And now, ladies, since my efforts to try to knock some sense into the more obnoxious amongst you ends up with me getting bashed, I think I'll bow out gracefully & go kiss my wonderful DD, thank her amazing DH & shmush up her gorgeous kids who have so little & give so much to improve Jewish life in this country.
Have a great Shabbos, one & all.
Last edited by bubby on Fri, Jul 29 2011, 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
My neurologist explained to me that there are various types of daily treatment for migraines.
What works for me is one that lowers blood pressure. I take the lightest, at a crazy light dosage ("it has effect??", some docs have said), and I already start with a low (but not dangerous or anything, still now) BP. Still, when you are 5'10 and 90/60, 80/50, you are tired. If I took something to up it, then the anti migraine effect is lost (yes I asked).
There is no way around it. I bless my meds every day, because when I was preg with mati and could take nothing (doliprane is nothing for a migraine), I had my migraines "au naturel" (for info, even natural remedies like Tiger Balm were 100% assur, actually worse than meds! I could sleep with icy towels on my head but then I got sick... ) and it wasn't pretty. As sh*tty as it sounds, about 30% ladies go through this in some shape or form, for some treatment is never found or has more side effects than migraines or creates rebound migraines or needs to be stopped up to one year (!) before stopping BC... lo alenu.
Au naturel is just like what my mom, grandma, great grandma had in their times. You speak of being strong, well it takes someone pretty strong physically and mentally to have that for decades.
There are certainly young women with nothing, and not too many kids, and big gaps etc. But I find over years that many, many people have "something" one way or another (obesity, asthma, low energy, back ache, feet ache, stomach aches, "sensitive" intestine, memory loss, crazy allergies, kidney problems, anaemia, heart problems, lung problems, miscarriages, depression, thyroid problems, or meds for one of these things causing fatigue...), if only BH many kids and small gaps and the exhaustion that comes with the bracha!
I asked an Israeli lady, online, around FS's age, MO.
Her reaction:
Quote:
you can write that you told a friend to read this thread as it is in the open section and that she thinks that some of the ideas there are absolutely crazy! I can't believe that a few of the posters aren't trying to pull everyone's leg with their nonsense, how can they be serious?! Crazy crazy people. Working 18 hours a day? asking zedaka to send your children to camp? Reading to nine year olds? What are they, [crazy]? In any case though I liked the comment someone made at the end about Freidasima being a general. I sure wouldn't have liked to be in her army!! Have a shabbat shalom!
She also doesn't get the thing about learning instead of helping... and can't believe most families would want it.
Ruchel I have a feeing that if you were lucky enough one day to find a doctor who would get to the root problems of your health issues and maybe then find you the right type of food to eat or something like that, you might find yourself with a lot more energy. Until then, use the energy you have for good things and try to eat right for your body type and get a bit of healthy exercise until you have more strength.
Look people, I certainly didn't write what I did about working mothers to bash anyone but to show that there are maybe a few things that people complaining about here can nevertheless learn from how other people cope. No one said that one has to 100% copy anything I do or anything anyone else does, these are sugestions.
But one thing isn't a suggestion but still shock. I put limud torah as a priority for my husband. He works full time and therefore in spite of the fact that much of his work has to do with torah, he has to learn or give his pure torah shiurim after work hours (there IS no before, he goes to vasikin). And I find it hard that this isn't a priority for ALL Jewish women on this site no matter what their denomination.
In my case, what I give up in terms of energy is taking on most of the domestic to free his time to learn. But in other cases there are women who dont have the desire or the strength to give up their own "free time" and use it for the domestic (which includes the kids of course, but mostly here the housework as the kids learning and stuff is also the husband's domain), then do it a different way. Some will use their financial resources for a cleaning woman and spend that time with their kids. Others won't cook but will use take aways and readi mades and read for themselves or their kids or go sit with friends during the time they would have cooked.
But I don't hear most of you saying - yes torah learning for men is up there top of the priorities for us!!! And that's what's bothering me. Because you don't have to sew if you hate it - you can buy clothing, you don't have to have windowboxes full of spices if you don't enjoy it - you can buy everything in the market. You don't have to clean if you absolutely hate it or have no strength - you can hire a cleaning woman. If you have the money. Just don't come to me for zedoko if you don't because then I will tell you, lower your standards of cooking and cleaning, do it yourself and let your husband learn.
You can outsource most things with money. But you can't really outsource limud torah. Yes there is yisachar and zevulun but does that teach men torah? Does it give him torah knowledge or only the zechus for paying for someone else to learn?
So I just don't buy the fact that women NEED their husbands to do 50% of the domestic chores instead of spending that time learning torah. Because many of us cope just fine doing it without them so that they can learn in their spare time. And those who don't buy the services.
The problem I see is if you can't afford take away and cleaning help and childcare (to get us back to the camp topic) during the summer and you want to be rested and happy and you still want your husband to come home and help you instead of learning when he gets home. Well something obviously has to give. But what I find so chaval, so terribly terribly sad, is that for so many of you it seems that what "gives" is the husband's limud torah.
What do you think that teaches your children about Jewish values? Those of you whose husbands ARENT in kollel and aren't klei kodesh and work in whatever that isn't torah and the only torah they can be involved in learning is AFTER work? It may teach them gender equality. It may teach them that husbands can make a good sponja etc. But I, for one, don't see it teaching them torah values. Because the sachar that one gets when sacrificing (that's us ladies) for Torah is incredible. In Olam hazeh and olam habo together.
I'm still stuck on the posts about kids who read books all the time or waiting hours until dinnertime. Me thinks the ladies here who are on the other side of the argument have never truly been tested, as Fox said pages ago.
I asked an Israeli lady, online, around FS's age, MO.
Her reaction:
Quote:
you can write that you told a friend to read this thread as it is in the open section and that she thinks that some of the ideas there are absolutely crazy! I can't believe that a few of the posters aren't trying to pull everyone's leg with their nonsense, how can they be serious?! Crazy crazy people. Working 18 hours a day? asking zedaka to send your children to camp? Reading to nine year olds? What are they, [crazy]? In any case though I liked the comment someone made at the end about Freidasima being a general. I sure wouldn't have liked to be in her army!! Have a shabbat shalom!
She also doesn't get the thing about learning instead of helping... and can't believe most families would want it.
First off, any adult who would use the word "[crazy]" in that manner is clearly someone who is lacking n the sort of common sense and intelligence that would suggest that she had an opinion that I would find useful. Its a disgusting term to use.
Second, there are a host of benefits to reading to older children, and it is recommended by many educators (including DS' school). It exposes children to stories and ideas that they are old enough to understand, but too young to read themselves. Teaches them about grammar. Etc etc etc. We certainly continued the practice for many years, including times when DS read to me
I have been reading and reading to catch up and respond
1) Freidasima - while your ideology of coping is ideal and commendable, I think a lot of poster are put off by the authoritative manner in which they were given over. I agree though, there seems to be a lot of weakness on the part of many mom (not only in this thread but in others) expecting help and support because they can't manage, without finding ways to cope or change aspects of their life.
2) Reading is super important, every mom or dad should find time to read to their kids. On busy nights at our house its 15 - 20 minutes at bedtime, on night when there's less to do its 30-40 minutes.
3) I have a lot of friends who fall into the category of not coping, barely managing, overwhelmed, etc who are not working and have maybe 1-3 kids. I don't have a lot of respect for their complaints (I have it harder and deal with it). But I dont feel like I have the authority to control their lives or how they don't deal with it. I may lend a sympathetic ear for a period of time, but for the most part, it isn't something I'll listen and listen and listen to.
Personally I don't buy when a mother with married kids says "My kids turned out fine". Ofcourse you say that. Ofcourse you think what you did was a great job but yet we have a whole section on this website for women with abusive mothers. HELLO!!! do you think that their mothers think they did such a bad job?
OK, I take it back. My kids (married & single) are monsters: rude, slobby, fat & lazy, work-shy, & every other lousy quality you can come up with. And you're quite right, I was/am an abusive mother.
But you know all that, because you know some of them.
I wasn't talking about YOU. I know some of your kids. One is a friend of mine. Heah wait!! maybe we are on to something.
FS, I admire all that you were able to do and appreciate you taking the time to describe what worked for you and so many of your friends. I like being able to learn tips from those who are more organized and efficient than I am.
When I was working with two little kids and pregnant with my third (not full time- I left 7:30 am and returned 2:30 pm), I felt like I was going to collapse at the end of the day. By the time I was 22, I remembering looking out the window on the bus on day and wondering, "When do I get to smell the roses?" It was just run, run, run, all the time; if I took ten minutes to sit down and rest once a day I felt the pressure of all that needed to be done - which is why my only time to sit and rest was on the bus to and from work.
I was the kind of person people pointed to, to show how working mothers could have a clean house, guests, good kids, etc, etc. I was energetic, healthy, a fast and efficient worker with a strong work ethic, well-disciplined kids. I lived in Israel in a 100 meter apartment, had no cleaning help, a husband learning all day who wasn't available except on erev Shabbos, I believe in doing what you need to do without complaining about it, and doing it with a good attitude - in short, I think I'm the kind of person who should be agreeing with everything you said.
But I really can't. I think working mothers (and SAHMs!) are amazing with all they do, and to expect this of any of them is setting the bar way too high. I think I'm a pretty organized person, but the kind of stress that a schedule like this implies is something I would not want for my life. To imply that people who can't do this are weak or lazy is very harsh and even damaging, to moms who are already working so hard and often feeling inadequate about not doing all they wish they could do.
(FS, as a therapist, you're familiar with the Meyers Briggs system, right? I would guess that you're a ENTJ, and that's why you write the way you do and can maintain the disciplined schedule that you described for years. Am I correct? When combined with the energy profiling system, in which you would be a Type 3/'doer', you have a powerful personality for getting things done and not emoting about it. But please realize that this is a gift of your makeup and not something else can just do if she wants to. I also realize if you are a TJ, you're not likely to believe or accept this. )
Last edited by Happy Mom on Fri, Jul 29 2011, 6:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
Atleast I made people laugh with my post. Everytime I saw another one of freidasima's posts or someone with a long post on this topic I was reminded of charlie brown. wah wah wah wah wah
Actually Pickle, "wah wah wah" is crying and complaining and you seem to over look the fact that I'm NOT the one complaining but rather responding to other's complaints.
Happy Mom, of course I'm aware of the system, but here, it doesn't make a difference WHAT type I am on the Meyers Briggs scale but rather the fact that I am a behaviorist therapist. People seem to think that there is only one type of therapist. The cognitive type that will sit with people for years hearing them talk out their issues but not necessarily giving direct feedback unless faced with an issue that is either illegal, immoral, or an immediate threat to life and health.
Behaviorists are NOT that type of therapist. We offer direct and rapid behavioral solutions to problems and only after the problem is attacked, will we turn to the direction of going for the root issues behind the problems and dealing with them.
When I am faced with someone complaining about a problem I offer a solution. When challenged that the solution is "totally impossible" I show that technically for many people it IS possible, although it requires a lot of challenge, hard work and discipline.
For people who are not desirous of or able to deal with the challenge, with the hard work and with the discipline, if you read my later posts, I note that with MONEY it is possible to deal with many of the issues by outsourcing for PAY. Cleaning ladies, prepared foods, take away, childminders, ready made garments, and doing very little if any homesteading.
My points here in this entire thread were quite simple.
1) That is is possible to raise children without summer camps even under difficult conditions. It may not be fun, it may be incredibly difficult but it is possible. Hence I disagree, as do many other posters, with the premise that summer camp is a necessity for all children, healthy or less health, SN or not, SAHMs WAHMs and full time working moms, in the city, outside the city, whatever ACROSS THE BOARD. It may be the desired solution or the best solution but if someone doesn't have the money for it, unless we are talking about sick children, sick parents or very specific very problematic situations which were not the result of choice (children suddenly going OTD and the fear of their not being in a torah program all summer, for example) I for one will not be willing to pay for their camp via my zedoko, in fact I think that the norm in certain communities that it is perfectly normal to ask for zedoko for every kid for a summer camp is a shanda.
As for the posters who said that their "group" all send as their religious leaders said it was a priority, that's fine, as long as it isn't on my dime. The minute it is, I suggest that their "group" takes a long, hard look at their priorities to see whether the "camp for all" shouldn't be changed for the entire group if more and more people in that group can't afford it. And if the rich people in their "group" can't afford to pay for the poorer ones, keeping the "problem" within in the group instead of coming to other groups, like mine, to ask for charity.
I also said that it becomes my problem when other religious Jews will chide people like me and accuse us of being bad Jews if we refuse to pay zedoko for camp for that other "group". As then, the lifestyle choices of that "group" asking for zedoko become everyone's problems.
2) That torah learning for men has always been taught as a priority and that I find it very strange that so many women, expecially those who talk about torah learning being so important for their single boys, insist that their husbands share the houswork and child care with them instead of taking it on themselves in order to free their husbands after work to go to mincha-maariv with a minyan and then to a shiur or to learn with a chavrusa, not only on "sundays" or whatever day off they get, but on a daily basis.
The only reason that I even mentioned my schedule was to show that even with a very radical situation for most people:
1) five children
2) full time working mother
3) no household help at all
4) no prepared foods or take away
5) a mother who makes her own clothing and much of her children's clothing herself
6) a mother who grows her own spices and herbs, etc.
It is possible to still send one's husband off to learn with your blessings every night during the weekdays.
It wasn't to say that anyone should live like me, it wasn't to say that's the best way to live and it wasn't to make me out to be a superwoman. If anyone got that message then they weren't reading the thread only one or two posts here or there.
Because the reasons I brought it was as we say in Hebrew "al af kama vechama" - Most women today on imamother aren't in the situation I described today. Most working mothers DO have some household help today. And certainly most working mothers of five children have some household help. Few mothers don't use any prepared products and few mothers make their own clothing.
So...if you take OFF all those things and either you have fewer children, and household help and buy some ready mades and buy all your own clothing...THEN HOW THE HECK DO YOU STILL NEED YOUR HUSBAND AROUND EVERY SINGLE EVENING TO HELP YOU IN THE HOUSE instead of sending him out to a shiur? What happened to the priority of limud Torah?
That's what I didn't understand and still don't understand.
About reading to kids, it's an individual thing. You don't seem to accept that there are people who don't read to their kids, who NEVER read to their kids and their kids grew up just fine and are voracious readers - ALL OF THEIR KIDS. in spite of the fact of never being read to. Instead, you keep saying over and over "the only way to raise curious, smart reading children is to read to them".
Who is being rigid now???
Why cant you accept that there are other equally valid ways of raising children who will end up reading just as much as yours do?
Ruchel I don't know who your anonymous friend is, I also don't like the use of the word "[crazy]". She may be of my generation but I would guess that she doesn't exactly deal with mental health. I may find it a bit strange to read to a nine year old but I certainly would ask questions about the mother, not the child under such circumstances....However I'm not surprised that she doesn't get the thing about "learning and helping"...after all, most of you here don't seem to get it either. To my dismay.
Which makes me wonder what kind of Jewish values you all seem to be wanting to instill your children with? Limud torah comes after making sponja with your wife? After folding and distributing laundry? After doing your share of the dishes?...where exactly do you put it on your scale of values? Isn't a Jewish man learning torah every single day of his life a Jewish value for you? How will your children and especially your sons learn the importance of learning if they don't see their father either have a chavrusa daily, learn at home on his own daily, or go daily to a shiur??? From two hours on a sunday once a week?
Or is it like shal wrote, that limud torah is so heilig for young boys but disappears once men are married? What a double standard...
OMG, my 9 year old is FAR from [crazy]. You can see her teaching in the 2010-2011 Shalom Sesame DVD series. The kids being filmed struck me as a most unusual group, because they were all focused, intelligent, well behaved, mature and good looking. Not your typical group of random kids!
I use reading as a spingboard for discussion. Once everyone feels all cozy and bonded, ideas get exchanged without pressure. Being a SAHM encourages these natural exchanges to happen over the years. I know I am blessed, B"H.
But one thing isn't a suggestion but still shock. I put limud torah as a priority for my husband. He works full time and therefore in spite of the fact that much of his work has to do with torah, he has to learn or give his pure torah shiurim after work hours (there IS no before, he goes to vasikin). And I find it hard that this isn't a priority for ALL Jewish women on this site no matter what their denomination.
In my case, what I give up in terms of energy is taking on most of the domestic to free his time to learn. But in other cases there are women who dont have the desire or the strength to give up their own "free time" and use it for the domestic (which includes the kids of course, but mostly here the housework as the kids learning and stuff is also the husband's domain), then do it a different way. Some will use their financial resources for a cleaning woman and spend that time with their kids. Others won't cook but will use take aways and readi mades and read for themselves or their kids or go sit with friends during the time they would have cooked.
But I don't hear most of you saying - yes torah learning for men is up there top of the priorities for us!!! And that's what's bothering me. Because you don't have to sew if you hate it - you can buy clothing, you don't have to have windowboxes full of spices if you don't enjoy it - you can buy everything in the market. You don't have to clean if you absolutely hate it or have no strength - you can hire a cleaning woman. If you have the money. Just don't come to me for zedoko if you don't because then I will tell you, lower your standards of cooking and cleaning, do it yourself and let your husband learn.
You can outsource most things with money. But you can't really outsource limud torah. Yes there is yisachar and zevulun but does that teach men torah? Does it give him torah knowledge or only the zechus for paying for someone else to learn?
So I just don't buy the fact that women NEED their husbands to do 50% of the domestic chores instead of spending that time learning torah. Because many of us cope just fine doing it without them so that they can learn in their spare time. And those who don't buy the services.
The problem I see is if you can't afford take away and cleaning help and childcare (to get us back to the camp topic) during the summer and you want to be rested and happy and you still want your husband to come home and help you instead of learning when he gets home. Well something obviously has to give. But what I find so chaval, so terribly terribly sad, is that for so many of you it seems that what "gives" is the husband's limud torah.
What do you think that teaches your children about Jewish values? Those of you whose husbands ARENT in kollel and aren't klei kodesh and work in whatever that isn't torah and the only torah they can be involved in learning is AFTER work? It may teach them gender equality. It may teach them that husbands can make a good sponja etc. But I, for one, don't see it teaching them torah values. Because the sachar that one gets when sacrificing (that's us ladies) for Torah is incredible. In Olam hazeh and olam habo together.
I didn't had time to comment properly yesterday and I probably won't till tomorrow, so meanwhile I'll just give this a big
I just have to say I am absolutely shocked by the turn this thread has taken - when PL commented on limmud Torah being a luxury I thought it was just her. I am totally stunned that so many women here think it's optional or a nice thing if they have the time.
I may not have the kochos and the time management skills FS has, but I never dreamed of asking my dh to do things in the house "just to be fair". What a horror that frum Jewish women have taken this from feminism.
I know many, many women in Israel - Sephardi, Ashkenazi, chassidish - women whose husbands are in kolel and women whose husbands work - who all are trying their best to allow their husbands to learn as much as possible. I have a good friend who is a SAHM to a large family and her husband works - of course her husband goes to a shiur and mincha/maariv almost every night for two or three hours. And this includes MO too - okay, not lite MO - but the serious type. There are shiurim every morning and/or evening in almost every shul.
And can someone please answer (I am waiting patiently) why boys in Brooklyn don't get off a day bein hazemanim and their fathers don't get a day to learn Torah?
(BTW, I think reading to your kids is very important - but that's the point here. Everyone has their own priorities with limited time, but in a frum home, the husband's regular Torah learning should be at the top - everyone will choose something else that has to go.)
Isramom, I am certainly not branding you or your children in any way as did that anonymous friend of Ruchels but wonder when you write:
"I use reading as a spingboard for discussion. Once everyone feels all cozy and bonded, ideas get exchanged without pressure"
When you are talking about a nine year old, which around here would be fourth grade, why YOU have to do the reading as a springboard for discussion. If you are reading a book for a 15 year old to a 9 year old I can understand it, they might not be able to understand some of the words, but then why in the world read a book for a 15 year old to a nine year old? Any why do you think that having a mother read to pre-teen children (nine is pretty grown up, at nine we teach girls in the MO world about periods because so many girls are getting theirs by ten) makes them "feel all cozy and bonded".
In my family, had I ever read to my nine year old they would have thought I was out of their mind and worse, mocking their educational abilities and mental capabilities. It would not have made them feel "all cozy and bonded". That comes from talking, hugging (not the boys by nine, that's for sure) the girls at least, but reading them more than a sentence to get their opinion (which I can do until today from a newspaper article)?
Sounds to me at least that it is the mother's need to use reading to make her feel close and bonded to her children more than the children's need at age nine...which is a totally different story and leads off to the question of do SAHMs encourage independence at a young age for children as do many working moms...?
Have a great Shabbos, one & all. 
)
