I tried to do the reality check multiple times in this thread. I see now it was taken as asking for advice even though I mentioned just five or six times that my point in posting is to inject some reality into the thread.
Just to go back a few pages, since I had a rare day (paid) to spend with my children and haven't been on the computer all day...
Re: a woman's status of cholah after childbirth
Within 3 days she is a cholah sheyesh bo sakana and is FORBIDDEN to fast EVEN YK & 9 Av.
From 4-7 days she is a cholah sheyesh bo sakana, but for YK & 9 Av if she says she wants to fast and feels well she should be permitted to fast.
From 7-30 days she is a cholah she'ein bo sakana and should fast YK and 9 Av milechatchila, but if she feels unwell she should break her fast (shiurim on YK and regular food on 9 Av, unless her rav holds that shiurim apply on 9 Av, over which there's a machloket).
After 30 days she is obligated in YK and 9 Av like every other person.
As many communities hold that pregnant or nursing women do not fast minor fasts, they are not listed above. If your community holds that a pregnant or nursing woman SHOULD fast a minor fast, and one falls out during the listed times, one should of course ask her LOR.
(This breakdown is the one given in B'Sha'a Tova.)
I think people are defining "resting" pretty differently. Yes, even after birth it's unhealthy to sit all day, unless there's some special reason to be on bed rest. And yes, women can gradually resume activities until they're doing most of their usual tasks by 4-6 weeks.
But still, there's a world of difference between "It's good to get up and walk around even one week after birth" or "after a normal birth, a woman is usually able to prepare food or do some dishes even in the first two weeks," and "It's normal and healthy for a woman to resume all her normal tasks in the first weeks after birth." IOW between "walking around" and "doing most or all of the cooking, cleaning, childcare, errands, laundry, shopping and more."
Shabbat - you BETCHA I learned this in an MO school, and also at home. I saw my father come home from work sometimes at 10 PM and take out a gemoro night after night and learn, sometimes falling asleep over it. I saw him learn shabbos, and when he retired I saw him learn all the time. I was with him full time round the clock for the two weeks before he was niftar and it was the most incredible zechus of my life - I saw his aide (we had someone a few hours a day, no filipinos in those days yet) help him wash and dress and put on tallis and tefilin, and my father would daven. Then, weighing maybe 80 lbs and dying of yenner machla he would totter at age 89 to his big chair at the desk and open the gemoros and rambam he kept on there and he would try to learn. I would come in after an hour and he was asleep in the chair, his head down and the sforim open, when I would try to wake him up he would immediately open his eyes and start reciting the sugya that he had been learning when he either slept or it was a small loss of consciousness.
And yes, I remember my teachers both in elementary school in NY and in high school teaching us just what I wrote. And my high school years were during the feminist revolution mind you!! Early 1970s.
And this is what I teach my girls as well. I see my oldest daughter, the married one, doing it. Her husband is saving lives, and he learns when he can but she takes over everything. Her son, now 9 months pregnant as well, working, the house, food, shopping, everything. Not superwoman. Just normal Jewish women. THAT is why our husbands sing Eishes chayil to us. Because we deserve it.
When my dh sings it to me friday nite I count off how many of those things I really do. Well I don't have a field or a vineyard but I do grow spices and mini rimonim and hadasim in my windowboxes...
First of all, I went to a MO elementary school and sort of in the middle high school (not sure where to label it when I went there) and never learned anything about being a good wife, ever.
I am not talking about a father learning at times when things are not needed to be done. 10 pm and shabbat afternoon are not times when things "have to be done".
Again, no teacher of mine ever mentioned such things, ever.
I never learned such things in my parents home either. I got the fact that learning has value, but when there is time for it. Again, I mentioned that my father has had a chavruta for the last 32 years. they learn almost ever sunday and only one night a week when they are able, but if things come up in life, then they dont.
And excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, but those are the reasons why your husband sings eshet chayil? First off, I am with ruchel, it does not speak to me and secondly, do you not think that other women do deserve it as well? What a weird thing to say.
Friedasima described the day of a type A woman with boundless energy. Most normal women are very tired by 5 pm and would not be able to push in all that housework in 2 hours, all while having the emotional energy to listen to their kids. And their kids must be super well behaved if supper and bath time goes that smoothly. By the time theyre all in bed, who has koiach to start sewing or whatever? Fs seems to have an endless fountain of energy somewhere. In my house, giving the kids supper and chasing them into bath and bed takes almost 2 hours. Laundry takes almost 2 hours. Cleanup takes 1-2 hours. Shopping/errands takes 2-3 hours. Cooking for shabbos, 1-2 hours. And this is without a 9-5 job. Can I drink some of the magic energy drink youre drinking?
Friedasima described the day of a type A woman with boundless energy. Most normal women are very tired by 5 pm and would not be able to push in all that housework in 2 hours, all while having the emotional energy to listen to their kids. And their kids must be super well behaved if supper and bath time goes that smoothly. By the time theyre all in bed, who has koiach to start sewing or whatever? Fs seems to have an endless fountain of energy somewhere. In my house, giving the kids supper and chasing them into bath and bed takes almost 2 hours. Laundry takes almost 2 hours. Cleanup takes 1-2 hours. Shopping/errands takes 2-3 hours. Cooking for shabbos, 1-2 hours. And this is without a 9-5 job. Can I drink some of the magic energy drink youre drinking?
I"m going to agree. With MamaBear. After a full day of work, no matter how young or old a woman is, she's going to have koyach to do more than the minimum? Oh, wait a minute. I have a SIL with 4 small kids 8 and under. She's a Phd by the way. Besides my brother doing all the grocery shopping at 10 pm (he works too) and a cleaner once every week or two - she really has to get everything done once the kids are in bed. She doesn't bake or sew or grow things in pots - only in petri dishes at work. She rushes the kids off from place to place and appt. to appt. when my brother can't do it. They buy food for Shabbat. I don't envy it. FS, how can a woman with a bunch of little kids and no husband help do that and not get sick and fall apart? In fact, SO MANY kids growing up in these sorts of household are sick a lot of the time. You don't think stress has something to do with it?
All I can tell you is that described a typical weekday for myself and many of my friends. And none of us are superwomen. It's just all part of what we expected and what we got. Everyone is tired. That's life. So push yourself a bit and you find the energy. What's the difference between that and the doctors telling everyone that after a long day's work don't chill out for 2 hours in front of the TV with pizza and cola or takeout junk in oil but spend time making yourself and your family a healthy meal and find an hour to get on that exercize machine or go out to the gym or go out and take a 55 minute brisk walk every day??
Unless you are a rich lady of leisure you have to find the time and strength.
Part of it though its making your expectations fit reality. I did not describe life with a nursing baby. As I wrote, that changes some things. But hey, the women I know, even with five kids like me, did not nurse each kid for two years and spend 10 years non stop nursing. Nor were they "after birth" for 100 months of their lives. I am NOT describing life of a mother with 14 children but rather with 4, 5, 6. And the older ones keep an eye on the toddler. If you don't have older ones? That means usually that you also don't have 5 kids yet because "older " in my book is 8 already. They can be quite responsible if taught so.
It all depends in my book on three things.
1) what you teach your kids and expect from them. Yes even kids who under other circumstances can be vilde chayes if left alone, when taught discipline from age 0 learn what they have to do and more important what they are NOT allowed to do. Even toddlers. I am a firm believer in playpens. We had one up for years in the dining area with the table pushed to the wall to make room as we have such a small place. When the time came that we needed more table space the kids were old enough not to need a playpen. WITH BIG SIDES. So that you can put your 1 year old in there, in full view of you and everyone but they can't get out to make a mess if you are cleaning the house or have a fire on the stove. You don't want to "playpen" your one year old? Then if you can afford a maid, great. We couldn't. So you compromise. A bit of playpen while you can't afford to have a one year old sticking his fingers into the bleach or the fire...goes a long way. They also learn not to scream in the playpen if they get used to it from age zilch
2) Streamlining chores. It takes exactly 5 minutes to set up a triple batch of chocolate cake to bake. 5 minutes on the clock if you work efficiently. So you pre-heat your oven as you are taking out the stuff and you mix the batter and put it in. 5 minutes. If you do laundry dailiy for a family of 7 it doesn't take more than 1 minute - yes one minute - to shove everything from the day into the wash. I wash at 30 degrees with a cold water detergent, no sorting things. It takes 1 minute to take it out into a basket, another minute to walk to the porch where I hang out and no more than 6 or 7 minutes to hang out the wash of the day. The chores expand to the time one has. If you have 7 minutes you learn to do it fast and efficiently.
3) Multitasking chores - while you bake you don't exactly have to stand and watch the cakes rise, do you? Use a timer so that you don't have to remember to run and check all the time. Same as cooking for shabbos. You betcha I can do it in 90 minutes. How long does it take to roast chickens? at most 90 minutes. So you put them up, whole, covered with shake spices, first. Then you peel your veggies and your lentils have been soaking since the previous day when you put them up at night and changed their water in the morning when you got up. You drain them, add spices, add water, add the veggies and set to boil. That's soup. If you have leftover challah as I do, then sunday when I do baking I also put in a few challah kugels, they last me for the week and usually for more than a week so that's a starch. You set up rice to boil while the soup is boiling, you have another side. We usually don't have cooked veggies except baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, and eggplant strips. all that we do friday (I'm about to set it up) and we have enough for most of the week as I make big batches. If your soup isn't ready when the chicken goes off at 10 you can let it cook longer while you talk with your husband and then let it cool and put it away. We put things away warm. Yeah it's not great for the fridge but I would rather sleep than sit up for two hours while my soup cools. And it never has killed a fridge yet.
4) Expectations. I clean fast. Yes I can do the entire house minus windows which I don't always do every week and certainliy not in the winter, in 90 minutes. 10 minutes for dusting the house, 15 to vaccume including taking out the canister, cleaning and washing it after getting rid of the dust. 15 minutes wiping down walls, tops of picture frames and mirrors and quick wipe outside closet doors. Ladies invest in one of those sponge squeegees with expandable rod, dunk in water, squeeze out and wipe your walls and cabinet doors. Goes FAST. I didn't mean you have to climb up a ladder by hand by each closet??!!! Do you think I'm crazy??? Takes no time at all. And thats' moving slowly from room to room and the like. 15 minutes for sinks, toilets and bathroom and bath (we only have one), 10 minutes for trisim and quick wipe of blinds. 10 minutes wasting on X, Y and Z (you get a phone call in the middle, you have to check the stove, you have to see something with the kids, or you need to go tot he bathroom yourself). 15 minutes for sponja. And another 10 minutes to put away everything and hang out rags and wash buckets and wipe down countertops in the kitchen.
Voila. One clean house.
We don't have carpets, our apartment is under 100 square meters, one floor. Small. Women with big houses and carpets and other things have to take it all into account. I am talking about the kind of apartment I live in, my mother lives in, my friends life in. Can be done. Clean doesn't mean spotless. Get products that are good cleaning ones. Don't make sponja using soap and three times going over everything. Only in the bathroom and kitchen do you need to do it over and over and those are really small areas, can be done fast.
Now you ask what about the shower door (bathtub door), washing down the fridge and the stove etc? I do that as I go along. As I shower nightly I wash down the shower door. As I cook I clean the stove. I keep the fridge clean and once every three months take everything out and clean the shelves, otherwise I just wipe. Keep it simple. Like with food. If you really think you need to have 14 salads and 8 sides and three kinds of meat and chicken...well then that's not my life or that of any of my friends.
KEEP IT SIMPLE. If you are a working woman especially.
It's not fantasy, it's doable. But for that you have to be 1) organized 2) teach your kids what is expected of them and keep to it 3) be happy with what you are doing.
If you are the kind of woman who at 5 PM falls apart - well then my advice is to marry very rich and get a maid and full time nanny to take care of everything.
Last but not least. Note that there is no "sitting on imamother" on my list. There are lots of black holes in our lives today. Time wasters that are not necessities. We turn them into necessities and then we are stuck with something of our own making. In my day when I raised kids there were no internet boards, we used it at most for work and that was that, and some email but not much. If you don't have time to do the important things, prioritize and spending 3 hours a day on the computer, unless it is your work, is not a priority. Your family is.
If you don't have older ones? That means usually that you also don't have 5 kids yet because "older " in my book is 8 already. They can be quite responsible if taught so.
Maybe MAYBE M A Y B E in Chareidi circles. I don't know how it was when you were bringing your kids up, but no one utilizes an 8 yo for anything these days, besides picking up their own toys. They are driven around from chug to chug. They aren't sitting around babysitting. I'd never have even left an 8 yo alone for more than a few minutes, certainly not with a younger sib.
It all depends in my book on three things.
freidasima wrote:
I am a firm believer in playpens.
Takeh, davka in Israel we found it to be like a torture chamber and after the first was so miserable every time we put him down in it (after I came home from a day of work etc.), we never had one again.
freidasima wrote:
It takes exactly 5 minutes to set up a triple batch of chocolate cake to bake. 5 minutes on the clock if you work efficiently. So you pre-heat your oven as you are taking out the stuff and you mix the batter and put it in. 5 minutes.
I'm streamlined, neat and clean and it takes more time. Especially if you wash the utensils afterwards. Oh, and more time if you have to sift the flour.
freidasima wrote:
If you do laundry dailiy for a family of 7 it doesn't take more than 1 minute - yes one minute - to shove everything from the day into the wash. I wash at 30 degrees with a cold water detergent, no sorting things. It takes 1 minute to take it out into a basket, another minute to walk to the porch where I hang out and no more than 6 or 7 minutes to hang out the wash of the day. The chores expand to the time one has. If you have 7 minutes you learn to do it fast and efficiently.
Never. Maybe cause it's a bigger American machine? Hanging takes forever. And what about taking off, folding, distributing?
freidasima wrote:
I clean fast. Yes I can do the entire house minus windows which I don't always do every week and certainliy not in the winter, in 90 minutes. 10 minutes for dusting the house, 15 to vaccume including taking out the canister, cleaning and washing it after getting rid of the dust. 15 minutes wiping down walls, tops of picture frames and mirrors and quick wipe outside closet doors. Ladies invest in one of those sponge squeegees with expandable rod, dunk in water, squeeze out and wipe your walls and cabinet doors. Goes FAST. I didn't mean you have to climb up a ladder by hand by each closet??!!! Do you think I'm crazy??? Takes no time at all. And thats' moving slowly from room to room and the like. 15 minutes for sinks, toilets and bathroom and bath (we only have one), 10 minutes for trisim and quick wipe of blinds. 10 minutes wasting on X, Y and Z (you get a phone call in the middle, you have to check the stove, you have to see something with the kids, or you need to go tot he bathroom yourself). 15 minutes for sponja. And another 10 minutes to put away everything and hang out rags and wash buckets and wipe down countertops in the kitchen.
Voila. One clean house.
Oh, the joys of living in a small apartment. FS, it takes HOURS in a house with a master bedroom plus bathroom. 3 kids bedrooms plus toilet and bathroom. Den. LR/DR/Kitchen area. And we're all chipping in. Not working straight, though. We socialize while cleaning. It takes out a huge part of our Fridays. Water, vacuuming the water. Checking the screens and trissim (not every week but pretty often in the summer). Wiping down the fans. Doing the stove. The sinks, shayish, cabinets. And it's not like it only gets done once/week. Sigh. It's not a quickie. In my parents apartment it takes a cleaner 4 hours and she doesn't get everything done.
Last but not least. Note that there is no "sitting on imamother" on my list. FS there was coffee klatching and TV and reading. Whoever wanted to waste time found the way to do it. Anyway, though my mother did it all, she never worked more than 4 days/week when there were kids in the house, and never when the kids were little. I don't know how you did it. Kudos!.
From 7-30 days she is a cholah she'ein bo sakana and should fast YK and 9 Av milechatchila, but if she feels unwell she should break her fast (shiurim on YK and regular food on 9 Av, unless her rav holds that shiurim apply on 9 Av, over which there's a machloket).
After 30 days she is obligated in YK and 9 Av like every other person.
As many communities hold that pregnant or nursing women do not fast minor fasts, they are not listed above. If your community holds that a pregnant or nursing woman SHOULD fast a minor fast, and one falls out during the listed times, one should of course ask her LOR.
(This breakdown is the one given in B'Sha'a Tova.)
Just the opinion of that book. Every other sefer I've seen, plus my Rav say that the cutoff for 9 Av is 30 days. A woman may fast between 7 & 30 days, but is not required to.
Says the woman who gave birth on 5 Tammuz, and didn't get the auto heter but wound up breaking fast around 5pm that 9 Av.
find an hour to get on that exercize machine or go out to the gym or go out and take a 55 minute brisk walk every day??
Was never told that. My mom was told twice a week 30 mins of walk, or something like that. Exercize machine, at home? who has? brisk walk is not for everyone, she davka was told regular walk.
I also believe in chinuch and discipline.
Now, playpens? My DD hated it, kept screaming. And she was too young to be made to understand no screaming! and she was in it from age zilch.
My cleaning lady started working at NINE. Yup, a woman after your own heart
Well, she is extremely quick and efficient - but 90 mins ? No. And she doesn't dust every week and certainly doesn't wipe walls or frames or cabinets! and we certainly don't live in 100 square meters LOL, people are struggling to find more than 80 in cities...
Quote:
If you are the kind of woman who at 5 PM falls apart - well then my advice is to marry very rich and get a maid and full time nanny to take care of everything.
I didn't do any of these things, and I still manage... but if I worked FT and husband did too, if I was even able to, you bet I wouldn't touch housework after work and commute and what would be left of my energy would be for the kids... as did my mom. Who always read a lot, btw. Like my grandmother. Like my great grandmother. My great grandmother went through a book a day, my saba says.
I do see 8 yr olds occupying younger siblings... after school, here, they stay home.
I will never forget that daycamp under a charedi shul, in Paris, where the "morot" were half my height and the "head mora" looked barely bat mitsva... Mati stayed there for a few hours (I had registered for a shiur and baby sitting, no one bothered to tell me what kind!), and while the girls were adorable and very hands on and good with kids... they were just overwhelmed! They also couldn't feed the kids because everyone had different kashrus standards, I had to call DH to tell him to buy smthg for DD... oh the memories
friedasima, not only are you not addressing the reasons your proposed schedule wouldn't work for most, you don't even seem to understand what they are.
Babies, for example. Forget nursing (although that said - you realize that even if a woman with five kids nurses for one year, not two, that's still a total of nearly 9 years of her life spent either pregnant or nursing? kinda unhelpful to ignore that much time when it comes to scheduling in Torah learning). Even a non-nursing baby needs 1. to be fed, and not only at mealtime, 2. to have its diapers changed, 3. attention, and not only when mommy has time in her schedule to give it.
Toddlers also. The issue isn't just "toddlers go crazy and destroy everything if you aren't watching them." No, I agree that toddlers can generally be taught to keep their mess within reasonable limits (although for at least 1-2 years they're still mid-learning, not fully trained). But still - they may need help in the bathroom, they can't always undress themselves, they need extra supervision to be sure they play nicely (neither harassing their older siblings, nor playing too roughly with the baby if their is one) and safely.
Cleaning - the issue isn't just whether you can do that much cleaning in 90 minutes (personally, I couldn't do a thorough sponga in just 15 minutes even when living in a one-bedroom place, but maybe we define a decent job mopping floors differently). But also, who with young children can have a decently clean house with just one sponga a week?
Now, ignore all that, because that's not the real issue. The real issue is this: Whether or not your schedule is possible, for most women of this generation, it's insufficient. It doesn't have nearly enough time for playing with children, listening to them, teaching them.
You don't know any woman your age who can't do all the housework herself? I don't know any woman my age who doesn't put reading to the children every day over dusting, or who would forgo her husband's help in the house if it meant she wouldn't have time to sit and talk to each individual child, every day.
It's just different priorities. I admire your ability to get many things done very very quickly, but I don't see the things you suggest can be done as the only things that need doing. And WADR, you're talking about this as a basic Torah value, but you have yet to quote a rav saying that women should, as a general rule, put their husbands' Torah study over his help at home if it means that both parents have very limited time with their children.
Well Ruchel you seem extra delicate so you have to take special care of your health. But even women with health issues, if they can't afford help, and many can't, learn to streamline. They make one pot meals. They clean perfunctorally and not thoroughly. They have lots of undies and socks and undershirts for the kids and so they don't have to do wash that often, and as for taking things off the line and distributing, well it takes 3 minutes to take 5 long ropes of line wash off if you are fast, and another 7 minutes to fold. If the kids are big enough you distribute by putting the stuff on the table folded and calling each one to take their own pile. If they are small you do it yourself, another 5 minutes.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU LADIES TO PUT AWAY PILES OF FOLDED LAUNDRY??
Tamiri I have no solution for women with 250 square meter homes who have no cleaning help except that it will take two or two and a half times the time. And as soon as kids are five or six (yes!) they can really help with the cleaning if you have lots of kids and that's why that person has such a big house. If they just like space and only have two kids in 250 square meters, well that's quite a luxury and I really don't know anyone like that. Actually I know very few women who live in houses, one friend who has a house in Beit Hakerem but all my other friends are city dwellers living in 3.5, 4 and 5 room apartments in Yerushalayim, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Givatayim, Petach Tikva, Modi'in and some still living in caravans in the shtachim. My two friends who live in gush Etzion and have houses also don't work more than 4 hours a day outside of the house so they have plenty of time at home to cook, clean and do everything else.
Tamiri I don't know how you raised your kids and obviously it works for you, but I complain about my kids being lazy galore and YET, they all helped tremendously with their siblings. Not with housework but definitely with siblings. As did every single family I know. Even those with two, not five like me. I have a girlfriend with two and her older who is only two year older than her youngest, would help feed and care for her toddler sister in a highchair when she was four and the sister was two. If the mother is there cooking in the kitchen why can't the four year old hand the toddler pieces of schnitzl to chew on? How come so many mothers I know taught their children NOT to throw food, not to be vilde chayes etc? How come we all managed to do it and I see young mothers doing it today as well....so it's certainly not only among the charedim but among the DLs with lots of kids here as well.
Sifting flour. One saturday nite one sits down and sifts ten kilo of flour and freezes it. End of problem. You can do that while talking to your husband and children and spending time with them. You don't need all your concentration to sift flour, this isn't davening and if you are an experienced housewife you don't need that kind of kavvono!
And as for "koffee klatching, watching TV etc." in the past, the time wasters instead of computer forums, hate to tell you but working women didn't do that kind of thing if they didn't have the time. That's the thing. Family, then housework, then time for yourself. And mothers were always shortchanged with time for themselves. I remember talking to a friend of mine, charedi, with four kids. we worked together and she said that since having a family she doesn't have time for friends, that's just life. If she has spare time she spends it with her husband, her mother, and her sisters and sisters in law. That's the schedule of priorities. Girlfriends? When they will be grandmothers and take their grandchildren to the park. But until then?
Computer is different. It doesn't require going out of the house and it's an extention of "necessities". It is a ncecessity to read your email if it is the only way that some people communicate (sisters overseas for example) or you pay bills etc. But there is a fine line between doing the necessary on computer and then spending hours "surfing" the internet or sitting on forums. It's much easier to get distraceted on a computer than to go out, find other women and "kaffee klatch" with them. That's why I mentioned it as a problem. It's "effortless" so to speak, and that's why if one doesn't have time it has to be pushed to the end of the priorities list.
I wonder how many women who complain that they are tired, have no strength, have no time for this, that and the third thing are spending loads of time on the computer instead of using that time with their families...
Ora you posted as I posted so I didn't see what you wrote until now. Let me address your post.
Why do you have to "read" to kids? Why can't you TALK to them as you dust? You can make up stories as you clean and they can accompany you. So the floor won't be 100% so nothing will be 100% but it's doable. Our kids weren't neglected, we spent time with them but we also multitasked.
Also please note, you aren't addressing the fact that I was writing solely about a FULL TIME WORKING MOTHER who gets home at 5 PM. A mother who works part time, or a SAHM??? Wow, what a luxury! THEY can't get all the stuff done that I mentioned? Then in my opinion they really have a time management problem.
Maybe my definition of sponja is really different than yours. I also sweep nightly and it takes exactly five minutes in my house. I always did when my kids were younger. My kitchen floor gets washed today like then every single night before I go to bed. Takes two minutes. We have exactly 8 big balatot of 50 x 50 cm (maybe less) to be washed. Very small kitchen. Wake up in the morning every morning to a clean kitchen. Bathrooms get wiped down after I get up off the toilet and before I turn off the light to go to sleep. Also no big deal, I don't even think about it after so many years. Another 60 seconds. After all how much is there to wipe? 1 meter by 2 meters? Wow...big deal.
Nursing babies. Mommy is the only one who can nurse and at the same time she can tell toddler a story and oversee other things. She can let the baby scream for 2 minutes and meanwhile put something in the over to bake and have it ready when she gets up. Kids of six can learn to change babies diapers. We did it all the time. Certainly kids of eight. Playing with toddlers and babies - nice if you have time. If you have lots of kids, work full time and no household help something has to go. you want to put playing with kids as your priority and feed them sliced bread and white cheese for three meals a day? Great. But most people dont want to eat that, so they take the time from playing with their kids to prepare food.
Look all you young women, let me tell you something. We obviously worked harder than you at household things and our mothers worked harder than us in most cases and our grandmothers even harder. Ruchel this is the time for you to tell us that everyone had maids and spent their time reading. Yada Yada. I don't know anyone like that nor have I ever heard of anyone like that 100 years ago. My great grandmother was practically illiterate anyhow. And in her little shtetl in poland you can be sure the only books in the house were sforim and that she certainly couldn't read. And she like my grandmother didn't have a washing machine but a board and they did it by hand. And my great grandmother had no running water or electricity.
So? What does that have to do with anything? A lot. My grandmother was the oldest of ten, my grandfather the oldest of eight both on my mother's side. And they were not neglected by their mothers nor were the other siblings. The mothers taugh them, told them stories, told them stories they heard (or read, those who could) from the tzena rena, taught them about nature, taught them to keep house and be good Jewish wives and mothers. And they took care of a heck of a lot more around the house than anyone does today even on my list.
So please, don't make it out that all we did was work and housework and neglect our children's playing and stories. We didn't nor did our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers. We just did it differently. I spent time showing my girls how to sew and all my kids how to cook from an early age. And taught them hilchos kashrus while we were at it and hilchos tznius while we sewed and croched. I see being with children as a learning experience. And all this "fun" for the sake of "fun"? Its really learning just dyed in the wool to sound different. You can do it in many ways and not just by sitting down for an hour and reading a story book to your kids. You can tell them stories as they clean along with you. sounds like Oliver Twist? Maybe. But it teaches them about real life and responsibiilities and teaches them that it IS doable.
Strong Jewish men and women are not just born. They are made.
When I was home with DD without daycare and without cleaning lady, I remember wiping the floor where it was dirty... when I was lucky there were a few days where no one dropped food. Once I dropped "cooked salad" (that red spicy salad) on a 100 yr old family rug of DH. I was happy he didn't say anything!
The worst was the mess. I could pick up, during the day it was just wasted energy. And at DD bedtime I was zonked!
As ora says I am also a big believer in individual time, for every child, and also with DH, and also on my own.
Well Ruchel you seem extra delicate so you have to take special care of your health.
I wish I could tell you I don't know many women as delicate or even much worse. My 33 yr old good friend has now to spend most of her days in bed
I have migraines, it is "just" tiring. Any body part can have a problem, and even just migraines, 30% of French ladies have them... and this is not mentioning people who have lo alenu something dangerous or evolutive!
Putting away folded laundry? No problem for me. Now, putting it up on the laundry dryer... the arm movement brings blood to my head which brings... migraine, especially if I have to do quick.
Do people really freeze flour? we keep it in the bag... and buy good brand so no sifting...
Many women have "no time for friends", but in fact what they mean is no interest... as my mom says who wants to see friends when you can see child or husband? I feel the same.
Ora you posted as I posted so I didn't see what you wrote until now. Let me address your post.
Why do you have to "read" to kids? Why can't you TALK to them as you dust? You can make up stories as you clean and they can accompany you. So the floor won't be 100% so nothing will be 100% but it's doable. Our kids weren't neglected, we spent time with them but we also multitasked.
Sorry, but are you serious? You cant see the importance of reading to a child? I am sorry, to me thats something big. I remember my parents reading to me when I was young, maybe 4 years old. I know that they read to me way earlier than that, but I remember from then.
How can reading not be important? It builds language skills and also hopefully, will instill your child a love for reading books, which, I feel, is SOOOOOOO important.
There is multitasking and multitasking. Are you saying that you did not spend any one on one qualiy time with your children? Or is this just about reading to them?
And yet you say your own children have decided to do things differently.
It's not about which way is right or wrong, it's generational. The fact that your dd chooses to focus on childcare instead of cleaning, as you said earlier on this thread, isn't a statement on whether it's better to do things as you describe or as I describe, it's just the way 20-somethings tend to do things these days.
As for who worked harder, etc, my grandmother worked out of the home only after her children were in school, and my great-grandmother worked out of the home only until getting married. There were only so many hours in the day back then, like today.
In many families the parents think they have to read, if only to show an example of reading and giving an appreciation for books. Motivating the kid to learn to read so he can read the nice story when he wants.
We definitely read, and also definitely make up stories when we think what we read is silly
My mother was home at 8, 9. I felt she had enough time for me.
Sponja wise, before I had a CL honestly I wiped what looked dirty, and that was it...
In the shtetl kids were out a LOT. Today in most places parents are less trusting.
I'm not going back to no meds and no hygiene and no social help times just so my kids can be "strong". People who lived in such times would be so sad and even upset that we go through it as a choice.
Btw we are made (born) as Hashem makes us. He doesn't build most women like Goliath or whatever.
