Shalhevet, stay at home lady? I think that if you have a big family or young kids there's probably plenty to do even if all the kids are out - get the kids out by 8 or so and then you have until what, 1:30? Do the dishes and the laundry, make the beds, mop a floor, clean a bathroom, run an errand, make lunch and the time will be all gone. So yeah, there are stay-at-home-moms and stay-at-home-ladies, but I think the right term here would be "housewife." The people here talking about how they need the older kids out, are talking about getting them out so they can do things like cook dinner and nurse the baby.
Not arguing that it's necessary, but it's not exactly the high life either.
You didn't read what I wrote. These women have enough money for help too. Believe me, they are not mopping their floors or cleaning the bathroom. I don't think they really exist much in Israel. But in England they exist. In droves as FS would say.
Shalhevet, they do exist in Israel as well. it just depends where you live. Where I live now (not going to say on the main board, but I think you know) there are some women who either dont work or work part time and have either live ins or women who come into the house to do it all. So, it does exist here, but not as widely as other places.
CM you said it. Kallah jewelry isn't necessary nor is a sheitl. Certainly not a custom one. you can get a nice paula young one for 50 dollars right? My mother still wears them like that and she looks great. If you can afford it, fine, but not on someone elses dime.
Isramom for a lot of people the present doesn't include camp. Or eating out. Or ready mades. Or having a cleaning girl. For a lot of people it means they can't afford mani pedis and like me have never had one in their lives. For a lot of people it means not going to a hairdresser but having your mother cut your hair at home. Yes yes yes I am not talking 19th century.
Fun is NOT a new phenomenon. Read the gemoro, Children played games, heck my husband has a friend who wrote an entire article about children's games in the second temple period and he was once lecturing here in yerushalayim about a halochic sugiya called "rabbeinu tam's wagon" - children's play wagons and whether they can be used on shabbat on top of rags as it makes a furrow in the floor etc. Rashi wrote about the wagon, rabbenu tam wrote about a kind of children's play walker like that.
Children played ball. They "gambled" and played with dice. It's not new.
Adolescence is new. but that doesn't seem to be the discussion here. The problem is the same age group that always had "fun" the three, five, seven and nine year olds.
I AM living in the present. in the affordable present. I am still not convinced that my zedoko given to talmidei chachomim, let's say in your kehilla, for limud torah, is best spent sending the kids of your kehilla to summer camp so that their mothers will be rested to have yet another child which they will then send to summer camp to have yet another child at home to care for...when my own grandson is NOT going to summer camp as his parents can't afford it with another baby to be born this summer.
Shalhevet, stay at home lady? I think that if you have a big family or young kids there's probably plenty to do even if all the kids are out - get the kids out by 8 or so and then you have until what, 1:30? Do the dishes and the laundry, make the beds, mop a floor, clean a bathroom, run an errand, make lunch and the time will be all gone. So yeah, there are stay-at-home-moms and stay-at-home-ladies, but I think the right term here would be "housewife." The people here talking about how they need the older kids out, are talking about getting them out so they can do things like cook dinner and nurse the baby.
Not arguing that it's necessary, but it's not exactly the high life either.
You didn't read what I wrote. These women have enough money for help too. Believe me, they are not mopping their floors or cleaning the bathroom. I don't think they really exist much in Israel. But in England they exist. In droves as FS would say.
my community is chock full of sahms who turn into stay at home ladies once their kids grow up. Their husbands make decent livings, tuition is free here, including university. They have 2-4 kids. Poor here is not having a cleaning lady or a vacation home. Or taking only one vacation a year.
ISramom if you are talking about kids clinically diagnosed as hyperactive or special needs children that's different. Then you are talking about a child with a form of "nechut". That's not what this discussion is all about.
Lots of kids are just vilde chayes because they aren't given any limits or discipline. They are "rowdy" but even rowdy kids often knew that what they could get away with in "the street" they daren't do at home. Thats a normal rowdy kid not one with a learning or educational or behavioral disability.
I would venture that most of the so called "hyperactive" kids that people are talking about here are kids usually boys who didn't get strict discipline about what is and is not permitted with sanctions, punishments and censures if they didn't keep to it. Children are no different than small pets in this matter except that they are a lot more intelligent. They can be trained to have good manners. They can be trained to limit their rowdyness at home unless of course you have a living room filled with crystals and china and they must sit in their seat three hours a day in the fear that they would break it.
Normal kids need to burn off energy. Thats what the playground and park are for.
ISramom if you are talking about kids clinically diagnosed as hyperactive or special needs children that's different. Then you are talking about a child with a form of "nechut". That's not what this discussion is all about.
Lots of kids are just vilde chayes because they aren't given any limits or discipline. They are "rowdy" but even rowdy kids often knew that what they could get away with in "the street" they daren't do at home. Thats a normal rowdy kid not one with a learning or educational or behavioral disability.
I would venture that most of the so called "hyperactive" kids that people are talking about here are kids usually boys who didn't get strict discipline about what is and is not permitted with sanctions, punishments and censures if they didn't keep to it. Children are no different than small pets in this matter except that they are a lot more intelligent. They can be trained to have good manners. They can be trained to limit their rowdyness at home unless of course you have a living room filled with crystals and china and they must sit in their seat three hours a day in the fear that they would break it.
Normal kids need to burn off energy. Thats what the playground and park are for.
children are born with different energy levels; they don't have to be special needs to be overly-active and 2 handfuls of trouble.
freidasima wrote:
CM you said it. Kallah jewelry isn't necessary nor is a sheitl. Certainly not a custom one. you can get a nice paula young one for 50 dollars right? My mother still wears them like that and she looks great. If you can afford it, fine, but not on someone elses dime.
I also buy wigs from paula young for a similar price, but it wears out much quicker than the better ones. I'm not even sure that it's cost-effective, but it's easier for me to keep buying cheap than put out so much money all at once.
I, for one, don't put camp in the same category as eating out. Or ready mades. Or having a cleaning girl. or mani pedis, hairdresser, etc. I don't think of its importance for the mother's benefit - I'm think of the child. of course most of them would survive for the summer, but at what cost to his/her chinuch?
could it be that we're comparing apples and oranges - maybe some of us mean day-camp and some mean sleepover? also - what or if chugim are available in your area, how many friends will also be around to spend time with, how old is the child?
All true Grin and all questions to be asked. Costs are also different. But the question of the thread was if you can't afford ANY camp should you be taking zedoko to cover it. Very very very much depends on the kid and the situation. If a kid is the only Jewish kid in an area and in a BT family which needs a certain chizuk, then sending that kid away to a religious camp is a sense of kiruv because otherwise that kid might just go OTD because of no support. That's not what was being disucssed here.
Unless you are living in a tiny yishuv with one matnas and every single kid is in an expensive program and the matnas is not working, I can't think of a city in EY or a town or anywhere which has no very inexpensive or even free programs for kids. But they may be in a different area. Or they kids friends may not be going there. If someone's kid is the only one not able to afford going away then good chance that kid is also the only one of the chevra who can't afford a lot of things. Maybe that means that it would be better to be in a different area and a different chevra in which there are more kids like them?
This entire discussion is based on a straw-man argument!
A handful of mothers mentioned their difficulty in "coping" on another thread, and all of a sudden every SAHM is being portrayed as a lazy, spoiled princess. Well, I've read complaints at one time or another from almost all of us on imamother, but I don't look down my nose at anyone who has ever kvetched. They are just a reflection of momentary frustration or dreading a possible outcome.
Look, if a mother is genuinely having difficulty coping, her rav/Rebbe/rosh yeshiva will usually step in and provide whatever financial resources are needed to help . . . whether it's camp tuition or food or cleaning help. He will weigh the circumstances and the people involved and try to balance the need for individual responsibility and rachmones. Decisions will be based on an individual basis -- not on generalized opinions about how today's generation is worse than the last.
Or if a principal feels that a particular child would benefit from camp but the family doesn't have the resources, he/she will often work with the camp as well as local chesed organizations to procure money.
So, again, who exactly are these teems of weak women demanding that the rest of us pay for their vacation from their children? Receiving a solicitation mailing from a camp is not the same as being asked directly to pay for someone's luxury? Sure -- I get such solicitations. I also get ads for $2500 handbags. That doesn't mean that I believe everyone feels entitled to a $2500 handbag!
As Mama Bear has pointed out, most Chassidish kehillas as well as many others, build affordable summer programming into their community's overall allocations. Are people also made ill by this? If so, how on earth do they stand living in countries with high rates of taxation? By golly, people ought to build their own roads, just like the old days!
I'm as ready to climb on the anti-princess bandwagon as anyone (I once took a magazine quiz called, "How High-Maintenance Are You" and I got a negative score!), but this is the worst sort of misogynism: taking a societal practice that may, in fact, be worthy of more scrutiny -- and simply blaming the women.
Freidasima, we do a lot of those things, but my kids need that PLUS outside activities. I don't know if that's the norm, or if my kids are just doubly needy as far as stimulation and creativity. I do know that teachers always comment about how much they know from home. That doesn't mean they are capable of staying home 24/7 for 9 weeks.
Wake up late. Daven. Eat breakfast. Straighten the room. Seriously, isn't it around 10 am by then? Take bikes do a couple of sivivim. Meet up with friends under the building where it's cool and chill out. Come home for what passes as lunch. Play in the house with sibs/friends/alone until it's time to go outside again at 5. Read. I don't see what so hard here. Once a kid is at least 8 or 9 years old, of course.
This is the way I have been spending a lot of my summers.
I am being serious. I thought the value of being a stay at home mum is because you believe that you should be with your children and not having others take care of them. If you don't want to be home with your children, why not work?
No I don't think housekeeping and errands is a full days work. Working mothers do these things too.
I don't see how it's different from what you described. You were home with one child, then not at home, then home with a second while the first was already in gan. That's more or less what people are talking about here - being home with the baby while the older kids are out of the house.
Housekeeping and errands doesn't have to be a full day's work, but I think it could be. I would guess that most working mothers like me - we do all those things, but not always 100% (my floor gets pretty sticky between one sponga and the next) and not always at the earliest opportunity (for instance, I could have been putting away the 12mo baby clothes a few months ago instead of this week).
Remember that a woman at home without kids wouldn't have the full 8-9 hours that a working mom is out to do those things, just the 5 or 5.5 hours that the kids are all out.
CM you said it. Kallah jewelry isn't necessary nor is a sheitl. Certainly not a custom one. you can get a nice paula young one for 50 dollars right? My mother still wears them like that and she looks great. If you can afford it, fine, but not on someone elses dime.
I only said that b/c it's inflamatory. We've discussed it time and time again. In Lubavitch, a nice sheital is a must, not a luxury. In some kehillos, a cleaning lady is a must whereas tuna fish or cottage cheese for dinner is OK. Another inflammatory discussion.
I've never had cleaning help. Yet I own several nice sheitals and always did, no matter how poor we were.
All true Grin and all questions to be asked. Costs are also different. But the question of the thread was if you can't afford ANY camp should you be taking zedoko to cover it. Very very very much depends on the kid and the situation. If a kid is the only Jewish kid in an area and in a BT family which needs a certain chizuk, then sending that kid away to a religious camp is a sense of kiruv because otherwise that kid might just go OTD because of no support. That's not what was being disucssed here.
Unless you are living in a tiny yishuv with one matnas and every single kid is in an expensive program and the matnas is not working, I can't think of a city in EY or a town or anywhere which has no very inexpensive or even free programs for kids. But they may be in a different area. Or they kids friends may not be going there. If someone's kid is the only one not able to afford going away then good chance that kid is also the only one of the chevra who can't afford a lot of things. Maybe that means that it would be better to be in a different area and a different chevra in which there are more kids like them?
not all yishuvim have matnasim.
Some yishuvim do not have programs for children, I am sure of it. But that is also a decision, to live on a yishuv.
All true Grin and all questions to be asked. Costs are also different. But the question of the thread was if you can't afford ANY camp should you be taking zedoko to cover it. Very very very much depends on the kid and the situation. If a kid is the only Jewish kid in an area and in a BT family which needs a certain chizuk, then sending that kid away to a religious camp is a sense of kiruv because otherwise that kid might just go OTD because of no support. That's not what was being disucssed here.
Unless you are living in a tiny yishuv with one matnas and every single kid is in an expensive program and the matnas is not working, I can't think of a city in EY or a town or anywhere which has no very inexpensive or even free programs for kids. But they may be in a different area. Or they kids friends may not be going there. If someone's kid is the only one not able to afford going away then good chance that kid is also the only one of the chevra who can't afford a lot of things. Maybe that means that it would be better to be in a different area and a different chevra in which there are more kids like them?
not all yishuvim have matnasim.
Some yishuvim do not have programs for children, I am sure of it. But that is also a decision, to live on a yishuv.
the "programs" I have available for my kids is day-camp, often subsidized with tzedaka money, so that it can include any child who wants.
I am just trying to point out, that for a typical family living in Brooklyn on a high floor with no elevator, no porch and no backyard, having the entire family home is absolutely not feasible.
Everyone else who is NOT from Brooklyn and does NOT have these living arrangements, your opinion does not count, and you dont understand just what it's like.
MOving to the suburbs is not an option, for a variety of reasons.
So, this thread doesnt have to be about me, and you dont need to give me ideas, because I, BH, am not having a problem sending my kids to day camp. It's free for both of them.
I am just trying to point out that it is *NOT*, and I repeat, *NOT* a luxury for a city family with no car, no elevator, no outdoors, and a small apartment. It just simply is not.
*******
And by the way, today both of my kids are off. It's only 2 pm and I have *already* lost my mind. I'm looking for it somewhere. This house has already become an absolute pigsty, my 5 1/2 yr old wont leave me alone for a second, my poor 3 yr old is being totally ignored, and I cant get a thing done. I havent even eaten. I have a jillion errands to run, all on foot, with 1 kid who is kvetching htat he doesnt want to come along, and another kid who is screaming in the stroller because he wants to go somewhere else. I really planned to go to a beach park today but couldn't because of my 3 yr old's therapy schedule. Thankfully, my 5 yr old FINALLY decided to go play outside a litlte, my 3 yr old has been dropped off at therapy (with a very reluctant 5 yr old having to be hurried along). Now I have to run to the dentist, the the grocery store to buy nosh for the upsherin peklech for next week, the school office to regisgter the 5 yr old for summer cheder, and the new apartment to see if the painter has arrived yet. So far he hasn't. There's no way I could do all of this with the 3 yr old home - that's why I'm doing it all while he's at therapy for a few hours.
So I'm throwing up my hands in despair trying to wonder how you all can seriously suggest someone should do this for 10 weeks in a row. I wouldnt be able to accomplish ONE ERRAND, ONE PHONE CALL, ONE APPOINTMENT. the 5 yr old is so high maintenance I cant interrupt our game for a minute to even check how the 3 yr old is doing. The 3 yr old is special needs and unless he is occupied, he is destroying the freezer and the house.
And I love them both and they are both beautiful and delicious and I'd give my life for them both. They just do not belong at home during the daytime. I dont have a *paid* job, but I do have a job which is to take care of this household. Sometimes it's parenting, but at other times it involves doing a lot of things I cannot do when my children need my attention. People who done homeschool, dont homeschool for a reason. Because they can't juggle their housework, errands, stuff, take care of themselves and their own health an well being, at the same time as teaching, or being a daycamp counselor.
So I dont see why in the summer they should suddenly be able to do it full time. I just don't.
I didn't think any of us were complaining! I'm simply trying to show the other side to people who obviously have no idea about what they think they do.
Go rip toilet paper for 2 hours. Honestly, I'm open-mouthed. I've never heard of a more ridiculous idea. Whoever thinks that works, has never been on my planet. As much as they insist they have, it's beyond ridiculous.
friedasima who said kids weren't vilde chayot in past generations? I'm sure my dad and his siblings could have given any of today's active kids a run for their money, and I've heard stories about my great-uncles as well.
Things were very different in terms of societal expectations back then, though. On the one hand, everything was expected to be much cleaner, but OTOH it was fine to tell kids "go outside and play" from around the age of 6, and send even younger kids out with older siblings. Now that's considered neglect in America. I think it's actually criminal.
I didn't think any of us were complaining! I'm simply trying to show the other side to people who obviously have no idea about what they think they do.
Go rip toilet paper for 2 hours. Honestly, I'm open-mouthed. I've never heard of a more ridiculous idea. Whoever thinks that works, has never been on my planet. As much as they insist they have, it's beyond ridiculous.
A handful of mothers mentioned their difficulty in "coping" on another thread, and all of a sudden every SAHM is being portrayed as a lazy, spoiled princess. Well, I've read complaints at one time or another from almost all of us on imamother, but I don't look down my nose at anyone who has ever kvetched. They are just a reflection of momentary frustration or dreading a possible outcome.
For the record, some are. Some women, and I won't discuss their background, count on their mothers or MILs to cook their dinners as a newlywed (to say nothing of G'fabid making Pesach until they are married at least ten years), take care of their kids after childbirth for weeks at a time, and bring them their homemade challah every week. Some women have their husbands do the grocery shopping, for Heaven's sake !!!
Hey - I work full time, always have, and I work very hard. I do everything myself at home. Without cleaning help, my apt always looks nice and my freezer is always packed with food, just in case. I have had manicures a handful of times, if you will excuse the pun, but even when I don't, I take care that I should look nice. I'm up early and literally work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I set my sheitals myself most of the time. I exercise and I make sure we hae a variety of heatlhy foods at home. And I don't make a big deal of it. We do what we need to.
I think housework is a great way to keep kids busy, albeit not in way friedasima described.
My dad would always use that trick.
"I'm bored."
"Oh, you have time? Great! I was thinking we could clean the basement today."
"Uhhh... I was going to ask you if (friend) and I can go into town."
"That sounds like a great idea."
"I also don't understand why people are choosing to be SAHMs if they don't like their children."
Oh, it's an in thing. We don't like our children at all. We're just looking for an excuse to be lazy.
Tova, I pay for my kids' school kaitana roughly what you pay for your backyard day camp. That price is still difficult for some Israeli families. Should their kids be stuck at home?
I am being serious. I thought the value of being a stay at home mum is because you believe that you should be with your children and not having others take care of them. If you don't want to be home with your children, why not work?
No I don't think housekeeping and errands is a full days work. Working mothers do these things too.
Why not work? I guess it is not always so easy! You make it seem as if it was the easiest thing to find a job nowadays..
This entire discussion is based on a straw-man argument!
A handful of mothers mentioned their difficulty in "coping" on another thread, and all of a sudden every SAHM is being portrayed as a lazy, spoiled princess. Well, I've read complaints at one time or another from almost all of us on imamother, but I don't look down my nose at anyone who has ever kvetched. They are just a reflection of momentary frustration or dreading a possible outcome.
Look, if a mother is genuinely having difficulty coping, her rav/Rebbe/rosh yeshiva will usually step in and provide whatever financial resources are needed to help . . . whether it's camp tuition or food or cleaning help. He will weigh the circumstances and the people involved and try to balance the need for individual responsibility and rachmones. Decisions will be based on an individual basis -- not on generalized opinions about how today's generation is worse than the last.
Or if a principal feels that a particular child would benefit from camp but the family doesn't have the resources, he/she will often work with the camp as well as local chesed organizations to procure money.
So, again, who exactly are these teems of weak women demanding that the rest of us pay for their vacation from their children? Receiving a solicitation mailing from a camp is not the same as being asked directly to pay for someone's luxury? Sure -- I get such solicitations. I also get ads for $2500 handbags. That doesn't mean that I believe everyone feels entitled to a $2500 handbag!
As Mama Bear has pointed out, most Chassidish kehillas as well as many others, build affordable summer programming into their community's overall allocations. Are people also made ill by this? If so, how on earth do they stand living in countries with high rates of taxation? By golly, people ought to build their own roads, just like the old days!
I'm as ready to climb on the anti-princess bandwagon as anyone (I once took a magazine quiz called, "How High-Maintenance Are You" and I got a negative score!), but this is the worst sort of misogynism: taking a societal practice that may, in fact, be worthy of more scrutiny -- and simply blaming the women.
Fox, you're right that there's a straw man, but you picked the wrong one. No one has said that SAHMs are spoiled or lazy or anything of that sort. That's a fiction posited by the people on one side of the debate.
Nor has anyone said that there's anything wrong with a community setting up affordable camps. Kol hakavod to them for doing so!
What *has* been said is that its not impossible for SAHMs to actually have their kids at home during the summer.
The straw man is that because one person may have a child with particular needs, or one parent may have particular needs, that *every* child must go go to camp. That children are otherwise deprived. Frankly, if anyone is bashing SAHMs, I think its those women who are claiming that SAHMs are incapable of looking after their kids all day during the summer. Frankly, virtually every SAHM I know is capable of doing so, whether or not she chooses to.
A handful of mothers mentioned their difficulty in "coping" on another thread, and all of a sudden every SAHM is being portrayed as a lazy, spoiled princess. Well, I've read complaints at one time or another from almost all of us on imamother, but I don't look down my nose at anyone who has ever kvetched. They are just a reflection of momentary frustration or dreading a possible outcome.
For the record, some are. Some women, and I won't discuss their background, count on their mothers or MILs to cook their dinners as a newlywed (to say nothing of G'fabid making Pesach until they are married at least ten years), take care of their kids after childbirth for weeks at a time, and bring them their homemade challah every week. Some women have their husbands do the grocery shopping, for Heaven's sake !!!
Hey - I work full time, always have, and I work very hard. I do everything myself at home. Without cleaning help, my apt always looks nice and my freezer is always packed with food, just in case. I have had manicures a handful of times, if you will excuse the pun, but even when I don't, I take care that I should look nice. I'm up early and literally work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I set my sheitals myself most of the time. I exercise and I make sure we hae a variety of heatlhy foods at home. And I don't make a big deal of it. We do what we need to.
This is spoiled? Having your dh do the grocery shopping? Wow.....why? Are women slaves?
