Chava I agree that in some things its a different world but what you describe wasn't always the reality for some Jews.
Let's look at some of your arguments. It was safer. I don't know if it was safer, sure, there weren't cars but there was a lot of kidnapping. Just depends where and when. In the Russian Shtetl where boys were being kidnapped for fifty years because of the "Cantonists law" and at six they would chap them from the streets and from their own courtyards to go and be in the czar's army training schools? At six. Seven. Eight. And at that time, the majoirty of the Jewish people in the world (yes!) lived in areas that were being poilced by the Czar... So safe is relevant.
Knowing your neighbors. That still exists. Today in my neighborhood kids can walk down the alleys behind the buildings, just like in some places in Geula, Meah Shearim, and in non charedi neighborhoods in places from Sderot to Kew Gardens Hills and you know everyone on the block. So it depends where.
Women whose families are in a different country. Happened all the time. Either you lived in Europe and your husband was away for weeks or months at a time and you were raising those kids on your own and he came home to get you pregnant and leave for parnosseh, or you moved to America at fifteen like my grandmother, alone, and left your mother and father in Europe. So not everyone had families around. you made friends just like people do today, and you count on your friends to be a substitute family. Many of us who made aliyah and left families behind did this and still do it today.
Life expectancy and childhood. Everywhere in the world during the past, let's say three or four hundred years children of four, five, six and seven were expected to be children. You are talking adolescence. Yes in that you are right, the phenomenon of a fourteen and sixteen year old being treated like a child is a phenomenon that only developed over the past 100 to 150 years. But what about small children? They were not expected to work and were always treated like small children, even if they were dressed in the late middle ages as little adults.
Families helped out a lot more - I think that today there are still families who help out a lot. You see it constantly here in EY.
I'm not "wishing for the good old days" but I also don't believe that we have something new now that we never had before in any form or fashion. I believe that there are many things that we can learn from previous generations which can help people cope today, both physically and psychologically. That's all.
When my mother was young she was out playing on the streets at age 3; as soon as she knew better than to run into them after a ball. If she did run into the streets after a ball there was some adult, some mother/grandmother/neighbor who'd give her a swat and send her home for the same. A lot of grandmas and grandpas and other kids mothers who were on the block who thought it their right and duty to punish any miscreant, physically. So did teachers btw.
Many people lived in extended family situations. My grandmother a'h, was horrified by my mom a"h having babysitters so she could go out to work. "Mom," my mother responded "we had our aunts living with us."
Severely handicapped children were often instituted. Mentally [crazy] were basically warehoused. Don't tell me "no". I lived across the street from a mental institution and my dad volunteered to help out there. Want to know the largest clientele? Mentally [crazy]. You rarely saw them walking around btw, they were sort of restricted.
There are less women chatting over the fence or coming to your house with their kids so the kids would be together.
There is more we "need" to worry about in terms of safety from things that no one worried about before.
More people died and really there wasn't much one could do about it.
Life was different. This generation is no more spoiled than any other.
Madame therapist, all is well and good... but putting people down and blaming this generation is the most counterproductive form of therapy that can possibly exist. perhaps it's time to rethink your posting style... do you really take off your 'friedasima' hat when youre in session and then put on the 'tough love' hat on imamother? have you ever sat with a client who sat there, telling you how overwhelmed she is with life, and how she will lose it if someone doesnt take out her hyperactive child for a few hours a day, and you tell them "Suck it up. what's wrong with this generation? Parent sof SN kids managed fine in the 1850's. yorue making a mountain of a molehill" ???? Your client will be here complaining about you on imamother before you can say CHEESE!
Remember, here on imamother we are human beings too, human mothers who are trying our DARNDEST to cope with what life (aka HaShem) has thrown at us, and putting us down and loudly asking why on earth we're not coping, is the most counterproductive type of tough love ever. It just makes the struggling poster despair even more of ever coping.
FS I have heard again and again how different it used to be from ppl who are older and reminisce. They always talk about being able to walk on the streets, leaving in the morning with friends and packed lunched famous five style and coming back in the evening for tea. Whether or not there were more kidnappings doesnt change the fact that it didnt seem that way because of a lack of world news and it doesnt change the fact that mothers were more laid back and most kids were free to go and come.
You can rgue that it was different for you but frankly I have heard this so much that if you say that your family is different, I'll think your family was unique because what I am saying is hardly anything new.
The fact is further that ppl dont know their neighbours ppl keep to themselves. I know from ppl in NY that after 9/11 a big difference was that neighbours sarted saying hello to each other where as before they might have ignored each other.
It was not the norm that ppl lived in different countries to their parents or inlaws, families tended to stay in the same area and many under the same roof there are countless stories about that. ITs surely not a chiddush to you!?!
I feel that you just want t disagree and cant accpet or wont accept when so many are telling you wht their reality is. You keep denying other ppls reality or the reality they have seen in others. It cant be that hard to admit that perhaps there are ppl out who are different to you and that their difficulties are valid and real. So many ppl have told you how they feel and you keep denying it and saying that it doesnt make sense because 'ppl used to have it harder but managed, so why cant they'. Not everyone managed back then or ever and not everyone are managing now. It cant and shouldnt be that hard to comprehend that ppl are different then you and what you've seen. You seem intend to be right based on yur experiences and you seem unwilling to listen (and I mean really listen) to what so many have been trying to tell you. If other ppl whoa re shouting to you that they are different or know someone ddifferent and you still refuse to believe them, what will make you believe it? H-shem putting you in that exact circumstance or one of your loved ones in a circumstance like that or what will it take? I am tried of wasting my breath.
Madame therapist, all is well and good... but putting people down and blaming this generation is the most counterproductive form of therapy that can possibly exist. perhaps it's time to rethink your posting style... do you really take off your 'friedasima' hat when youre in session and then put on the 'tough love' hat on imamother? have you ever sat with a client who sat there, telling you how overwhelmed she is with life, and how she will lose it if someone doesnt take out her hyperactive child for a few hours a day, and you tell them "Suck it up. what's wrong with this generation? Parent sof SN kids managed fine in the 1850's. yorue making a mountain of a molehill" ???? Your client will be here complaining about you on imamother before you can say CHEESE!
Remember, here on imamother we are human beings too, human mothers who are trying our DARNDEST to cope with what life (aka HaShem) has thrown at us, and putting us down and loudly asking why on earth we're not coping, is the most counterproductive type of tough love ever. It just makes the struggling poster despair even more of ever coping.
Not to mention puts one of therapy in fear of being judged this way! The thought that I'd sit with a therapis who might be uhming and ahing but thinks this makes me shudder.
Madame therapist, all is well and good... but putting people down and blaming this generation is the most counterproductive form of therapy that can possibly exist. perhaps it's time to rethink your posting style... do you really take off your 'friedasima' hat when youre in session and then put on the 'tough love' hat on imamother? have you ever sat with a client who sat there, telling you how overwhelmed she is with life, and how she will lose it if someone doesnt take out her hyperactive child for a few hours a day, and you tell them "Suck it up. what's wrong with this generation? Parent sof SN kids managed fine in the 1850's. yorue making a mountain of a molehill" ???? Your client will be here complaining about you on imamother before you can say CHEESE!
Remember, here on imamother we are human beings too, human mothers who are trying our DARNDEST to cope with what life (aka HaShem) has thrown at us, and putting us down and loudly asking why on earth we're not coping, is the most counterproductive type of tough love ever. It just makes the struggling poster despair even more of ever coping.
Not to mention puts one of therapy in fear of being judged this way! The thought that I'd sit with a therapis who might be uhming and ahing but thinks this makes me shudder.
I wonder if these women are representative of anything or an anomaly.
I suspect that they are representative of women who are especially stressed and use the internet to find other women with similar concerns. In other words, don't underestimate selection bias. However, without a statistically valid survey of modern women's coping ability, we'll never know for sure.
As the old Britton lady who was like an adopted grandmother to me told my mom, "who complains, is alive". Not that she had an easy life, she worked like crazy, had to abandon her child to a country nurse because she lived in a tiny room and had no money for in city childcare, became sick, and finally died (in her 70's?).
Not everyone has mental or physical koyech for being one of these exceptional people you mention. And I do not see why depressed is better than kvetching.
Tough love doesnt work with everyone.
No one forces you to give money to any cause. if you feel pressured, give them tough love.
Have you read that (extreme, I agree) paper from Victor Hugo about the trial of that 2 yr old boy, who "worked to make a living and stole on the side"? Real story.
Have you read books about the life and treatment (in philosophy and IRL) of babies and kids?
Thanks cm, that's just what I was alluding to.
HR when you talk about institutionalizing the mentally [crazy] you are talking about when? The 1920s? But what about in the shtetl in the 1880s? There was no "institution" etc.
THAT's what I'm talking about.
The same for what some others here are writing. Chavs, I'm obviously a generation older and when I go back to grandparents I'm not talking about America in the 1940s or even 1920s. I'm talking about Eastern Europe, where the vast vast vast majority of the Jewish people lived, in the mid to late 1800s. Yes I knew people who lived then, and I've read a lot of what went on then and before and that's what I am alluding to. It was VERY common for people to go overseas and leave all family behind. And even long before that it was VERY common for Jewish men to go out and far away to make a living in eastern europe, coming home if they were very lucky once a week, if not once a month, and for some once every three or even more months! Very very common. Not unique at all. If you want to read about it try Simon Schama, Landscape and memory, or any other book that describes Jewish life in Eastern Europe between 200 to 120 years ago. IF you want something more modern try Zborowsky's "life is with people" which will give you a very different picture.
Ruchel, you are bringing some crazy examples. Victor Hugo and two year old children working? We are talking "norm" here. That's like saying Levi Aron lives in brooklyn and he is the norm of what brooklyn Yidden are like. Really? That's news for me.
The way some of you are describing life then it's as if it was gehenom on earth. That people worked from dawn to dusk like machines and just curled up and died in their spare time which didn't exist anyhow. Where in the world are you getting such descriptions from? Haven't any of you read anything about Jewish life in Europe in the 1700s and 1800s? You keep describing the 20th century as if the world was created then.
Why is it that when it comes to mesorah, to tradition, so many of you keep saying that "what was before is so much better than today" and "we must do all that we can to keep the traditions from the alter heim" alive...but when we are talking about concrete things that a person can learn from that time all of a sudden I hear the phrase "its' a different world" "we have nothing in common with then" "it was so terrible why do you think anyone should want to live like that" etc etc etc.? So let me ask you, all these traditions and mesorahs - they were created THEN in the PAST by those yidden living under these so called HORRIBLE conditions....why then do you think it's so important to keep them? After all, we're a different world, people are different, expectations are different, education is different, social norms are different and BETTER in all cases.
So why then do you denigrade life then in the "alter heim", describing it as if it were gehennom personified while at the same time pushing the idea over and over about how important it is to keep the traditions of the "alter heim"?
freidasima, I agree that people should not be asking for charity to pay for day camp (in general).
I also think that chalking all of this up to cognitive dissonance is overly simplistic.
This is not a therapy forum and nobody is hiring you to be their therapist here. Maybe you don't understand, but your posts can come off as self-righteous, condescending, judgmental and abrasive. Those of (myself included) who feel overwhelmed with certain aspects of daily life ARE already in therapy. When someone comes on here and posts about how frustrated they are, they are not looking for therapy. They are looking for compassion, understanding and sympathy. If you can't provide that, perhaps you should avoid those posts and posters that offend you.
There might not have been a mental institution, but chances are in shtetl the kids, including the mental [crazy] and children with problems, wandered about the shtetl. They weren't under the mother's care 24/7. Plus people did live together, not always happily but most people were fairly well connected on one side or other, so you had grandmothers and maiden aunts etc. living under one roof. May have made for more arguments but also for more hands.
HR Yes they wandered around in the shtetl but those are the adults or the adolescents. And here mothers were takling about small children. Small children were always under their mother's care including in the shtetl. And as for aunts, grandmothers etc., well there are still lots of families who live like that here, particularly among the religious.
Ruchel, I'm not talking about my family when I bring stats, but in general from the statistics we have. People weren't "stronger", they just accepted things as they are and had what appears to many to be more realistic expectations of life and what life at various junctures is supposed to be than some people have today. And part of that stems from the fact that many people in the west in the present younger generation were raised according to the "everything goes" standard with "rules" being considered bad or old fashioned (and along with them unfortunately, good manners sometimes etc.)
MommyZ by cognitive dissonance I meant only one thing and I'm still interested in an answer from anyone. If life in the "alter heim" was so awful, so different from today, so below standard and nothing that was there is applicable to our lives nor would many of those posting here WANT to have it as part of our lives, then why are the same people lauding the customs of "der alter heim" and wanting them to be continued? Tradition and mesorah and minhogim and all that? That's the cognitive dissonance that I meant. Can anyone explain? Since when are we allowed to pick and choose in yiddishkeit and Jewish life? And if we are then whose to say that these minhogim aren't mostly minhogei shtus and totally inapplicable to today?
Some of these things even impinge on this thread and on the standards that people are asking for zedoko for in order to keep up such minhogim,....such as kallah jewelry etc. Should I go on?
I have been PMing with Frieda all day today , and while I wont be publicizing the details of the PMs I can say the two following things which will finally put a lot of things to rest:
1. Frieda explained that she DOES use tough love in her therapy sessions. So she isnt being inconsistent as I was accusing her; she does use this approach with her clients. Well, what can I say, whoa. Good luck to your client base, I for one would be even more paralyzed and unable to collect my life if my therapist used a tough love approach.
2. The absolute base reason why Frieda is NOT GETTING IT is because of two words: cultural differences! Frieda says that being constantly tired, being unable to keep your house running, etc., is not considered in her book "not coping." that's the entire problem here. In my world, THAT is considerd not coping. The sole job, in my world, of an akeres habayis and a mother, is to keep her house afloat. If someone is unable to do that without sending her children to school or camp, in my world that IS not coping! Perhaps if you'll substitute in your mind whatever it is in your culture 'not coping', and use that as a substitute when women here discuss not coping if the kids are home all summer, you'll change your tune. Until then, we'll have to part company amicably on this thread, because we won't be able to ever meet even halfway.
This has explained everything! chaval, 60 pages of trying to figure out what the communication problem was here.
I have been PMing with Frieda all day today , and while I wont be publicizing the details of the PMs I can say the two following things which will finally put a lot of things to rest:
1. Frieda explained that she DOES use tough love in her therapy sessions. So she isnt being inconsistent as I was accusing her; she does use this approach with her clients. Well, what can I say, whoa. Good luck to your client base, I for one would be even more paralyzed and unable to collect my life if my therapist used a tough love approach.
This has explained everything! chaval, 60 pages of trying to figure out what the communication problem was here.
Evidently you didn't check out the thread on weight, and singles, and weight, etc. (Can't remember exactly what and where it is.)
It's moments like these that make me appreciate the internet and the tremendous achievements Hashem let us make in communications. Isn't it amazing that two very different women whose lives might never have otherwise intersected - and who only met because they both qualified for imamother, I.e growing Jewish women - can have a meaningful discussion and enter each others' lives?
HR Yes they wandered around in the shtetl but those are the adults or the adolescents. And here mothers were takling about small children. Small children were always under their mother's care including in the shtetl. And as for aunts, grandmothers etc., well there are still lots of families who live like that here, particularly among the religious.
Ruchel, I'm not talking about my family when I bring stats, but in general from the statistics we have. People weren't "stronger", they just accepted things as they are and had what appears to many to be more realistic expectations of life and what life at various junctures is supposed to be than some people have today. And part of that stems from the fact that many people in the west in the present younger generation were raised according to the "everything goes" standard with "rules" being considered bad or old fashioned (and along with them unfortunately, good manners sometimes etc.)
MommyZ by cognitive dissonance I meant only one thing and I'm still interested in an answer from anyone. If life in the "alter heim" was so awful, so different from today, so below standard and nothing that was there is applicable to our lives nor would many of those posting here WANT to have it as part of our lives, then why are the same people lauding the customs of "der alter heim" and wanting them to be continued? Tradition and mesorah and minhogim and all that? That's the cognitive dissonance that I meant. Can anyone explain? Since when are we allowed to pick and choose in yiddishkeit and Jewish life? And if we are then whose to say that these minhogim aren't mostly minhogei shtus and totally inapplicable to today?
Some of these things even impinge on this thread and on the standards that people are asking for zedoko for in order to keep up such minhogim,....such as kallah jewelry etc. Should I go on?
FS, from a very young age in the past children were running about. Young children were not tired to their mother's apron strings much past 3. Yes their 3 year old and under were probably with mom (and again, when? where? what else was going on?) OR with their big sister (all of 6).
If you look into history children as young as 3 WERE participating in the working world. They helped with many things. Obviously they weren't doing it like a 10 year old, but really childhood was quite shortened.
As far as wanting traditions to be followed, yes we want Torah and how long to wait between meals and how did your mother light candles and similar, but culture changed. Did you marry at 12/13/14? It was the norm in certain periods of time. Parents stayed on and lived with their children when they weren't able to care for themselves. No aides or anything. Grandmas and grandpas watched the kids and did what work they could in their infirmity. It was different. And it was also different in different periods and dependent upon where you lived, how much money you have etc. etc. etc.
There were good and bad things, no one is saying "everything was horrid horrid horrid." but the times were harder, life was shorter, child abuse was somewhat ignored and I can go on. Marriages continued often even though they were terrible because divorce was difficult and often left women in even a worse position then being abused or neglected or taken advantage of.
Yes there were some goods too: the community was more often a community. People took care of one another. Children were basically safe outside running about...and yes, from the age of three on. More community was good. A Bar Mitzvah meant you brought a cake and some schnapps and everyone said "mazel tov". Wedding, everyone brought what they could and you ate what was there and that was it.
Really, life was different. Some changes are good; many are good. So you can't expect the same type of living from anyone.
FS, I am not speaking about America either and I understood the year you were referring to as you mentioned them several times. I can tell you how it worked in Europe as I am from Europe and its nothing like what you describe, what you describe is unusual. Ppl were born in shtetls and stayed in them. The same for most nonjewish ppl.
If Mamabear is right about giving your clients the same treatment, I am happy that I havent been your client, there have been a time in my life where reading your posts would have destroyed my self esteem but had I been your client you could have led me to suicidal thoughts/attempts because you'd make me feel like an complete failure.
I am actually cracking up!!!!!
