Would you wake them?

amother

↑ Aconite

Sun, Jun 16 2024, 1:19 pm

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

It's guests' responsibility to bring their own Shabbos alarm clocks. Just as you bring your own tooth brush.

And then what happens if someone sleeps right through the one minute of beeping? It's happened to me; like I said, I'm living in a permanently exhausted state these days. Usually an alarm will wake me, but not always and especially not if it's only a minute. Should my host assume if I didn't come out I am intentionally leaving her to babysit? No, she should knock on my door anyway and listen for my response. The only time a host should leave a guest sleeping while her kids create havoc is if the host and guest agreed beforehand that the host will be babysitting the kids. Alarm clock irrelevant.

When I am home, my kids will typically come wake me up immediately. When I am away for Shabbos, they will typically do so as well, but there have been rare occasions where they came out, saw the other children up, and joined them in their playing, instead of coming to me. (Especially if there was breakfast set out for them or if the other kids were eating and the host gave them breakfast too.) And there have definitely been times I've been up with all the kids while the host slept! Because my kids woke up first and then her kids joined. And I usually left her alone, with pleasure, feeling it's something I can do in return for all her hard work hosting us. Should I be resentful that she just invited us so she could sleep in??

This concept that you're "adding to the hosts' burden by making them wake you up" is silly. I added to the hosts' burden by making them set up a room for us and buy extra snacks for us and cook extra food for us... I don't think adding "knock on their door in the morning if they didn't come out" is gonna be the final straw that makes them regret hosting us.