I started this answer hours ago and didn't get to post, have just read what was written since Gryp's post and I think that shal is trying to say the same thing as I am..
Here's my original post that I started before dinner.:
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Gryp, I hear what you are saying, I'm not a morning person either and it's not fun to get up at 6 and work like that, so let's take that as a basis and ask a few questions.
When you say "If somebody says they need help I try to help them" it sounds good. But what if that "help" is actually just perpetuating the bad situation they are in? Rambam teaches us that the most important kind of help is getting a person to stand on his or her own feet. Giving someone money as an ad hoc solution for one aspect of their problem teaches them nothing about how to solve the problem from the root - and indeed there is a root solution for many such problems. Not only that, it often perpetuates the problem because it provides the funds to continue the problematic situation.
It's like saying "wanna help someone with a suppurating sore? Give them a bandaid". Instead you would do better for them to help them clear the sore from the source, and teach them how to prevent having such a sore in the first place.
I think that the process if we transfer it to mothers who find it difficult to cope with their children, is clear. There are other solutions than just giving them money to get their kids out of the house and off their necks.
We are talking two months during the summer. What's the big deal?
Ten or eleven weeks in some places.
I don't think that a couple of extra weeks makes a big difference.
And I'm not underestimating the difficulties. There's a heat advisory in NYC today. I wouldn't suggest a 2-hour bike ride, or a basketball tournament. Then again, unless you're sending your kids to overnight camp, the day camps are facing the same heat issues. I saw a lot of kids in the park at 7:30 or 8, working off energy before it got too hot out.
No one says its easy. No one says that anything about child rearing is easy.
What I *am* saying is that everything is a tradeoff. And sometimes, when you choose one path (SAHM, for example), you have to expect that another path maybe foreclosed, or that the path that you choose may have some difficulties (less income, less money to spend on things that are not necessities, kids may not be able to go to camp).
To take what Barbara is saying ever further, we can take it in two ways.
Here's the first: what about the tradeoff of being frum? Someone decides that they want a frum lifestyle and then what? If they can't afford it? They turn to the tzibur to finance their sheitls, their streimels, their esrog boxes, their shas....and then what?
Here's the other in a totally different direction. Not only religious Jews have large families. What about underprivileged non Jewish families with six or seven children, do you think that the community should pay for those kids, with SAHMs to go to camp as well? Or only Jewish children? Someone said that "Jews have it harder." Why?
Wow, I wish I had those skills, I was locked out of my house a few months back (forgot the key)and could have gone in through the back only the door to the garden was locked up with a padlock.
My kids are the litmus test as far as the security of our home. At one point they made a game of finding new ways to get inside. It was shocking.
To take what Barbara is saying ever further, we can take it in two ways.
Here's the first: what about the tradeoff of being frum? Someone decides that they want a frum lifestyle and then what? If they can't afford it? They turn to the tzibur to finance their sheitls, their streimels, their esrog boxes, their shas....and then what?
Here's the other in a totally different direction. Not only religious Jews have large families. What about underprivileged non Jewish families with six or seven children, do you think that the community should pay for those kids, with SAHMs to go to camp as well? Or only Jewish children? Someone said that "Jews have it harder." Why?
I am concerned with the well being of our communities. Let other communities worry about the needs of their members.
Living a frum lifestyle is not an option for us. What, we'll live a not-frum lifestyle because it's cheaper? There is no reason to compare to an unrealistic choice.
Of course there is an option but I'm talking about someone who isn't frum and CHOOSES to start living a frum lifestyle. That's very different. When you make the choice to do X you take on the obligations of X and you had better figure out if you can afford to do X before you make choices, if you have the strength to do X before you start, and not to rely on the fact that "I will do X and if I don't have the strength or the money there will always be someone else to foot the bill".
In my book that's hefkerut, irresponsibility and childish.
If something is so important to someone, then let them figure out how to do it without making others pay for their choice.
Who needs a vacation more? The woman who eats out in a restaurant twice weekly, can buy in take-out whenever she feels like a break, can relax every evening in her A/C freshly-cleaned room (by her cleaner) etc, or the one who makes every single Shabbos herself 52 weeks a year and scrubs her own toilet?
I don't eat in restaurants, buy take out food or have a cleaner. I don't think I need a vacation. And I don't really understand the mentality of those who say "they'll have a mental breakdown if they don't get a vacation."
That doesn't mean that their feelings are invalid, however.
CM let's put it this way.
A vacation is nice. For one person a vacation is taking off a day from cleaning house alone and working full time and instead after work going out for a walk with the husband and sitting in a park with a bottle of diet coke or something like that and talking.
For another it means getting into a different physical environment including for sleeping
For a third it means a five star hotel.
sure vacations are nice but I''m sure not going to pay for someone else to have a vacation unless I am shown that it is a medical necessity. Into that category for example I put the "vacations" that certain organizations like Zichron Menachem here organize for children with yenner machla. To that I would definitely donate as part of "refuah". But stam? For a lady who just wants a break to get away? No way.
Here's the other in a totally different direction. Not only religious Jews have large families. What about underprivileged non Jewish families with six or seven children, do you think that the community should pay for those kids, with SAHMs to go to camp as well? Or only Jewish children? Someone said that "Jews have it harder." Why?
Actually US tax dollars do. My mother sent us to a city parks department camp when we were kids. It was $50 for the whole summer.
Here's the other in a totally different direction. Not only religious Jews have large families. What about underprivileged non Jewish families with six or seven children, do you think that the community should pay for those kids, with SAHMs to go to camp as well? Or only Jewish children? Someone said that "Jews have it harder." Why?
Actually US tax dollars do. My mother sent us to a city parks department camp when we were kids. It was $50 for the whole summer.
You can send your kids as well! The only thing is that, from what I understand, the cheap days of city run summer camps have gone the way of the dinosaur.
I wanted to buy a drill lock. but we dont own a drill!!!!
the non -chassidish overnight summer camps cost A TON OF MONEY. I would never be able to afford it. the discussion on this thread was about CITY DAY CAMP - which isnt a quarter as much as overnight sleepaway camps.
I'm lucky that my son's day camp is free. It's part of tuition.
and friedasima, there are days when my house goes to pot bcz the kids are super active. guess what? it impacts me, and my dh, tremendously. dh gets home after 9 hours of strenuous work into a war zone. it doesnt make for good shalom bayis or calm parents. It's not a long term solution at all.
And I'm not underestimating the difficulties. There's a heat advisory in NYC today. I wouldn't suggest a 2-hour bike ride, or a basketball tournament. Then again, unless you're sending your kids to overnight camp, the day camps are facing the same heat issues. I saw a lot of kids in the park at 7:30 or 8, working off energy before it got too hot out.
Uhhhh what??? ever heard of air conditioning??? the kids are in large, spacious, cool, airy, delicious rooms. Theyre playing games, eating lunch, davening, learning, making arts n crafts, GOING TO THE POOL IN THE SCHOOLYARD(which they would not have at home!!! 1/2 of the homes do not have porches!), and so forth. what heat issues???
I started this answer hours ago and didn't get to post, have just read what was written since Gryp's post and I think that shal is trying to say the same thing as I am..
Here's my original post that I started before dinner.:
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Gryp, I hear what you are saying, I'm not a morning person either and it's not fun to get up at 6 and work like that, so let's take that as a basis and ask a few questions.
I've decided not to respond to the rest of this post because I see that automatically what I said is being changed.
Good thing too because suddenly nonJewish programs are supposed to be an option for us.
NYC opens air-conditioned facilities on days like today, for those who think air conditioning is a luxury.
The gov't also offers free meals for kids up to 18 years old for underprivileged families. Um, no, I'm not encouraging anyone I know to take advantage- choices and all. I know keeping kosher is a choice and expensive but some things in life aren't to be compromised on.
