As a parent , I can tell you that taking kids to the beach, zoo/safari, or mall is fun AND draining!
IY"H, I'm sure I'll want to spend time with my grandchildren. At my convenience and on my terms, for the most part. When I can rest up beforehand and afterwards. Often grandparents have that leeway that parents don't.
Last edited by Isramom8 on Tue, Jul 05 2011, 4:00 am; edited 1 time in total
As a parent , I can tell you that taking kids to kids at beach, zoo/safari, or mall is fun AND draining!
IY"H, I'm sure I'll want to spend time with my grandchildren. At my convenience and on my terms, for the most part. When I can rest up beforehand and afterwards. Often grandparents have that leeway that parents don't.
As a parent , I can tell you that taking kids to kids at beach, zoo/safari, or mall is fun AND draining!
IY"H, I'm sure I'll want to spend time with my grandchildren. At my convenience and on my terms, for the most part. When I can rest up beforehand and afterwards. Often grandparents have that leeway that parents don't.
THAT. Grandparents did their time already.
I consider myself spoiled, but would never be so spoiled to see my parents as a free daycare or camp unless c'v I was absolutely unable to do anything else. I prefer keeping my parents a bit healthy and a bit longer
I don't even plan to have my grandma come to help next time I give birth. If she wants to come to see the baby, that's great, and that's all that will be asked. I would also NEVER give a newborn to my mother at night unless c'v I was a sick single mother.
Ruchel taking care of children and grandchildren does not necessarily make someone run themselves ragged. It's like from the way you describe it, normal life is too much for you, your mother, your aunt. If all these people can work full time and do other things what's the problem to take care of children for a few hours a day to help their own children? I still dont get it unless these people are phsyically terribly delicate!
People who worked and stayed at home (not at the same time) will tell you work is much less difficult.
Taking care of children doesn't necessarily exhaust you unless you want to provide a camp mommy experience. It's just not fair for kids to be bored, but of course it's easier for the mom. Or you can be overly strict so you're not bothered, things became suddenly muuuuch easier. I'm not for it.
Women are precious, not horses. But kids deserve wild fun too.
BH there are more people like us than what you describe around me, or I guess women would stop wanting children.
There are plenty of people who will also tell you that being a SAHM is way easier. I'm one of them.
Are 60 year old grandmothers considered old??? My mother just turned 60 and she is a regular adult, in no way "old" and can fully take care of her grandkids. We don't ask her too often, but she comes all the time to see them and play with them. I'm wondering if 60 is different in other places? ???
In Israel I see amazing grandparents all over the place, with one to any number of grandchildren trailing behind. Some, like my boss, are working parents who have leeway when it comes to their jobs. Others take some vacation time. Still others either no longer work due to age or choice. It really is incredible. Grandparents can be as young as in their early 40s and up, depending on koach. Most of them take this job as one of the inevitable experiences of being a grandparents. Totally remarkable. I wish......
Are 60 year old grandmothers considered old??? My mother just turned 60 and she is a regular adult, in no way "old" and can fully take care of her grandkids. We don't ask her too often, but she comes all the time to see them and play with them. I'm wondering if 60 is different in other places? ???
Nah, 60 is not old. My mom is not even there yet. But she has been through a life of mothering and 20 yrs + of work. What's there not to get?
My parents are MOST amazing grandparents. I don't judge that on sweat and blood spilled. Of course if the parents are in the house, or if they don't keep the kids active and punish when the kids are wild of boredom, it is way doable. Even my 80 yr old dad can keep DD in front of the tv or watch while she plays in the garden. Not what camp or daycare should be about. Not what my mom wants to do also, hence the exhaustion.
I once posted innocently on FB that my parents had DD weekly, and sometimes sleep over, and got quite surprised comments.
Are 60 year old grandmothers considered old??? My mother just turned 60 and she is a regular adult, in no way "old" and can fully take care of her grandkids. We don't ask her too often, but she comes all the time to see them and play with them. I'm wondering if 60 is different in other places? ???
60 is the new 34
You think??? You are how old, Tamiri? And saw?? I'm for sure not 34. I don't look 34 & I feel 94. Don't assume we Bubbies have unlimited strengths, patience, & mobility. Some of us are still dealing with younger kids, holding down jobs, & doing the same garbage (with the exception of diaper duty) as we did 25 years ago. It isn't easy raising children & they are the parents' responsibility. Helping out when we can, in emergencies, & WHEN WE WANT TO is perfectly alright. As Rochel said, we raised our kids. It's a matter of physical & emotional strength at this point.
I think working is easier than being a sahm. But at the end of day, when you tuck your children in bed at night and think about your day, it's much more rewarding... imho
also my mother is not yet 60 but she's getting close and she is so not old, neither is my father...
Are 60 year old grandmothers considered old??? My mother just turned 60 and she is a regular adult, in no way "old" and can fully take care of her grandkids. We don't ask her too often, but she comes all the time to see them and play with them. I'm wondering if 60 is different in other places? ???
60 is the new 34
You think??? You are how old, Tamiri? And saw?? I'm for sure not 34. I don't look 34 & I feel 94. Don't assume we Bubbies have unlimited strengths, patience, & mobility. Some of us are still dealing with younger kids, holding down jobs, & doing the same garbage (with the exception of diaper duty) as we did 25 years ago. It isn't easy raising children & they are the parents' responsibility. Helping out when we can, in emergencies, & WHEN WE WANT TO is perfectly alright. As Rochel said, we raised our kids. It's a matter of physical & emotional strength at this point.
Bubby, you would have loved my mom (a"h). She lived -- literally lived -- for her grandkids. But she also used to say "I raised mine, now you raise yours"
Seriously though, we all, myself included, get into ruts thinking that "what is is what has to be" and not even being open to suggestions because we are either so rigid, or so upset or so tired, or so OCD or so angry that we can't open ourselves up to see how others, including our nearest and dearest, see us.
Not to speak of how people further away who learn about us and our lives through the internet picture us.
There might be a difference in age groups, there might be a difference in religious groups, there might be a difference in geographical groups. But the end result is the same. We all want our chldren to grow up happy, healthy, responsible, satisfied and frum yidden, following the derekh that we have taught them, whatever it is. There are times that we have to delve a bit deeper into the derekh that we have chosen to understand it better so that we don't go off one day making big mistakes based on misunderstandings and misinterpretations. An example is what was being written here about Lubavitch. Yes, the Rebbe (do I write z"l or shlita on this forum,
I haven't read the rest of your post or this thread here, but I want to be helpful: I've seen ob"m written by members of the community. Zt"l is fine and responsible too, IMO for those of us outside the camp.
And today all of these communities are able to be as they are simply because we have a Jewish medineh. Without out, jewish communities would look like they did sixty years ago with rampant antisemitism, fear of wearing Jewish garb outside and the impossibility of getting various kosher foods. Actually the big change was only after 67 to tell you the truth, when Jews no longer feared showing that they were Jewish...and that had to do with a military victory here in EY whether various anti zionist groups like to admit it or not.
This is not 100% true.
In some places Jewish life was better and more flourishing before the Shoah. And people much less afraid too.
thanks pink. I think that the Rebbe was amazing. and I was priviledged to be alive in his lifetime and to hear him in person.
Grandparents...guess it makes a difference who and how.
I hope I never have to raise grandchldren full time...because that would mean my kids are gone...but to be there daily? when I retire? And now, as much as I can? That's what you live for!!!! Be it for two or ten or halevai many many more!
An example is what was being written here about Lubavitch. Yes, the Rebbe (do I write z"l or shlita on this forum, I don't know so I'm leaving it as is) did not even visit EY because he was well versed in halocho and knew that at his stature and in view of the fact that his "livelihood" was not dependent upon a particular place, that his wife could come with him, that he had no children whose chinuch, parnosso or shiduchim were keeping him out of EY, as soon as he would step foot on admas EY he had a strong chiyuv never to leave. And he knew that he could not do that to his chassidim so he didn't come. Many of us, myself included, can understand that grip of yiddisheit reality and whether or not we think it would have been wonderful to have Yerushalayim or Kfar Chabad as the center of the Lubavitch movement and not Brooklyn is a moot point. He acted according to halocho as almost everyone accepts it. No discussion and only admiration for being so strict with himself as I am sure as are many that he had the same longing and love for EY, would have loved to be able to daven at the kosel, visit the holy sites etc.
No. His chassidim would go wherever he went. He did not do that because of Klall Yisroel, all those Jews who need the Rebbe to revitalize and strengthen their Yiddishkeit, including frum Jews who, as you write before 1940-41- when the Previous Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak and the Rebbe arrived respectively - still felt inhibited to disclose the full extent of their Yiddishkeit, wear beards, cover their hair, give their children a strong Jewish education.
With the motto "America iz nisht anderish" - America is no different- and with the clarion call of "l'Alter l'teshuvah, l'alter l'geulah" during the war - the Rebbeim changed the face of Judaism in America, while planting the seeds of what became the worldwide teshuvah movement, sending emissaries all over the globe, at the same time establishing a makom Torah in America.
And they taught the Chassidim to do the same. Not to be yotzei with an insular, defensive Yiddishkeit. Not to rest till every Jew is re-connected to his/her source, till every Jew is ready to greet Moshiach!
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And it is also very understandable that a yid who is in golus, anywhere, will want to turn his life into one of kedusha and give it meaning. That is normal, understandable and laudable. Yet together with all of that, all the places which were historically called "yerushalayim d'....X" be it lita, brooklyn, Padua or Bavel, all utilized the word "yerushalayim" first in the phrase, meaning the ultimate kedusha is yerushalayim....all the rest is only an imitation. The original comes first, is higher and holier and one should never forget it.
And that's the crux of this discussion. And of the phrase that yishuv EY is shakul kineged kol hamitzvos (tosefta avodo zoro) comes from somewhere. There is no mitzva to sit in brooklyn or antwerp or London or Dniepopetrovsk. But if you are there already, then make your life a mitzva. That's bedieved, but living in EY no matter what you do and who you are, is milechaschila a mitzva in itself. It's not ideology and it's not zionism. Any frum yid anywhere who recognizes the higher kedusha of EY and consequently the automatic kedusha of anyone who by their very lives in a particular place are ensuring the continuation of yidden living freely in EY, should be able to understand that there is no connection whatsoever to giving to such a cause as opposed to giving money for camp anywhere else for any other reason. Because the existence and kedusha of EY and of the people who devote their lives to living there is of a different madrega than any kedusha anywhere else.
It's not b'dieved to live chutz la'aretz. The fact remains that the majority of our Gedolim, and Admorim lived in chutz l'aretz, l'chatchillah and were not ch"v lacking, any more than Moshe Rabbenu himself was, by not entering EY.
Of course there is an intrinsic kedusha in EY, no one is saying not. However that doesn't mean that yishuv haaretz is a chiyuv or even necessity in our times. You're getting into ideology whether you admit it or not.
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Neither the Rebbe nor the Tzemach Tzedek would have argued with this premise. That has nothing to do with the exhortation - valid defiintely - to try and bring some of that kedusha of EY into your lives everywhere to raise your madrega. That's why we have shuls. To remind us of the beis hamikdosh and to enable us to bring some of the kedusha of the beis hamikdosh into our lives. But to say that a shul is of the madrego of the beis hamikdosh? Even if it is a shul with 10,000 members all of whom are zaddikim gemurim? Blasphemy.
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Chassidim generally aren't concerned with raising their madrega. Our mission is to raise the madrega of, elevate and transform the world "l'saken Oilom b'malchus Sh-D-Y.
This is the reason Hashem put Yidden in Golus - On the words Tzidkas Pirzono B'Yisroel (Shoftim, 5) Chazal say: "Tzedaka osoh HKBH she'pizron bein HaUmos", the purpose of this is to elevate the sparks of kedusha throughout the entire world, to bring the world to a state of Redemption, Yemos Hmoshiach.
Frieda now youre backtracking. NO ONE said that Day camp is an absolute necessity for everyone!!!! MOthers who have the room in their house, a car, patience, energy, no other pressing issues happening in their lives, and want to run mommy camp - kol hakavod, my hats off to you.
Mothers who cannot do this, should not be criticized as 'why do you have kids and why are you a sahm if you cant run mommy camp for 10 weeks.' that's all.
