Yep, none of those are in brooklyn. The OP of that original original original thread probably wasnt referring to these types of camps, and the rest of us brooklynites such as gryp, pickle lady, zigi, myself etc etc refer to the kind of day camps that are de rigeur in brooklyn: in their own school buildings with their own regular staff, but there are activities and swimming too.
this is the kind of daycamp poor Leiby Kletzky left yesterday at 5 pm....
I believe most, if not all, chassidishe kids attend the kind of daycamp MB describes.
Anyone to back me up on this?
And in that case, this whole thread will have to fall apart, since the whole disagreement was caused by a language/cultural barrier......
Not really... I think the main disagreement was over the argument that the average mother can't reasonably be expected to have her children at home over the summer, and that argument is the same either way. The nature of the camp might change how important it is for the child that he/she be there, but it doesn't change how important it is for the mother that the child be out of the house.
I believe most, if not all, chassidishe kids attend the kind of daycamp MB describes.
Anyone to back me up on this?
And in that case, this whole thread will have to fall apart, since the whole disagreement was caused by a language/cultural barrier......
No it wasn't. Because the original thread this spun off from (is that a new imamother term?) didn't say 'I want to send my children to camp and I can't afford it, but it's important for me that they stay in the same framework/ carry on learning/ not be the only one in their class not participating in another month with the rebbe'. The OP of the other thread said she couldn't afford camp but she has to send because she can't keep her children occupied/ she can't cope all summer.
So then it makes no difference at all what we are talking about - another month of learning with the same staff and a sprinkler in the afternoons, a backyard camp run by neighborhood teenagers, a day camp with trips every other day, a sleepaway camp with an emphasis on learning, or a sleepaway camp at DisneyWorld. The content was not what the thread was about - it was all about the mother not coping.
In fact, if the question would have been 'my son can go to camp where he will daven and learn and have some fun activities and it's very important to me that he has a framework to learn during the summer, but I can't afford it', I would have considered that pretty close to a need and not a luxury at all.
FS, you are not serious I hope about people choosing if they can afford to be frum? I don't remember anywhere in the Torah where it said Hashem was giving it only to rich Jews. In fact, there's a gemarra mefureshes that Hillel obligated the poor to learn Torah (keeping mitzvos is self-understood).
ETA: I see ora beat me to it while I was writing this post. 8)
No, I did not read all 57 pages!
But for all those yelling against 'not affording camp and getting help for it', I have a question, how about if a sahm cant afford tuition, is it 'ok' for her to take charity, or scholarship, or tuition break? Why? She could homeschool her kids too. I should hope that most mothers are capable of teaching their kids some reading and writing at least until 3-4th grade.
No, I did not read all 57 pages!
But for all those yelling against 'not affording camp and getting help for it', I have a question, how about if a sahm cant afford tuition, is it 'ok' for her to take charity, or scholarship, or tuition break? Why? She could homeschool her kids too. I should hope that most mothers are capable of teaching their kids some reading and writing at least until 3-4th grade.
I think my response would be more or less the same. Yes, for the child's sake, but just for her own sake, not so much.
Getting a tuition break because the child does best in school, while remaining at home with younger children - mostly OK (although I would suggest anyone in that position try to work from home a bit too if they can, even if it means a less clean house or the like).
Getting a tuition break because it's too hard to deal with all the kids at once, while remaining at home because it's OK to deal with just one or two children at once - generally speaking, not OK. Especially as a plan made out in advance, as opposed to a b'dievad plan.
No, I did not read all 57 pages!
But for all those yelling against 'not affording camp and getting help for it', I have a question, how about if a sahm cant afford tuition, is it 'ok' for her to take charity, or scholarship, or tuition break? Why? She could homeschool her kids too. I should hope that most mothers are capable of teaching their kids some reading and writing at least until 3-4th grade.
Or she can get a job?
In the real grown-up world, when you need money, you try to figure out how to earn it.
No, I did not read all 57 pages!
But for all those yelling against 'not affording camp and getting help for it', I have a question, how about if a sahm cant afford tuition, is it 'ok' for her to take charity, or scholarship, or tuition break? Why? She could homeschool her kids too. I should hope that most mothers are capable of teaching their kids some reading and writing at least until 3-4th grade.
I hope this isn't going to take this thread off on yet another irrelevant tangent to the pros and cons of homeschooling (someone can start a separate thread if they want), but let's just say, however some posters here may feel, that the vast, vast majority of the frum (and general) world doesn't consider homeschooling to be a viable alternative to going to school for many, many reasons, at least lechatchila.
If you think you send your children to school just as a babysitting service, then maybe you are right. I hope most parents don't think that's what schools and chadarim are there for. (Sidenote: in Zichru chadarim in EY, by 4th grade the boys have finished all of chumash at a level I can't teach and are well into mishna which I can't teach at all.)
So this is what happens when I actually work all day long and only get back to Imamother when I finish my "nose to the grindstone" routine here...keep going ladies, it makes better reading than any of the case files that I will have to plough through this evening!
Seriously though, I guess I didn't explain enough what I meant by "it costs to be frum". Shal you know me better than that and of course I didn't mean that if a person can't afford to be frum they shouldn't do it and should stay secular!!!
What I meant was once again that awful term that so many people on this thread seem to hate - responsibility. I think that there is nothing more wonderful than a person sincerely becoming frum. But part of it is not only starting to keep various mitzvos that they didn't keep before (because we all know that there were mitzvos that they DID keep before, only they didnt' think of them as mitzvos) but that there is an expense that goes along with becoming frum and that one has to very often give up certain things in order to do it.
What do I mean? You often can't kasher your dishes and some of your pots and pans and will need new ones. If you don't have tallis and tfilin, arba kanfos, a yarmulkeh, a siddur and chumash you will have to buy them. For chanukah you need a menorah. For pesach you will need a new set of things. etc.
BUT - none of this has to cost much except tefilin and there are zedoko funds of refurbished tefilin for those who can't afford. When a person becomes frum and takes on a frum lifestyle there is this tendency to sometimes buy into the standards of various communities that they (and very often those in those communities as well) can't afford. Buying custom sheitls. You want to cover with a sheitl? Your group like lubavitch says only sheitl? Fine. But you don't need custom if you can't afford it. There are very nice Paula Young sheitls, like what my mother wears, which are what, a hundreth of the price of a custom? So get that. You can't afford good new dishes and large sets of pots and pans? Guess what. You can do quite well with two very cheap milchig, fleishig and pareve pots each and a frying pan for each, you can't afford the full set? So don't get. You can keep your esrog in the cardboard box it comes in if you can't afford a cheap wooden one for what? $5, that's what they are going for here erev sukkos (NIS 20) and you don't need a silver box. You can make a chanukah menorah out of potatoes if you have to - just to stretch the point to the ridiculous maximum - or out of bottle caps taped to a piece of wood like the kids would make in gan.
In other words to become frum is a responsibilitiy and part of that responsibility is not doing it on someone else's cheshbon for more than the absolute minimum. If someone comes to me and tells me that they want to keep kosher and can't aford the $10 for a set of plastic plates, I'll gladly give it to them. I've bought kids who wanted to keep kosher in their parents treif home silverware and plates as presents. But it wasn't Rosenthal and not even Corelle (which here costs a mint). get the picture?
And for adults, if you really want so much to be frum part of it is giving up something else to have the money to pay for what it takes to be frum. Because that's also part of the responsibility. I've seen people cut their food bills to be able to buy new plates, pots and the like. Kol hakavod to them. That's balancing their desire to be frum with the responsibility to do it on their own. That's one of the things we teach in therapy for example. When someone wants to go to therapy, adults, part of it is paying for it themselves and not having their parents pay for them, because that's part of independence and responsibility (which is one of the issues which often comes up in therapy).
You make your choice and then you balance out everything in your life so that you can keep to that choice, but without asking for charity in order to do so. At least not milechaschila. If someone of their own volition thinks that what you are doing is laudable (like becoming frum) and wants to contribute to your step in that direction (like by buying you tefilin) that's great. But there is a tremendous differnce between that and your becoming frum and EXPECTING in the first place that the way to pay for it will be by schnorring...forever. Meaning milechaschila.
And so it is with kids and SAHMs and camp. You want to be a SAHM? Great. But it's a choice that comes with strings attached. And once again, we aren't talking sick kids, sick parents, SN kids, and sudden disaster. We are talking making a conscious decision in the first place to do what you want, as you want and have someone else foot the bill.
Another thing - no one said if you can't afford camp don't have kids. Let's not be ridiculous. But I do believe that a person shouldn't have milechaschila more kids than they can afford to feed, shelter, clothe and educate to whatever degree they think education is important. And that has nothing to do with the emotional side of whether you have enough strength for kids. Yes it's finances. and there are different shitos. The one that I learned, that I believe in, that I teach my children is that a person is financially responsible for their choices. Which includes how many children they have because in my world that, too, is a choice. If you - whoever "you" is - lives by a different shita, that's your business, but don't expect people from my world to financially support you and your shita and choices. And as the majority of funds to fund the charedi world these days - as far as I know - which come from zedoko still come from non charedi donors....well, maybe it's something to keep in mind there.
Gryp, you do seem to have this tendency to take things somewhat to an extreme...
you think that all people advocated here was:
A) Move to Israel.
B) Have only one or two children.
C) Earn a lot of money.
D) Take a time management course.
E) Keep kids occupied with household chores, ie. ripping toilet paper or scrubbing the bathtub.
????????
Well why don't you look at it another way:
A) If a person really can't afford what they want to give their children or don't have it in their geographic environment, maybe it would be an idea for them to consider moving to where they could give their children what they want to. Didnt' chazal say "heve goleh limkom shel torah?" Well if you are in a toradik place but you can't give your children what you feel that they need in other things, that might cholilo drive them away from torah...so therefore think carefully what the best way is for YOU to give your children torah long term and then pay the price for the rest.
B) Have as many children as they can afford to support or have the emotional and physical strength to raise. Didn't chazal say "venishmartem me'od lenafshoseichem?" Isn't having no more children than you can care for one part of taking care of your nefesh?
C) Earn as much money as they can under their circumstances and think of ways to be frugal with the money that they do have so that it will go further and they will be able to do more with it for themselves and their children. Didn't chazal say "pat bimelach tochal, umayim bimsorah tishtel, ve'al ha'aretz tishan" so that you have the strength, money and ability for a torah life?
D) Learn time management and strength management tips from whatever source is available, not necessarily a course but even through the internet or from talking with very organized and put together people and then applying what might fit your lives to make life easier for you. After all chazal said "mikol milamdei hiskalti" - there is always something we can all learn.
E) Keep your kids occupied with household chores. Isn't learning how to help mommy and keep a Jewish home the most important chinuch that there is? Isn't part of pushing off instant gratification one of the most important lessons of yiddishkeit standing behind so many mitzvos? Don't we teach our children when we buy a nice fruit in the middle of the week in the market that we are putting it away "likoved shabbos?" and not to have in that night?
In other words Gryp, there are many takes on what was written here. You want to look at it negatively, unconstructively, radically, and to ridicule everything except your own lifestyle and claim "no one can understand me", fine. But that's only one way of looking at things.
It cost money to be frum. A Paula Young sheital might be good enough, but it will need to be replaced every so often; ditto for cheap pots.
Shalhevet, school is not just learning. It's also a socialization process for children. Homeschooling is not the same thing, no matter how you slice it.
CM My mother wears, as I said, paula young and it lasts with her a year a sheitl, day in day out. And at $35 a sheitl...well what can I tell you, it would take her a hundred years to reach the price of a $3500 custom sheitl...may she live and be well for that long!
As for pots and pans, well that's the price one pays for not being well to do. But while maybe a good set of reverewear or whatever good pots are these days can be $100 a pot, here, and I assume in cheap places in America as well, you can still buy an aluminum frying pan in the shuk for 10 shekel, and a set of 4 aluminum pots for 60 shekel. That's a bit over $20 and you have two milchig and two fleishig pots and also two frying pans. Hate to say it but we got married with such cheap aluminum pots and pans with flat lids without handles, and you don't want to know how long we used them..maybe ten years!
What I mean is that if something is so important to someone, wonderful. But there are often ways to do it cheaply.
It all depends what one's attitude is towards having someone else finance your life. Could be that there is a generation that wasn't brought up to strive to be independent as fast as possible, as I was and many of my generation were...and therefore they live a kind of extended adolescence with them doing what they want, when they want, and how they want....and taking it almost for granted that there will be someone to foot the bill...
I believe most, if not all, chassidishe kids attend the kind of daycamp MB describes.
Anyone to back me up on this?
And in that case, this whole thread will have to fall apart, since the whole disagreement was caused by a language/cultural barrier......
Not really... I think the main disagreement was over the argument that the average mother can't reasonably be expected to have her children at home over the summer, and that argument is the same either way. The nature of the camp might change how important it is for the child that he/she be there, but it doesn't change how important it is for the mother that the child be out of the house.
Agreed.
Just don't assume what type of camp I would deem important.
Gryp, you do seem to have this tendency to take things somewhat to an extreme...
you think that all people advocated here was:
A) Move to Israel.
B) Have only one or two children.
C) Earn a lot of money.
D) Take a time management course.
E) Keep kids occupied with household chores, ie. ripping toilet paper or scrubbing the bathtub.
????????
Well why don't you look at it another way:
A) If a person really can't afford what they want to give their children or don't have it in their geographic environment, maybe it would be an idea for them to consider moving to where they could give their children what they want to. Didnt' chazal say "heve goleh limkom shel torah?" Well if you are in a toradik place but you can't give your children what you feel that they need in other things, that might cholilo drive them away from torah...so therefore think carefully what the best way is for YOU to give your children torah long term and then pay the price for the rest.
B) Have as many children as they can afford to support or have the emotional and physical strength to raise. Didn't chazal say "venishmartem me'od lenafshoseichem?" Isn't having no more children than you can care for one part of taking care of your nefesh?
C) Earn as much money as they can under their circumstances and think of ways to be frugal with the money that they do have so that it will go further and they will be able to do more with it for themselves and their children. Didn't chazal say "pat bimelach tochal, umayim bimsorah tishtel, ve'al ha'aretz tishan" so that you have the strength, money and ability for a torah life?
D) Learn time management and strength management tips from whatever source is available, not necessarily a course but even through the internet or from talking with very organized and put together people and then applying what might fit your lives to make life easier for you. After all chazal said "mikol milamdei hiskalti" - there is always something we can all learn.
E) Keep your kids occupied with household chores. Isn't learning how to help mommy and keep a Jewish home the most important chinuch that there is? Isn't part of pushing off instant gratification one of the most important lessons of yiddishkeit standing behind so many mitzvos? Don't we teach our children when we buy a nice fruit in the middle of the week in the market that we are putting it away "likoved shabbos?" and not to have in that night?
In other words Gryp, there are many takes on what was written here. You want to look at it negatively, unconstructively, radically, and to ridicule everything except your own lifestyle and claim "no one can understand me", fine. But that's only one way of looking at things.
With all due respect, freidasima, for the last time- you don't know that of which you speak. You will keep insisting that you do, and from hereon, my reply is on automatic: You don't know that of which you speak.
Gryp, the person, has left the discussion. Her reply remains.
Gryp it's your prerrogative to leave a discussion but you leave it without answering any of my points which can only lead me to think that you are entrenched in your position for whatever reason and not willing to deal with anything anyone else suggests.
Iti's not an "all or nothing". A woman can say that she won't agree with the point about limiting family size because of financial, emotional or whatever strength she has and that's her right to say to, and do so, but that doesn't mean that she can't examine the possibility of better time management. Or moving to a place that will allow her to give her children what she wants. Or taking on additional work at home, like women always did piecework at home after they were married and weren't working in factories, to make additional money for the things that they want to give their children.
That always leads me to ask how that generation did it. They usually had big families, BC was scarce (I'm talking about immigrants to America in 1900 like my grandparents' generation) even if you wanted it, and the women after marriage and with four, five and six children always took work home. Some kept boarders and had all their children in one room. Others took in piecework and sewed at home making extra money for the family. Some took in washing, in short, they had lots of kids, worked from home, gave them an education and that's the generation of kids who were the first in their families to finish high school, a few even went to college and worked in white collar professions (think bookkeeping, even accounting, secretaries, etc.) instead of in factories like their parents. The youngest of the kids sometimes even became doctors or lawyers. So where did the mothers get their strength? How did they do it? And there was no ready made food, refrigerators were literally ice boxes for which you bought ice from a man who came around with a horse and wagon, and the bathrooms were outhouses either downstairs or in a good tenement, down the hall.
So where did we get a generation of mothers who are SAHMs don't work and are saying that they have no koyach to take care of their kids during the summer? What? There were no SN kids in those days? It only started in the 1990s?
-when you have to, you have to
-today old school discipline is looked down upon even in some frum circles, at the time it was normal
-same for leaving the kids out alone
You cant really compare, it was a different time, ppl were different, the streets were different, healthcare was different, life expectancy was different. Its like comparing apples and cucumbers both might be green but they are hardly comparable.
(and here I was thinking I had stepped out of the discussion).
As different as it was, people and their strength usually don't change. There are tremendous balabustas today who still make everything from scratch, who have a bunch of kids, who work either at home from home or outside the house, and who raise their kids with old fashioned values. The street is no longer the same street in some places but hey, even then there were dangers everywhere albeit different than today.
Healthcare was definitely different, but SN kids and ill children were just as difficult for their mothers to care for than they are today. I'm not talking about shlepping kids to therapy, I'm taking about caring for them WITHOUT such therapy, and mothers did. All the time. And they didn't love their children any less than we do or give them any less than we try to give ours.
Life expectancy wasn't shorter because mothers worked so hard. If anything in certain things they were stronger than we were. Because if you didn't die of certain diseases which have been eradicated, from childbirth which happens much less often or from childhood illnesses, then people had almost the same life expectancy as today. I had great grandparents who lived into their 90s.
Ruchel let me understand, you mean that people remain stronger and look younger for longer? Could be, but looking younger is not a criterion, women who didn't have the advantages that we do, good skin creams, keeping out of the sun, etc. looked older at a younger age. There are women today BTW who are the same, just depends where they live.
As for staying stronger for longer, I really don't think that's true. I knew women 45 years ago in their 80s and 90s who were strong enough to lift a dining room table, to break a wooden rolling pin with their bare hands...the story I told about a great great aunt who could crack walnuts with her bare hands at 96...so no, I think that the big difference is that lots of women and men died of things at a younger age that people today usually don't die from, childhood illnesses, childbirth and things that antibiotics can cure. But if you managed to live through that? Then people lived a long life very often, just had to get through those things.
the issue is whether we aren't a generation of young women who are babying themselves and not letting themselves develop to their fullest potential because of it. And potential sometimes means using your mental, emotional and sometimes physical strength. Are we happier because of it? Are we happier than our grandmothers or for the younger crowd, our great grandmothers were? Are we better Jews because of it? What is the plus side of all this "spoiling" or living differently? I'm not talking about the comfort of creature comforts, of course having running water at home is much easier than going to the well. But on the other hand the well was a place that women "hung out" and could have a social life, which for some who talk about being alone in their four walls is missing today. But in general I'm asking, with all this spoiling, living so much better than in that generation, are we happier than they were as human beings?
As women? As mothers? As Jews?
Or in other words, does saying that "every child has to go to camp" or every SAHM who can't afford it should be given zedoko to send her kid to camp, as some posters have claimed, make us a happier and more satisfied generation than the previous ones?
