friends come and pick her up and she leaves through tears.

I am looking for a parenting book where a parent is not a pushover, an only adult for most of the situations, and there are multiple children to deal with at all times. Because I have all the tools, but I do not have the circumstances that allow me to apply them successfully and healthfully.

Disclaimer: as I was typing this late at night, 13 repeatedly interrupted me to read yet another panel of the comics that he founde funny (his bid for connection) and I repeatedly asked him to stop so I could focus.

The Jewish education my kids are not getting

Being a baalat teshuva and not attending day school makes me nervous about my Judaic knowledge. I am even more jittery when it comes to educating boys. When do they start mishna? When do they start Gemara? What format does halacha learning take? What about Jewish philosophy? I don't even know what it is supposed to look like, let along teach it. I feel so inadequate, so ready to put them into dayschool or hire a rebbe, someone who knows this stuff, who can teach them.

What I tend to forget is that learning without application is worthless. Luckily, there are plenty of situations to remind me about it.

Today the kids held a "student council meeting" and decided among themselves that they want to be governed by republican democracy. Well, 2 yo objected by saying no. When 11 yo offered tyranny, 2 yo jumped excitedly up and down. Part of this new system of rule included taxation. The kids set a tax rate at 10% of their allowance, after tzedakah. They decided to store their taxes in an envelope in 5 yo's drawer (being the most responsible and the least likely to lose it). They also entered a clause about stealing from the tax fund and that was set by 11 yo straight from his mishna.

Later on today, we had an afternoon bris to attend. (The baby was jaundiced, so the bris was delayed). This is a sibling of one of their friends, so the kids were quite eager to go. As the crowds shuffled into the shul, I surveyed the situation and decided that it might not be worth it to stay for the סעודה afterwards, as it looked very crowded and I had all five kids by myself. Moreover, the boys went downstairs while I stayed upstairs with three younger ones. 5 yo asked to go down to the boys, but since this is not the building that we usually go to, I was not sure whether she knew her way around. I let her go, but then I could not find her afterwards. As I was trying to get the stroller into the corner and find a seat for 2 yo, I saw people trolling next to the food table, with the staff telling them that the food is not being served yet. I saw kids grab fistfuls of candy from the sweet table, more that any one child can eat at a time. I stopped mine from doing the same. I saw a rabbi hover around the food with the plate, trading remarks with the staff as to why he is not filling his plate yet. And I saw kids swoop in and repeatedly grab cookies from the sides, where the staff could not get them to stop.

All these kids are going to local Jewish schools, getting a Jewish education. The rabbi is a teacher in one of these schools. Yet all I saw was a lack of דרך ארץ. If the purpose of learning all those mishnayot is to pass a test and then leave them behind in the classroom, I am not sure whether that can be called education. If the rabbi teaches Pirkei Avot, yet fails to behave as a mentch, I am not sure whether his teaching means anything.

I gathered up my kids and left, not waiting to see the stampede of everyone else once the food will be opened up. I did not want to see people pushing and shoving to fill their plates. I did not want my kids to see people piling on more food that they can eat. I did not want to see the parents of the baby shake their heads and regret this late afternoon bris and the crowd of hungry Jews that were lured by a free dinner. But before I walked out, I saw the disgust in the eyes of a not religious grandma, surely produced by the less than fine behavior of the religious Jews.

My kids might be missing out on Jewish education, but they will not miss out on being educated in how to be a mentch.

viduy

Some days I wonder: why do we homeschool? Wouldn't they all be better off in their respective classrooms, with peers and trained teachers? They certainly wouldn't be spending their time flying remote control helicopters, bickering, reading random pieces of paper lying around, doodling...

And then we have a good experience, and I know that it could not have happened if they were in school.

Last night I talked on the phone to a mother of a former classmate of 10 yo. She was consulting about potentially homeschooling her son; the bullying situation in school got unbearable and the child did not want to go to school in the morning. Moreover, the bullying was done by a kid who was supposedly a good friend, which made it even more devastating.

I sort of told it over to my 10 yo, telling him to watch out for this boy in shul, and to be nice to him. His response: "Why would they bully him? He even wears the same kippa as everyone else, not like me!" Oh, I so wish that everything would be that easy, and that every kid would look around and see no faults in others.

Today I finally sat 10 yo down to go over Yom Kippur Amida. Being an insane person (or overly ambitious), I have just given a class for women on the basic structure of Yom Kippur davening, so it felt funny that I prepared and taught this material to others, while my kid would be in the dark.

He had seen Rosh HaShana Amidah, so the beginning parts were easy. He chose to use Metsudah machzor which has translation side by side. I pointed out the differences in the Kedushat Hayom, and he sort of listened, sort of rolled his eyes. Then we got to viduy. He said, I know what it is: ashamnu, bagadnu... I read and translated the preliminary bit, and then he read each word of the acrostic. I focused on how Hashem knows everything, and how we might not even be aware that we have sinned. We read over most of the rest of viduy, and he got very serious and very sad. I saw that he was taking this all close to heart. I explained that Hashem forgives our sins, as long as we confess them sincerely. Hashem erases our sins, and they lift like smoke. He was teary-eyed, and he said that he is aware of how many mean things he has done. I told him to remember that sincere teshuva is accepted. I also told him that people who used to sin and then stop and repent are held in higher regard than people who never sinned.


I was starting to think that maybe I overdid it with viduy, until it was time to go to Costco, and the boys returned to their old cheerful selves, ramming each other with the carts. At that point, I was almost wondering whether any of this stuck, until he asked me, later on in the day, wouldn't it be embarrassing to recite viduy out loud, so that everyone would hear your sins? I said that people say it in unison, not too loudly, unless one's sins are well-known, and then they can be recited.

I do not know whether going over viduy is on a curriculum for 5th grade yeshiva. That brought me back to a question asked by a parent last night: how do I test my kids to make sure they are keeping up? I said that I do not do testing beyond state requirements, and I do not worry about keeping up. I worry about the level of each individual child. I felt that 10 yo is ready to be familiarized with the structure of Amidah, and that he was ready to take a closer look at viduy. What I do know, if those boys who are so abusive to her son would have had a sincere experience of sitting down with a parent, going over viduy, and thinking how their actions affect others, and how they will have to ask for forgiveness in just one more day, I bet the bullying situation would not have been so bad.

In the meanwhile, I ache for this boy and his intolerable situation. I ache for my kids who are not getting the calmest parent and the best education possible. I ache for the dayschool system which does not allow kids to blossom outside of a very narrow definition. I ache for the kids who will go into Yom Kippur and come out exactly the same way because nobody took the time to make it meaningful. I ache for mothers who resent having their kids home the whole Yom Kippur. I ache for the mothers who will try to make Yom Kippur meaningful, yet will feel that they do not live up to some impossible standard of self-sacrifice if they do not manage to daven AND feed everyone AND break up the fights AND keep the kids quiet because daddy came home to take as nap.

I ache for the sin of superficiality pervading Jewish community.

May this Yom Kippur strip all the veneer and reach deep into your heart.

overparenting and kiddush Hashem

We went on a nature hike today with a bunch of other homeschoolers. I drove there with a friend and her son. In the car, we were talking about parenting nowadays and how it is so hard: you feel guilty for not hovering over your kid the entire time, you feel guilty for not signing up your kid for every single wonderful and fulfilling activity under the sun, you feel guilty about feeding them random food, you feel guilty about them watching too much TV and not producing Pinterest-worthy projects together. Somehow, parenting becomes a hard chore instead of a pleasure. Somehow the kids are always supervised. Somehow, the definition of a good mother is synonymous with helicopter.

A few days ago we were in a casual restaurant. There were two moms eating out, with their kids. The moms were obviously very excited to catch up with each other. The kids, dressed to the nines in matching white outfits, were getting quite restless since the moms have been catching up for a while. One of the girls took a styrofoam cup and sat with it on the floor, ripping it to pieces. She shredded it. Another one dropped her half-finished food. The moms kept on talking. Eventually they got up and left, with styrofoam pieces strewn all over the floor, and the food splatters under the table. As they were leaving, a Mexican worker surveyed the damage, got out the broom, and started mopping up. I said to my husband: what a chillul Hashem!

I do not hover over my kids. I do not get them dressed in matching outfits. I do not watch every move and fret about every choice. But if my kid makes a mess in a public space, he will have to clean it up. It is not a very fancy definition of kiddush Hashem, but not leaving a giant mess for the restaurant workers means a whole lot more than having your kids appear all well-groomed. If a kid of mine gets into a scuffle, I am assuming that he is to blame, and he will have to apologize or work it out.

It is time to take a giant step back and figure out what are the important values to convey to our kids. Is it the outwardly appearance, or is it internal values? If the kids' middot are emphasized, eventually (I hope) there will be no need to hover and fix and smooth everything for them; they will be able to take care of these matters satisfactorily on their own.

why would anyone be doing this?

See these angles, studiously working together each in their workbook? No, this is not a posed photo, but it lasted a total of four minutes.

Today I had a visit from a friend who is considering homeschooling her older child. Shew wanted to see what curriculum I use. I warned her that we do not have much in the way of curriculum nowadays, but sure, come see what I've got. Since there was a bit of back-and-forth about when and whether she would come at all, I decided not to tell the kids in advance. We did not have a smooth morning, but I was hoping that things would calm down by the afternoon. I do not believe in whitewashing what homeschooling is really like, but I did not expect my kids to put the worst foot forward.

As soon as she got here, with her two sweet younger kids, my kids got off the wall. 3 yo was running around yelling, 9 yo was interjecting and I was having a hard time carrying on a conversation. Her kids clung to her. I suggested going down to the basement, where the toys are. Her kids would not go without her, which is totally understandable since mine were behaving like wildebeests. I got around to showing math (about the only subject in which we follow a curriculum) and she started telling me about the reservations that she has, but we did not get far. My kids started jumping and sliding down a mattress. 9 yo started fighting with the younger ones. 3 yo screamed into her baby's face. I tried telling her that this is not the way she would want to be treated, and she should not treat others like that, but she ran away laughing.

This lady looked at me and asked two pointed questions: is there any place I can send the kids for a bit, and do I get out to do anything on my own? The answer to both questions was no. I told her that I am not the best spokesperson for homeschooling at the moment. She had a look of someone not sure why anyone would be doing this in the first place. And I could not explain why this makes sense. I started trying to summon some of our better moments, but I kept getting interrupted by sulking 9 yo. As a final salvo, he removed the pedal off the baby gate, locking us in the basement. There I am, fumbling with the gate, while she is patiently waiting next to me...

Ooh, this was quite embarrassing. So why am I doing this? My kids have no middos, slack off, do not do their schoolwork and do not allow for a grown-up conversation.

Yet, just as I am despairing, everything gets flipped.

At dinner, 7 yo mentioned how he would like to have African Grey Parrot as a pet, since it is so smart and you can teach it things. He was planning to teach it mathematics, and everything that he knows. I probed what all this knowledge included, and he said something about Hashem. 9 yo said that African Grey has intelligence of a 6 year old, so he could be taught to think about Hashem. I said that animals cannot know about Hashem and cannot be taught such abstract ideas. That lead to a question: what does every kid at the table know about Hashem? 3 yo first demurred, but then said that we daven to Hashem. I asked her why, and she said, that's what we are supposed to do. 7 yo passed, saying that he is asking questions, not ready to answer. 9 yo said that Hashem created everything, and is in charge of everything, and was always here and knows why everything is the way it is. 7 yo wanted to know how Hashem was there before the world was here, and all of a sudden we are discussing dark matter (all of this while I am trying to feed the baby).

I got that distinct feeling of satisfaction, this is what homeschooling is about: a nice open dinner conversation, everyone is engaged and comfortable sharing or passing, religion and science freely mixing, and my children expressing ideas about G-d on their level, each of them true.

3 yo all of a sudden piped up: "Speaking about G-d... G-d bless America!" We were listening to that in the car earlier today. The boys cracked up, then 7 yo asked: "Why should Hashem bless America?" That led to another discussion about religious freedom. 9 yo knew that it is part of the Bill of Rights, and no, I did not teach that to him, he must have read it on his own. I also explained how Jews are not free to practice in every country, and this makes America special.

In a nutshell, homeschooling is tough. There are so many things to despair about, and so many things to feel good about. I just need to work on getting us more towards those feel-good moments.

running errands with kids

I drag my kids everywhere. I have no choice: I do not have babysitter/housekeeper/au pair/neighbor whom I can drop the kids off with while I run my errands. Sometimes my husband can run some errands for me, but that depends on whether he will get called up or not, so his errands skew towards non-essential or 24 hr Kroger variety. All the other errands are on me, and that means that I grocery-shop with kids.

I have two secrets: practice and expectations.

Practice: I need food every week, often more than once per week. The means that we hit a grocery store 4-8 times a month. That also means that we have lots of chances to work out how the visit will go. The kids know how to come out of the car in a busy parking lot, how to help younger siblings unbuckle, how to push a younger sibling in a cart or stroller, how to cross a parking lot and how to navigate the store. They know which store's bakery gives out cookies ( if you ask nicely), and how to do self-check-out. They also know that if they help me, it will go faster. I use Myshopi app and always come with a shopping list, so we spend very little time wandering around aimlessly. The kids do not always want to come, and it does not always go smoothly, but because of the sheer bulk of these shopping trips, they get plenty of practice.

Expectations: since we end up shopping so much, they kids know my expectations. They will not throw a fit in the candy aisle: I will not get that candy anyway. They can pick one cereal that they like, but I will ask to pick the one with the least sugar. Then it's up to them to work out which cereal goes in the cart. They will not run off, since I expect the boys to help me maneuver the cart and the stroller. I expect help when I am loading and unloading groceries. All of these work because we shop so much.

Before Succot started, I had a crazy day when I had to take care of multiple errands. First, it was the chiropractor, then I had to get some groceries, pick up mail from a UPS store, laminate posters for the succah and buy wooden clothespins for 7 yo's trivet project. I also needed to drop off the books at the library. All of this had to be completed by 3 pm, when our backyard would be sprayed for mosquitoes. Some days I could have looked at this day and thrown in the towel before even getting started. However, it worked out well. After the chiropractor, I came back to the neighborhood closer to our house. I parked near a laminating place, then walked with the kids to the local grocery store's take-out counter for lunch. I do not do this often, but I figured it will save time instead of going back home and then going back out again. It also put everyone in a good mood. The boys helped me carry food to the tables, thanked me for their hot dogs and even helped clean up when the baby knocked over my container. They helped me shop and carried the groceries to the car. Then they held doors while I picked up mail. While the posters were getting laminated, I asked the boys to find card stock, since we used up all that we had and they did. Afterwards, we went to a hardware store, looking for clothespins. 9 yo pushed the stroller, 7 yo and 3 yo played some kind of imagination game, and I smiled, thinking how idyllic this is, walking down the sidewalk on a sunny day, getting things done and enjoying the company of my kids. At that moment, 9 yo told me how much he is enjoying this day., and I knew that it was truly pleasant.

We fund the clothespins and stopped by a game shop so that 9 yo could ask a few questions about Nintendo DS ( he finally got it, but that's a topic for a different post). Then we all loaded in the car and drove to the library. One of the boys dropped the books off and we made it home just in time.

It is so easy to discount all of this. My kids are not perfect and we've had our share of disasters. 7 yo once hid from me in Costco, and I could not find him. I had to call security. It is equally easy to say that we should not waste so much time on shopping and errands. Maybe they should be sitting down and learning something, producing, creating, feverishly filling out worksheets. After all, you can proudly display a worksheet on the refrigerator; you cannot hang up a memory of a great day when everyone was pleasant and well-behaved. Maybe this is bitul Torah (wasting time not learning Torah). But one needs derech erets (proper behavior) before learning Torah, otherwise what is the point of all the learning, if it's all hypothetical. And in the real world, people still need to buy groceries. People need to plan ahead and stand in lines. People have to interact with other adults and ask for products. People need to know how to walk on the sidewalk so that others could pass.

Finally, people need to know how to acknowledge that they are having a great day in each other's company.

apathetic village

It takes a village to raise a child.

In general, nobody can do it alone. One needs a support system of some kind, a network of grown-ups willing to look after the well-being of children for everyone's good. It helps when this network is of like-minded people. However, in everyday interactions, we are faced with all kinds of folks, and they might not share the same values, or have the same level of tolerance as we do. Our kids still need to behave in a way that is bearable.

Sometimes I wish that the village was not so laid-back, politically correct and hands-off. Sometimes I wish that when my kids are being too loud in a public place, somebody else would hush them. When they are in a restaurant and they are getting rowdy, let the server tell them that they cannot stay. When they are being rude to an adult, let the adult tell them as much. When they are turning in a half-baked work, let it be rejected instead of being greeted with "Good job!" They will not break from these experiences, but they will find out where the limit of the village is.

Nobody said that the village is kind. Generally, I would like to mind my own kids without others interfering. Yet I wonder, wouldn't being kicked out from a show for being too disruptive teach them more about being quiet than all the hushing I can do?

Oh, I would love to have those kids, the ones with napkins on their laps and indoor voices, always putting their best foot forward. Until I get them, I might need the village to be a bit more vigilant, for my sake.

eruv mailing

A few days ago our local listserve had a request for people to help with the eruv mailing. It was for stuffing and stamping envelopes. I figured it is something my boys and I could do, so I responded. I just asked for it to take place out of my house since my husband was on call and I did not want to commit and then not be able to make it. The person in charge agreed and said that another lady was coming to help, too.

They came last night. The mailing was going out to the members of both orthodox shuls, which consisted of a bit over 600 families (that's how many labels we stuck on!). I would guess that at least a half of those use eruv. We got one of those letters last year, so I asked what kind of response do they get. I was told that it is about one hundred responses. Obviously people here are very comfortable using the eruv and not contributing anything towards its maintenance: hey, somebody else will pay for it. Judging by the fact that only two people responded to help with the mailing, eruv is not on the list of communal priority. I suggested taking it down for a Shabbos, to raise awareness. The response was that eruv has barely been down ( true, in three years we were here, it has not been down ONCE), but when it goes down, there is no end to complaining.

My kids have never stuffed envelopes before, so we showed them how to do it. 7 yo was in charge of the first step: placing a response envelope inside a folded letter. He could not stop marveling at the assembly line and the importance of his work. He was fast and careful, and remarked again and again how each step follows another, to produce a complete letter. 9 yo was in charge of sticking on address labels. He was calling out every time we got to the next letter in the alphabet, or he got to someone we know. He also helped remove some for people who moved away.

Overall, the mailing took a bit over two hours, way past the boys' bedtime. My boys worked the entire time, not slacking. I had a little discussion with 7 yo on the halachic importance of eruv. Having not lived in a city without eruv, he was taking all his Shabbos carrying for granted. He also asked whether we will be getting paid for this job. The lady in charge told,him it's a mitzvah, and I said it is a chesed that we are doing, and Hashem pays us for our work. He beamed.

I am on the lookout for more chesed opportunities where I can be involved with my kids. I think doing meaningful volunteer work produces a sense of well-being that is hard to replicate otherwise.

what it takes to survive

This past Sunday was Yom HaShoa. No, I did not do any special activity with the kids, in fact, I am still struggling how to weave Holocaust into our conversations.

What I saw was this article about an extended family of Ukranian Jews surviving while hiding out in a cave. Their story is atypical in that a whole family was intact. The article addresses what the conditions were like in the cave and the evidence found by an expedition many years later of their amazing survival.

What struck me was the last part of the article where a professional caver answers the questions about his search:

Do you think that people today could survive like the families did?

Modern-day people who sit at a computer all day? I would say no for two reasons. First of all, these were hands-on people. They were carpenters and merchants who had to provide for themselves, especially during the occupation. They also grew up knowing the history of the caves in the area and that ancient people lived in them, so they knew it could be done. Secondly, the Stermer grandmother taught her family not to trust authority. At one point, before they fled to the caves, all Jews were told to meet in town and register. The grandmother decided they were not going to go. The family worried but they obeyed the grandmother. That day, in five separate towns, the Germans rounded up thousands of Jews and many were never seen again—it had been a trap. I think people today often don't give themselves the right to question authority.

If, G-d forbid, something like this was to happen again, are we training our kids to survive?

I am thinking about how my kids spent hours exploring our fairly overgrown backyard. The know every nook and cranny of it, they know what it is like to get their hands dirty, to dig with a shovel, to carry rocks, to tie down bushes to make tents. Moreover, they have been carrying all of these activities by themselves while their peers have been obediently sitting at their desks, keeping their hands and notebooks clean, listening to authority, learning how not to speak out of turn and trust adults no matter what.

Years ago, one of the Christian homeschooling curriculum that I encountered emphasized obedience as a good trait. I asked another parent if this is a midda (a character trait) that we cultivate as Jews. She said, no.   Oh, it would be so easy if these kids just listened and obeyed! We are a stiff-necked people, we are stubborn, we question authority. Yesterday, my oldest went a little rant about whether G-d exists and his proof is that he has been asking for Nintendo DS in Shema Koleinu and never got one. If we were Catholic, I was supposed to bop him on the head and say: "Silly! How dare you question the existence of G-d?" But, being Jewish, I explained how everything around him could not be pure coincidence and there must be a Creator who is in charge of the world.

Why so many Jews perished in Holocaust? Why they listened and trusted the powers in charge? Why they did not lift their heads from Talmud pages and university journals and fought for their lives? We say "never again", but why are we relying on others to ensure our survival instead of cultivating this resilience and stubbornness?

this one is not a mentch

This past Shabbos, R. Chanoch Teller was a guest speaker in our shul. He gave a class about being a mentch (an admirable person). He started by saying how all parenting classes tell parents to love their children, but that a lot of them do not say that it is much easier to love your children if they are well-behaved and are mentches.

Overall, I agree. It is easier to love a child who is lovable. But what about your child who is not? What if your child is the one who is throwing a major tantrum? What if your child routinely bites/hits/hurts/screams at you and his siblings? What if your child makes you wonder where he came from, because he is not like you and like your other kids?

Before I go further, let me clarify that this is not a parenting issue, that your other kids are being brought up in the exact same way, in the exact same household, but their behavior is more reflective of your expectations, while this one child is off the wall. If all your children are off the wall, then you might need to reexamine your parenting.

You have that one child who is different. The one who melts down over the slightest things, the one who drives you nuts, the one for whom you wish there were parents to call and to complain to, except that you are the parent. What are you supposed to do?

All of a sudden, a chorus of blaming voices materializes. These voices usually find fault in the parent.

• It's your genetics, you must have had undiagnosed (or diagnosed) ADD or some other disorder and now look what you transmitted.
• It's your reluctance to medicate, there must be a nice pill which will magically turn your little monster into a human.
• It's your eagerness to medicate, must be that one of those drugs is causing a side effect, and you are blindly shoving more medicine in.
• If only you would cut out gluten/sugar/carbs/food coloring/dairy, you would see such a difference.
• If you were only stricter and show who is the boss, the child would obey.
• If you only hugged them and held them during tantrums, then they would feel comfortable and not have to express themselves this way.
• If only you would have held off on those vaccines, your child could have been normal.

The list goes on...

I included the items from both sides of the aisle, since I find that both sides scream themselves hoarse over the choices they make or regret making. The overall sense of guilt and wrongdoing starts to envelop the parent, who is coming to grips that this child will not be a conventional child. The parents either are paralyzed by realization that this is not going away, or seek out every single cure in hope that one of them will do the trick.

What happened to embracing differences? What happened to realizing that not everyone is cut out to be mentch by temperament? What happened to accepting the child for who he is, warts and all?

King David
http://www.biblewalks.com/Photos30/DavidHarp8.jpg

David HaMelech was a warrior by temperament. By plain p'shat, same temper which caused him to act fearlessly in battle led him to audaciously seize Batsheva and concoct a cover-up with Uriah. Despite all the whitewashing of the story, David's actions were not in accordance with Hashem's will; he clearly performed an evil deed, and confessed later that he sinned. The larger question is: why is this story recorded, especially since it has to come with so many explanations of how it is not as bad as it sounds? It must be that an important lesson is hidden in there: even a great personality is not always acting as a mentch.

Based on midrashim, David's own family did not think very highly of him. He was odd, he was weird, he was different, he did not seem suited for leadership, and he wrestled bears and lions with his bare hands. Does not sound like a nice yeshiva bochur. His parents probably stayed up at night, whispering and shaking heads, wondering what would become of him. But he was given an opportunity to be a shepherd, stay in the wilderness, play his harp, expend his energy, find what suits him.

Are we giving our difficult children the same opportunity? Are we depriving them of a chance to become the next great leader by constantly squeezing them into a box that is too small? Do all of them have to behave like a mentch all the time? Do we have to point out every time how they do not measure up?

I am guilty of this. I have a child who is not like either my husband or me. Today I wish there were some parents somewhere to call and to complain to about how his behavior is just plain wrong. But now, sitting down, I think how this child is most likely to behave like a mentch in the most unexpected situations: share something, help someone, make someone feel better, tune in to the feelings of others. As I enlarge the box, his finer qualities manage to squeeze in, too, and overshadow the inappropriate behaviors.

I need to find more opportunities for this child to shine.

some general musings

I think the real reason people are afraid to homeschool is that all influences in child's life become family-centered. You cannot blame teachers, morahs, babysitters, friends, bullies, etc for the way the child turns out. YOU, as a parent, are solely responsible for that. It is true even if your child is not homeschooled, but then it is easier to blame problems and lack of success on others. When the child is with you, day in and day out, you just see yourself and all your character traits reflected back.

Our local dayschool printed a letter from the principal, reinforcing that while school provides academics, the middos ( positive character traits) come from home. Schools do not teach kids to behave, parents do. Now, the thought of that sometimes leaves me so overwhelmed, that I want to hide under the covers and not see the light of the day. I am really afraid of irreparably screwing up my kids. But, on the other hand, this is a real opportunity to work on yourself. Your kids will learn not only from your nice moments, but also from the moments when you are short-tempered; when everything is falling apart; when you lose it. I think there is a lot to be said for learning how to lose it consciously. Say to yourself: I am losing it; this situation is infuriating, but what do I want my child to take away from it?

This "working on yourself" brings me to another issue which I keep observing in myself, as well as in others. Where do your energies flow? When kids are tiny babies, all energies naturally flow to maintain them: to feed them, to change them, to get them to sleep. Once they are not so tiny, all of a sudden you find yourself with surplus of energy. (For me it happens around the time the youngest is two). What are you doing with it? Do you place it into making your house spotless and your kids prisoners of only one "messy" area? Do you place it into Shabbos meals to stun others, while your kids would happily eat chicken and potatoes? Do you feel that now you need to find a job, so that you have approval of others while the little people who look up to you are now forced to look up to someone else? Do you find a new fad to follow, which will take your energy and then you will be too busy and tired to read a book to your kids before they go to sleep? Or will you take that energy and use it towards your family's needs, whether it means playing a board game, taking your kids to ride bikes, reading umpteenth book for the umpteenth time, or answering your child's question in a thought-out manner.

I am not for people martyring themselves for the sake of the children, but I am against accidental parenting.