Friedasima, special needs kids, werent sent away from the home. there was no therapy in those days. if the child was verbal, they went to school and suffered. there was no therapy in those days, as I said. A child like mine wouldve been force-toilet-trained at age 2 and sent to cheder at 2 1/2, verbal or not verbal.a nd he wouldve wreaked havoc on the classroom.
BH for therapy, BH for intervention. This morning when I gave him a cookie he said "koko. Hamam." This is the most he's ever talked. I was absolutely stunned. 20 years ago, he wouldve probably been mute for the rest of his life.
I remember reading a book on manners written in the 1890's or so. It describes a 50th anniversary. I would say, BH, this is not how we would describe people that age (at most what, 80? 85?) today.
Quick translation as I found it:
Their sons and daughters - those who are not up there yet - run around them. Three generations surround the venerated and adored couple, with the 2 month old great grand son.
The festivity is very intimate to spare today's heroes, whose lives have become fragile.
The man wears a large coat (house coat?), if he feels like it, because this easy, large piece of clothing can replace a suit for a very old man/very elderly.
"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."
Mothers did care for kids with, say, Down syndrome, without therapy, but not all the time. Mostly not, in fact. My grandmother was rare in making up her own therapies and raising my uncle (born in 1942 with DS) at home. Everyone told my grandparents to put my uncle in an institution.
Um....gotta tell you folks I'm not talking about teh 1950s but more about 1900. Or 1850. There was no place to "send away" to, either for Downs syndrome or for SN or anything else, certainly not for Jewish frum children. Parents raised such children and no, they didn't always stay mute MB, some mothers learned ways to get through to these children. "Therapy" as we call it today may be new as a profession but the techniques always existed. ALWAYS. We learned about them in school, many go back hundreds of years, but they weren't taught officially and much was trial and error.
People muddled through. And didn't get the kind of care that exists today. But the emphasis here was on the mothers, not the children. How did mothers cope? And they did...and raised so many other children and has so many other issues to deal with. Also what about those families who didn't have SN children or handicapped children or the like, just normal rambunctious kids..and they coped quite admirably, all these mothers didn't spend their lives "not coping" or "falling apart"....and they had so much more on their plate than we do today, even in the sheer difficulties of cooking or the like...and yet they coped! So what happened to this generation?
Actually, as my grandmother used to say: If I struggled, why should you struggle too? It's bad enough the challanges I had, I want my grandkids to be smarter than me and make their life more bearable.
Um....gotta tell you folks I'm not talking about teh 1950s but more about 1900. Or 1850. There was no place to "send away" to, either for Downs syndrome or for SN or anything else, certainly not for Jewish frum children. Parents raised such children and no, they didn't always stay mute MB, some mothers learned ways to get through to these children. "Therapy" as we call it today may be new as a profession but the techniques always existed. ALWAYS. We learned about them in school, many go back hundreds of years, but they weren't taught officially and much was trial and error.
People muddled through. And didn't get the kind of care that exists today. But the emphasis here was on the mothers, not the children. How did mothers cope? And they did...and raised so many other children and has so many other issues to deal with. Also what about those families who didn't have SN children or handicapped children or the like, just normal rambunctious kids..and they coped quite admirably, all these mothers didn't spend their lives "not coping" or "falling apart"....and they had so much more on their plate than we do today, even in the sheer difficulties of cooking or the like...and yet they coped! So what happened to this generation?
How on EARTH are you comparing the 1900's to today????
People lived TOTALLY different lives!!!
And who on earth said they coped? they worked like dogs. They didnt cope. People died young.
I'm not even going to get into it. it's a whole other discussion for a whole other thread. You might want to start a new thread.
Sorry but it's not even a topic of discussion for me. I have enough on my plate getting through the day without sitting here ruminating about the 1800s nd 1900s and so forth. It has nothing to do with this discussion.
and yes, todays' generation is mentally weaker than the previous ones.
That's where I disagree. I don't think that this "generation" per se is weaker, either mentally or physically than any previous generations. Just the opposite. I think that we have advantages that they never had, physical conditions which make us healthier in many cases and make daily life more comfortable.
They coped, and if you were old enough to know women from that generation, as I was, they coped admirably. They had fun, they enjoyed life, it wasn't all drudgery and they didn't all die young. B"h I look at my Bobbeh born in 1894 who lived until almost 90, my great aunt born in 1872 (yes!) who lived until 96, her daughter who lived until 98 and her grandson who is still going strong at 92. Some actually lived quite well. So how come they had strength?
And yet I look around and I see so many women today with strength. Taking care of lots of kids, working outside the home or inside the home, some not working other than mothering their children. Many living on limited budgets, extremely frugal, laughing and complaining about their children. Some with SN children, some with children OTD, some with children with handicaps, some lucky to have children who are just rambunctions...and yes, they all complain but I've never heard anyone say "if I don't get someone to cover my children's camp expenses so that I can send them away from home for (1) over night camp (2) day camp (3) a few hours a day...I will go out of my mind.
I've got to say that I have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances and unless we are talking about parents who are ill or children who are ill or parents coping with their OWN parents who are ill, I've never ever ever heard anyone say that seriously about their children even WITHOUT looking for someone to pay for it, even if they could pay for it themselves but decided that they needed to use that money for something more urgent for their family.
That's why for me this thread is an eye opener. So many young women who say that they can't cope. How strange. How unusual. I wonder if these women are representative of anything or an anomaly.
The anomaly is dying so old, just see archives. I guess your family is extraordinarily strong in all ways. Some are average, some (yes!) are weaker.
Even today the average is NOT in the 90s. Totally unfair to expect random ladies to be horse like.
With selection in childhood, of course living people were strong... Also I do NOT have one or two FT maids as did women before. Even a poor one found a poorer maid. My Greek great great grandmother had, my Polish great grand mother had, women had also in North Africa. I dont.
Not that camp is needed for all. Fairness though, is.
Google life expectancy. I think you expect too much of 90% people...
freidasima you are right so many young women are weak. Young women these days with their epidurals, baby formula, disposable diapers and washing machines. They need to be more like you!!!
I commend you for never having an epidrual, giving your baby formula, using disposable diapers or using a washing machine.
I wish Frieda'sima would realize that every single time she posts something like this, she quietly kills a few people's self esteem and cheshek to do anything. there are ppl who are really struggling to keep themselves afloat with their family issues and personal limitations and every time she continues insisting htat something is wrong with this generation that we cant cope, she just quietly hurts these people over and over. CAN'T YOU JUST STOP??? PLEASE, JSUT STOP IT ALREADY!!!!
I wish Frieda'sima would realize that every single time she posts something like this, she quietly kills a few people's self esteem and cheshek to do anything. there are ppl who are really struggling to keep themselves afloat with their family issues and personal limitations and every time she continues insisting htat something is wrong with this generation that we cant cope, she just quietly hurts these people over and over. CAN'T YOU JUST STOP??? PLEASE, JSUT STOP IT ALREADY!!!!
She's a therapist, no?
Maybe her style of posting is, in her mind, therapeutic and constructive?
Pick anytime in history and life was different, it is ludicrous to pick a time in history and ask why we aren't like that, as if it were a magical time. Different periods had their pluses and minuses and many of the reasons moms found it hard to cope in the past weren't applicable. Special needs kids? The range is broad now, but in the past they may have simply died, ended up in a "mental hospital" where they were warehoused, bums on the street because mom and dad had died, or cared by a parent/sibling till they died.
WHEN is one talking about? WHERE is one talking about?
We say "in the past" as if it were a single, concrete place and time and independent of family wealth to begin with.
I'm seeing a therapist. Every single time I show up and whine about all the things I have not yet managed to accomplish, she enumerates all the changes and strides I HAVE already made and tells me to pat myself on the back and stop wanting to build Rome in a day. I should only hope that Frieda's method of constantly putting down the mothers on this site for having the audacity to mentoin that their life is overwhelming, is not something she uses in practice. Seriously.
Yes I'm a psychologist, and I do therapy and all the rest of it. But just FYI I deal mostly with behavioral therapy, which is more the "immediate response" type than long term cognitive. I can do both but I am a firm believer in "na'aseh venishma" which literally is "first do, then listen, or in this case, talk".
What do I mean? When a client or person (or friend) comes to me with a problem, I listen to the basic issue, give the person a pat on the back, and work out a program with them to take concrete steps to solve that problem. I like Mamabear writes, do pat that person on the back and hold their hand to show them how much they have progressed (if they progress, if not I try to work with them on a more suitable program for them which they are capable of carrying out).
The talking, rumination, cognitive discussions about "why" things got to be the way they were, looking for the deeper roots in childhood, with parents, with other things from the past, only comes with me when we have already progressed in dealing with solving the problem at hand. Even if "solving" is just teaching someone "in situation X you do Y, in situation Z you do A, and if a person says B to you, always answer with M" until they know it by heart and can carry it out.
Na'aseh, Venishma. First DO then talk.
Here I'm still on the "doing". Because although I believe that everyone has a right to kvetch, myself included, I also believe in limits. You kvetch, once, twice, and you deserve and hopefully get sympathy. But when it becomes a way of life, it opens you up to others taking a good long and hard look at the things you are kvetching about and giving advice about how to change things so that it won't be that hard for you. And that often just includes changing one's expectations and attitudes towards things.
I have a good friend in my profession who suddenly had a stroke at 49 that robbed him of his speech for a while. It took him a year to gain back his ability to speak, and to this day he still has trouble with numbers if you tell him to write down a phone number too fast. But today, at 60, he does therapy, administration, and even teaches psychology courses at one of the universities. He is amazing, But as he taught all of us, "there are the cards you are dealt. It never pays to ask 'why me' because there is usually no answer. Just carry on from there and fight, fight, fight your problem for as long as you have the strength." In the eleven years since his first stroke he has had two open heart surgeries and severe diabetes. I have seen him depressed, I have seen him sad. But I have never heard him kvetch. Not even once.
THAT should be what we strive to be. Not that we can all make it there. But it should be our example. I truly believe that and I truly believe in toughlove and I truly believe in calling a spade a spade without whitewashing it. I have limited patience for people who complain endlessly for the sake of complaining and I have limited patience for people stuck in a rut who are shown ways out and refuse to take them, preferring to endlessly kvetch. Because in my world, kvetching is a cry for help. And when offered help and one chooses kvetching over taking that advice or assistance...well people have the right to continue to kvetch, but I also have the right to lose my patience with people who prefer their rut to changing things, and aren't going to see WHY they prefer that rut psychologicall to change and THEN trying to solve that root problem and eventually get themselves out of a rut.
What I see sometimes here are people who sanctify that rut about which they are kvetching. Not saying "that's that" and "I don't have strength to change" which I can understand, but when you bring in the heavy guns of yiddishkeit in order to explain and perpetuate a rut which has one kvetching about non stop and asking others to yet financially support that rut so that they can continue to kvetch instead of doing something about it...well in my book, as my english girlfriends would say, that's tremendous cheek.
Cheek can be compelling once, twice, but after that? It's just childish. Therefore use your cheek sparingly if one doesn't want to elicit the responses that some of us have given here.
That once again is not to say that people with justified reasons, physical or mental health, for themselves, their children, or their families, aren't in a special category and deserve special treatment and consideration. They do. But as for the vast majority of people just facing everyday normal lives with everyday normal challenges that we all face...that's a very different kettle of fish.
Just my two cents. Worth as much as anyone elses two cents.
To point out some relevant differences, and these are just a few of the top of my head.
The streets were safer so the children had the ability to get out when they needed to instead of being cooped up in a small flat. This was the reality until not that long ago. Now there are a lot more cars everywhere. Whether or not there are more predators I am not sure about but with the help from the itnernet we are able to hear aout every single one so the streets feel less safe even if they are not.
It just occurred to me that most ppl lived in small communities where they knew everyone so this probably added to a feeling of safety. Now a days many dont know their neighbours first name or surname.
At the time you are talking about, everyone worked, including the kids. It was a matter of surviving, of having food to eat for many so the problems we have to day wouldnt be present because the kids didnt get bored, they were worked hard from a young age and before they went out to play they'd help in the house.
You cant compare and I'd add that you cant say that it was better in previous generations. Life expectancy was shorter and kids werent kids for very young.
Ppl lived to survive, so as I pointed out kids had to work. Ppl werent worried about child development and what would be best for a growing child. There werent any selfhelp books or any parenting courses. No one worried if smacking their kid might have negative effects one day.
Families helped out a lot more. everyone lived together generally so you'd have several generations under one roof.
Today, its not uncommon to live in a different country to ones family because thats where the dh's work takes you. This leaves a lot of women without any help or support that she would have gotten if her mother and grandmother all lived under one roof.
Wishing for the 'good old days' is saying that you'd happily go back to a time when ppl died younger and many children didnt survive to see adulthood. Its thinking that it was better when mental ilness and special needs were seen as the crazy/lazy/town fool/naughty etc.
B-H we live longer, our children in most cases survive, they can be children for longer, ppl with depression or other mental health problems can get help as can the child with special needs. I for one do not want to see my kids working the way they had to back then. I give my kids appropriate responsibilies but this is not the same as them actually having to work. I do NOT let my kids roam the streets and come home iin the evening.
I care about how I parent so I dont scare my kids into behaving by beating them.
ITs a different world!
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