Along these lines, Shalhevet asked why a woman needs to sleep. I am a woman who needs to sleep! No way could I have raised all the kids I did/continue to do without napping (or alternatively sleeping late) most days of all these years.
I hope you weren't deliberately misunderstanding me.
I asked why a woman needed to sleep exactly when her children needed her to help them get off to school in the morning making her husband would miss davening with a minyan, assuming she hadn't been up with a child half the night and wouldn't have a chance to catch up later.
Of course a mother needs to sleep. The question is when.
When else would she sleep? Presumably she's either working or caring for kids during the day.
If she has only little kids she could go to bed earlier. If she has only a baby home during the day she can nap when the baby does. If she has older kids too, she can ask them to watch the little ones while she naps. If she can't go to bed earlier and she has to go to work and she was up in the night, then she's the one I'm talking about who can't catch up later.
I really don't know too many Israeli mothers who get 8 hours of sleep a night with little kids and we all seem to cope. I'm not talking about women who are nursing round the clock, that's a bit of a problem if your baby is still nursing four times at night. But once you are not nursing, unless you have a new one every two years and spend two years nursing each one, a mother should be able to get to bed by midnight and up at 6 or 6:30 and get straight sleep. Yeah I know, you are going to tell me that you - whoever you are - can't cope on 6 or 6.5 hours sleep...so for you, go to bed at 11 and not at midnight and you get 7 to 7.5 hours sleep....it's doable. It also seems to be the average amount of sleep most people around the world get - 6.5 to 7.5 hours a night.
But seriously, if you find yourself needing more, check into your iron levels and see whether it wouldn't be worth it if you are being zonked by the humidity, to get an air conditioner that will dehumidify your house, which is more important even than being cool in order to feel more energetic for many people
When I get 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, I feel like the most rested person on earth.
For me, it's usually 4 1/2-5 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep. And I cope. Meaning, EVERYBODY else should to. Because again, if I can, why can't you too?
What are trissim? And I wanted to start a thread on these Israeli shades.
Weird, weird shades!!!!
If you want air coming in at night, you either pull up the shades all the way so everyone enjoys viewing your bedroo activity, or you pull the string/straps up a bit and you get teeny holes for venting....
No Kitov that's the "roller" kind.
The other are slats attached to metal frames with a handle, You can move the slats into different angles so that you can get air and light into the room without anyone from the outside being able to see inside. You have either two or four lines of slats per window usually and thus you can leave the upper ones open and close the lower, that means that high up (windows often go to the ceiling in some homes like ours) no one can see in and you can leave that part open while the lower part is closed and no one sees in at all.
I'm with you about sleep. For years I functioned on 4 to 5 hours and it was great. 6 I was a mensch. 7 was gan eden and I never remember getting 8 except on a shabbos when I could go to sleep early (10) and the kids were older so I could sleep past 5....a mechayeh!
Im still having a hard time with women who say that a working mother needs to do everything a SAHM does but after work. I don't except that a husband can't do half his share unless he is not home.
I am sorry but learning is a nice thing for men but also a luxury. It should not be done on his wife's cheshbon. The ideal is that a mother is home with her children and maintains the home. Once that is not able to be accomplished then the women/men roles need to be reevaluated.
If a woman/mother can work all day that sure as hell a man can get off his butt and learn how to do laundry, dishes, grocery shop and cook meals.
I am married to a born and bred south african and if he can cook and do laundry then any man can learn to do it too. If you don't know anything about south african life, then know this he and all of his friends grew up with maid. His mother only cooked dinner if the maid was off and she only worked part time. I asked him why his parents never sent him to jewish school and he said that his parents couldn't afford it. CULTURE!!!!
Im still having a hard time with women who say that a working mother needs to do everything a SAHM does but after work. I don't except that a husband can't do half his share unless he is not home.
I am sorry but learning is a nice thing for men but also a luxury. It should not be done on his wife's cheshbon. The ideal is that a mother is home with her children and maintains the home. Once that is not able to be accomplished then the women/men roles need to be reevaluated.
If a woman/mother can work all day that sure as hell a man can get off his butt and learn how to do laundry, dishes, grocery shop and cook meals.
I am married to a born and bred south african and if he can cook and do laundry then any man can learn to do it too. If you don't know anything about south african life, then know this he and all of his friends grew up with maid. His mother only cooked dinner if the maid was off and she only worked part time. I asked him why his parents never sent him to jewish school and he said that his parents couldn't afford it. CULTURE!!!!
I agree. My DH does get home hours after me so I have to do supper/ baths etc. myself, but as soon as he gets home he gets to work- laundry, dishes, cooking for later in the week or for shabbos, cleaning for shabbos on Thurs. night etc. We both work until it's all done (haha). One evening a week he also goes out again to do the shopping.
Housework does split more or less equally between us, childcare less so because of the difference in when we each get home.
And my DH is South African :-)
Being a SAHM would definitely improve quality of life for all of us, not just for me!!
Hinda Rochel- complaining might not be an accomplishment, but being self-sufficient is. I just can't understand people who aren't willing to do whatever it takes in order to be independent and self-supporting, if at all possible.
"Functioning" on very little sleep is also not efficient. Most people who think they're doing OK on little sleep actually have significantly slower reflexes, worse performance on physical and mental tasks, worse concentration, etc, than people who are getting a decent amount of sleep. Driving on 4-5 hours of sleep can be as dangerous as driving drunk.
In fact, to me saying "I can function on four hours of sleep" sounds almost like saying, "oh yeah well I can function drunk." Sure, I could probably get through my day even if I were downing a shot every 4 hours or so, but at what cost? And why do that (and deal with the associated mental fuzziness, slower learning, less than ideal work performance, inability to fully focus on the children, etc) unless it is truly, absolutely necessary?
Wanting enough sleep isn't about wanting the physical pleasure of sleeping in, out of selfishness. It's about making sure your body and brain are in condition to get through the day.
All that said - I agree with shalhevet that in most cases, sleep schedules can be rearranged to make room for minyan.
I am sorry but learning is a nice thing for men but also a luxury. It should not be done on his wife's cheshbon. The ideal is that a mother is home with her children and maintains the home. Once that is not able to be accomplished then the women/men roles need to be reevaluated.
Wow. Ever read the Torah?
What are we building our homes for? Frum women saying learning is a luxury? Camp isn't a luxury but a man learning Torah is? Wow.
Shalhevet, to clarify, I was only arguing that many women need a decent amount of sleep to function and raise their families with sanity, and that shouldn't be mocked. I definitely think a woman should take her husband's learning and davening schedule into account when she plans when to sleep!
Many a time I woke up even when I was exhasted to allow my husband to go to minyan while I readied my children to go learn Torah. And sometimes my husband davened at home because he was caring for our children after I had a baby. After my youngest was born, he davened Shacharis at home for a month, and I was too out of it to even realize it. But these were exceptions.
Everyone's circumstances are different, and common sense along with hashkafa need to be applied.
Shalhevet, to clarify, I was only arguing that many women need a decent amount of sleep to function and raise their families with sanity, and that shouldn't be mocked. I definitely think a woman should take her husband's learning and davening schedule into account when she plans when to sleep!
Many a time I woke up even when I was exhasted to allow my husband to go to minyan while I readied my children to go learn Torah. And sometimes my husband davened at home because he was caring for our children after I had a baby. After my youngest was born, he davened Shacharis at home for a month, and I was too out of it to even realize it. But these were exceptions.
Everyone's circumstances are different, and common sense along with hashkafa need to be applied.
Today is my DD's last day of day camp. The camp was sponsored by her special ed school, cost 500 shekel for 5 weeks and was worth every agora I paid from my DH's hard-earned money which he is able to earn because I do everything else for the family. (did I cover all the bases there?)
On the bright side, I don't have to get up at 5:45 again until school starts.
Sometimes she can amuse herself and sometimes she can't. One of the problems of being in special ed is that your classmates don't live anywhere near you. She's not capable of taking 2 buses anywhere.
She has one free ticket to the Science Museum and one to the Israel Museum so I told here that after Tisha B'Av we'd go to both places.
Ditto Ora... it's not like the average wife is as strong as the average husband... of course if she is much stronger, gezinterheit!
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Ruchel it is NOT a contest but for each woman on her own it IS a challenge.
I guess that's what I don't get personally. I do what I need to. Period. No challenge, no desire to see how much I can stretch.
FS it seems what your husband do is a choice of life. One that shouldn't make your life difficult...
I don't know any adult woman who wants to go to bed at the same time as the kids. People need personal time and also couple time.
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If she has only a baby home during the day she can nap when the baby does.
You know that it takes military training to control sleep, right? I keep hearing this sentence, but it doesn't make sense for most women I discussed it with when I had DD.
As for 4 or 5 hours of sleep? For most people it is really unhealthy. Sorry.
And here I want to say thanks to Hashem for putting me in a world where I can be treated such, and still not be different from many other FRUM wives...
Why is it holy to demand things from others that we are capable of doing for ourselves?
We are capable also on surviving on a 300 calories diet in a ghetto for some time.
I don't get the comparison. At all. I am talking about someone who can, for example, make their own lunch, calling up their neighbour to make it for them. If you can get a book from the shelf yourself, don't be lazy and ask someone else to take it down for you. We should be training ourselves to be givers, not takers.
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It IS holy to use our rights (they were given for a reason, no?) and also our common sense (same).
You mentioned earlier that you had already brought a source for your rights that you could basically lie in bed all day and your husband needs to serve you hand and foot - wasn't that the thread where you brought someone on the internet who referred to a Rambam and interpreted it to say the opposite of what was written there? Or do you mean something else which I've forgotten?
I don't get the comparison. At all. I am talking about someone who can, for example, make their own lunch, calling up their neighbour to make it for them. If you can get a book from the shelf yourself, don't be lazy and ask someone else to take it down for you. We should be training ourselves to be givers, not takers.
A giver without a taker is also not good. A relationship is both.
I agree with the examples here. Not (at all!) with the examples of doing everything basically like a single mother so the husband learns as much as possible, and too bad for the rest (me, kids, house...).
"Someone" is a known rabbi. You can ask him.
Anyway he is not my rabbi, hence I do not follow him. I find it extreme, but not more extreme than what I read on this thread, so...
I am sorry but learning is a nice thing for men but also a luxury. It should not be done on his wife's cheshbon. The ideal is that a mother is home with her children and maintains the home. Once that is not able to be accomplished then the women/men roles need to be reevaluated.
Wow. Ever read the Torah?
What are we building our homes for? Frum women saying learning is a luxury? Camp isn't a luxury but a man learning Torah is? Wow.
WOW did you ever read the Torah? Where does it say in Torah that we should judge our fellow jew? That we should belittle them in public. This entire thread is just that.
Its a great thing that your husband learns but maybe you should learn too.
We also have frum women saying that wearing a sheital, being a SAHM and having your children in a torah learning camp is a luxury.
I never read that a women should work just as much as her husband, that you MUST live in Israel and that your husband should never do housework so that he should be able to learn the minute he walks into the door.
There is more in the torah that just living in Israel and "learning torah".
oh and BTW I did learn that a wife working is a FAVOR to her husband. so in a sense its a luxury for a husband to have a wife working even if its something common.
I am sorry but learning is a nice thing for men but also a luxury. It should not be done on his wife's cheshbon. The ideal is that a mother is home with her children and maintains the home. Once that is not able to be accomplished then the women/men roles need to be reevaluated.
Wow. Ever read the Torah?
What are we building our homes for? Frum women saying learning is a luxury? Camp isn't a luxury but a man learning Torah is? Wow.
We also have frum women saying that wearing a sheital, being a SAHM and having your children in a torah learning camp is a luxury.
I never read that a women should work just as much as her husband, that you MUST live in Israel and that your husband should never do housework so that he should be able to learn the minute he walks into the door.
There is more in the torah that just living in Israel and "learning torah".
oh and BTW I did learn that a wife working is a FAVOR to her husband. so in a sense its a luxury for a husband to have a wife working even if its something common.
What exactly are you trying to say? Yes, a woman working so that her husband doesn't have to provide parnasa is a favour.
But that doesn't make learning Torah a luxury. Vedibarta bam, beshivtecha beveisecha, uvelechtecha vaderech uveshovbecaha uvekumecha.
A man has a mitzva to learn all the time, unless he is busy with another mitzva/ physical need. I didn't say he should never do housework - sometimes a woman needs help, she can't manage by herself.
But that's not what you said - you said learning Torah is a luxury. Luxury = nice if you can, not so terrible if you can't. Vehagisa bo yomam valayla.
I don't really know what 'being done on the wife's cheshbon' means. Do you mean he shouldn't go off to learn when it is hard for her and she needs help? I agree. How hard? Up for debate. But what you said implied no great shakes if he never learns - it will always be on her cheshbon, right? That she'll have to wash the dishes instead of sitting down with a magazine and eat bon bons. Or instead of washing the floor again when she could have skipped that.
And why is limmud Torah so heilege for boys and dispensable for men?
CULTURE!!!!
