And yours, shabbat with your father taking last and saying that he bonds with babies changing their diapers is completely foreign to me!
But I do find that families that have the more traditional atittudes towards kibbud av often have fewer problems than others with the feeling that children are not following their parents' derekh and also I hear from them much less that kids are picking up "street ways" in terms of talking back to parents, using language that they might not otherwise or follwing what their parents consider the "right path". As opposed to these more "open plan" families where almost "everything goes" at the table (which is often a reflection of what is expected in the household in general) where parents aren't always that happy with the results of their "openness" in their children.
Just my experience, not generalizing.
Is anytime someone writes "I have a feeling" generalizing? It was specifically not stated as "across the board" or "definitively"!
I am very firm about having my kids always respect dh and speak to him respectfully. He does the same for me. We still make decisions together, like whether or not to send our kids to camp.
And yours, shabbat with your father taking last and saying that he bonds with babies changing their diapers is completely foreign to me!
But I do find that families that have the more traditional atittudes towards kibbud av often have fewer problems than others with the feeling that children are not following their parents' derekh and also I hear from them much less that kids are picking up "street ways" in terms of talking back to parents, using language that they might not otherwise or follwing what their parents consider the "right path". As opposed to these more "open plan" families where almost "everything goes" at the table (which is often a reflection of what is expected in the household in general) where parents aren't always that happy with the results of their "openness" in their children.
Just my experience, not generalizing.
Is anytime someone writes "I have a feeling" generalizing? It was specifically not stated as "across the board" or "definitively"!
The father as HOH girls go off the derech as much as the other kids do. Same with those where mom is HOH. They might not talk back, but they do go off the derech. So yeah, gross generalization there.
And yours, shabbat with your father taking last and saying that he bonds with babies changing their diapers is completely foreign to me!
But I do find that families that have the more traditional atittudes towards kibbud av often have fewer problems than others with the feeling that children are not following their parents' derekh and also I hear from them much less that kids are picking up "street ways" in terms of talking back to parents, using language that they might not otherwise or follwing what their parents consider the "right path". As opposed to these more "open plan" families where almost "everything goes" at the table (which is often a reflection of what is expected in the household in general) where parents aren't always that happy with the results of their "openness" in their children.
Just my experience, not generalizing.
Is anytime someone writes "I have a feeling" generalizing? It was specifically not stated as "across the board" or "definitively"!
First of all, how is it not kibud av if we are doing exactly as my father wants? He wants us to take before him. How is this a bad thing at all?
And I did not say anything about not following a parent's derech. BH we all are following in our parents derech, or very closely.
And language, interesting that. I never heard one curse word in my home growing up, from anyone, not a parent and not a child. So, open plan or whatever it was called does not always mean bad things.
I HAVE teenage girls. Teenage sons as well.
I have had sudden guests but usually kids...though big kids, so they are eating adult size portions.
I make do with what I have.
My husband would NEVER treat his daughter like that...EVER. If he knew I was forgoing food he would share with me as is his obligation!
BTW, ON THEIR OWN my girls have offered the lest good plates (because our china isn't complete) and have basically fought to get the "not good".
Your husband FS is a Torah scholar. How can you state he allows you to go hungry at the meal or have less good food?
It is is just plain silly discriminate against your girls at home because they'll be discriminated at the work force. That logic leads to dropping your kids on the floor because they'll fall.
Shabbat language didn't mean curse words at all in this case but rather what we call "chutzpadik expressions" in our home. Very different. Talking to a mother and saying "That's what YOU say!!" is unacceptable in our family and in others that I know from our type as well. In other families which are more "easygoing" about family roles etc. I have heard this said to parents and have heard parents complain about the "undue familiarity" which children are using when speaking to them.
HR again, your experience versus mine. If I am "generalizing" then so are you.
HR how many times do I have to write that no one is "going hungry"??? Why are you reading what you insert in my text which I never wrote nor did I ever mean?
Big difference between giving up your portion (small slice) of meat and then being able to go into the kitchen and have four pieces of challah or bread with peanut butter or whatever and "going hungry". And this is NOT a regular occurance and it would never OCCUR to my husband that this was abnormal. This is what his mother does as well as his sisters in law. It's just the way it's done in traditional families. Women are always up and serving. We don't have maids, and we have big families and we are the ones orchestrating what goes on in the kitchen even if our daughters are up helping us serve. You just aren't jused to a very gendered division of labor in your home.
I am not discriminating against my girls when they are the first to give up their meat, just like I am not discriminating against my boys when I would wake them up at 6 AM to go with their father to hashkomo although my girls could sleep in until seven or eight on shabbos. To each their sphere. To each their "sacrifice" if necessary. Girls learn that the domestic, at least in my household and other more traditional ones than yours, is their sphere. Therefore they are the first to be asked to do with less under such a situation, which I emphasize, is only a very very occasional one and certainly not common or a norm. Because later THEY will be the mother and they should know that mothers are traditionally the first to give up their portion when it is necessary.
Um, it isn't really a generalization to say that HOH families also have kids go off the derech, but maybe in different ways. I mean it is a general statement, but not quite the comparison you made, logically.
It is discrimination because there is nothing that obligates a girl to less meat. Why should she give up her portion of meat more than a boy because she can go into the kitchen? So can he.
Men have a specific obligation to daven. Women have a more loose obligation.
But again, my dh would not allow my girls to give up their meat for guests, he would give up first...but most likely I would do what Seraph does, and in fact that is what I do, take the meat off the bone and serve it on the rice.
Often that is how we eat it in the first place. Nothing wrong with chicken cholent.
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
My husband and I both didn't grow up in a home with family dinners at a table. It was done but was very rare and only special occasions. For us we are so happy to be at the table with our children for a sit down meal, that we are not hung up on this concept.
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
This is what I dont get (and I dont think that FS answered either) why in the world cant boys help? What if a family only has boys?????
We are not so formal about serving order, although out of respect for each other, we do not start to eat until everyone has taken food and is seated. Nobody is expected, as a general rule, to sacrifice food so the other gender can eat.
FS, since you freely and repeatedly admit that you are not personally familiar with families who serve food in a less old-fashioned way, how can you assert they have kids who go OTD, or who use improper language, etc? That's a gross generalization, based on observations you have admitted you did not make.
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
This is what I dont get (and I dont think that FS answered either) why in the world cant boys help? What if a family only has boys?????
That's why I'm glad I had a boy first. DH laughs at me, but I swear, I'm not letting DS (who is only a year and a half at this point) get away without learning how to cook, clean and serve. It's simply mentchlich. (This is NOT to say that DH isn't helpful -- but he comes from an all-boy family, so MIL has trained them well. DH just thinks he's the exception to the rule.)
I remember a teacher in seminary (in one of those Binyan HaBayis/Bayis HaYehudi/Eishes Chayil -type titled classes) telling us proudly how her husband didn't know where the water glasses were kept, and once, when she wasn't home, ended up finding a box of glasses on a high shelf -- the PESACH dishes, which he promptly chometzed up.
I didn't get WHY ON EARTH the teacher was SO proud of her husband for being so "out of" the domestic realm, but she was DEFINITELY pushing something for us to aspire to. She's of the European/Israeli Old World community, too.
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
This is what I dont get (and I dont think that FS answered either) why in the world cant boys help? What if a family only has boys?????
She said because they learn more Torah...
However to that I'd respond- Derech Eretz Kadmah L'Torah
Shabbat, in a family of only boys or mostly boys, of course a boy or two gets up to help. But take my fam for example: at a typical yomtov seudah, for instance, we have 3 married couples plus my parents plus my single sister. So why should the 3 married boys who are engrossed in a conversation with my father stand up and leave their side of the table empty and serve the girls? Eh. So two of the four women help serve; first my father gets, then the 3 men, then they each bring their own portion plus one other woman's portion & sit down. It's not such a big deal. Oh and ftr the men usually clear off the table after the meal, it goes 1 2 3 !!
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
This is what I dont get (and I dont think that FS answered either) why in the world cant boys help? What if a family only has boys?????
She said because they learn more Torah...
However to that I'd respond- Derech Eretz Kadmah L'Torah
Funny, as much as my lifestyle differs radically from FS's, in this instance many chassidish/Willy type homes follow the same setup, of the father being the Head of House, men and boys beibg seved first, mother gladly forgoing a choice piece of food for her kids, etc. But none of this is forced on anyone,it's kind of inborn and expected. Btw, serving the men first is purely practical; since the girls are doing the serving, why should their food get cold while theyre still going in and out of the kitchen with the mens' portions?
The chassidshe homes that I know of, serve the fathers first and then by age. No boys first and girls last. Never heard of that, never. Unless the girl was serving, so practically she took her plate last, since what's th epoint of letting her plate cool off when she's serving anyway and not eating yet.
Shabbat, in a family of only boys or mostly boys, of course a boy or two gets up to help. But take my fam for example: at a typical yomtov seudah, for instance, we have 3 married couples plus my parents plus my single sister. So why should the 3 married boys who are engrossed in a conversation with my father stand up and leave their side of the table empty and serve the girls? Eh. So two of the four women help serve; first my father gets, then the 3 men, then they each bring their own portion plus one other woman's portion & sit down. It's not such a big deal. Oh and ftr the men usually clear off the table after the meal, it goes 1 2 3 !!
Here is the difference. There is no male conversation and female conversation. We all, men women and children, all are talking together and so there is no boys this and girls that.
Just different worlds.
As I said, sometimes my mother or sister even gave the dvar torah and not my father or all three of them (I almost never did just because I dont like to talk in front of people).
Yes as different as many things in our lifestyle are, in other things we were brought up in the same way as I was brought up old world European and so are my children.
About serving, the girls are up helping so they get last. But the boys are also sitting on the far side of the table to the right of the father and so it is natural that they get after him. If we have married couples then it's different and as I wrote, if we have very modern who would be offended by the "men first" then dh gets first and when it comes to the couples I do ladies first so that they don't get shocked.
Shabbat in our house it derekh eretz for a father to get first and for women to serve the men especially if they are sitting and talking torah. All what one is used to, I guess.
Sure in a family with only boys the boys get up to serve. But we don't have that issue.
Finally, I wrote that in my social circle this is how it is done but I do know and have been at houses of less traditional families, very americanized religious or non religious families where the serving is different than at my home or that of my family and close friends.
