Got a Complaint? A Penny for Your Thoughts
If a child’s greatest strength is indeed hidden inside his or her worst quality, as Jewish wisdom tells us about the yetzer hara, then I’m determined to find the value of my daughter Sari’s kvetvching.
Like many little girls her age, my seven-year-old has the tendency to complain about everything from the seams in her socks to the way I brush her hair. I try to be sensitive to her sensitivities, and I respect the fact that she is very intuitive and mature for her age. However, Sari’s persistent habit has become an art form in both English and Yiddish.
Continue reading
Yetzer Hara: A Child’s Worst Enemy and Best Friend
Stay-at-home-moms are much like corporate executives because we problem solve all day long. We all know this by now, but it’s worth repeating. The only difference is that our boss is four foot tall and considers Lunchables a gourmet meal. And another thing—no one recognizes our everyday accomplishments, big or small, such as the many times I salvage artwork from the bottom of a trash can after it’s already soaked in cream of mushroom soup. Even though we don’t get the same perks as businesspeople, such as expense accounts, office parties, and a private cubicle to call our own, moms are on a fast track alright with no plans to slow down anytime soon.
I always look for creative ways to solve problems. Sometimes I’m worthy of a promotion; other times I deserve to get fired. As a Jewish mom, one of the more challenging, long-term assignments on my agenda is to identify and understand my children’s yetzer tov (impulse for good) and yetzer hara (impulse for evil). As I understand it, the yetzer tov is the angel that reminds us to follow God’s law when we are tempted to do something forbidden. The yetzer hara is more like the devil that stops at nothing to satisfy our personal needs. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though. The selfish desire of yetzer hara that leads us to get married, create babies, advance in business, all make the world go around.
The rabbis in the Talmud period believe that God gives everyone at birth a yetzer tov and yetzer hara. The Talmud notes that both impulses—the self-restraint of the yetzer tov and the burning passion of the yetzer hara—are essential to human survival. How we balance the two forces in our lives describes the essence of free will.
Especially in children, the yetzer hara gets the most attention, at least at my house, because it’s the loudest and most demanding. For Jack, it’s an intense mental and physical focus on the ball field that drives him to pitch another shutout inning. That’s a good thing. His relentless yetzer hara also bullies him, and he can be way too hard on himself if he doesn’t perform his personal best. That’s a bad thing.
For Sari, her yetzer hara is the tenacity to question everything that doesn’t seem right or fair, such as the grading scale that she helped revise in first grade. Any positive change is a good thing. However, the yetzer hara also makes it harder for her to go with the flow. Many times the yetzer hara gets stuck in the negative and shadows the bright side of a situation. And that’s a bad thing.
When guided in the right direction, the rabbis tell us, the energy of the yetzer hara is what gives our child a one-of-a-kind spunk in his or her personality. It’s the fire that burns inside our child, and no parent has the right to extinguish it. The trick is to find our child’s greatest strength hidden inside his or her worst quality. The first step is to look at ourselves in the mirror. Where do you think our child’s mishegas comes from in the first place? Not a pretty sight.
With that in mind, one of my goals is to change the part of my seven-year-old daughter’s yetzer hara that likes to kvetch. So I’ve conducted a family experiment called the “complaint container,†in which we all learn a little something about ourselves. For every complaint we make throughout the day, we put a penny in the pot to get a better understanding of how we all contribute to this problem. Although my parenting technique isn’t necessarily approved by the “experts,†it sure makes a good story. Read how it all went down in next week’s column.
“Mishegas of Motherhood†is the creation of Ellie S. Grossman, a St. Louis freelance writer and stay-at-home-mom who never stays home. Her stories are inspired by the real life of her family, including her two children, toy poodle named Luci, and her husband, but not necessarily in that order. Feel free to send any comments, prayers or recipes to ellie@mishegasofmotherhood.com.
Prayers Teach Values, Gratitude
When it comes to prayers, Jews have it covered. We have a prayer for everything—from the morning ritual Modeh Ani, which thanks God for returning our soul to us, to the bedtime blessing Shema Yisrael. In addition to the traditional blessings over food and the holidays, special prayers can be learned for each gift that God gives us throughout the day. For example, there’s a prayer for when we wear new clothes for the first time, hear a booming thunderstorm, smell the fragrant scent of a magnolia blossom, reunite with a long-lost friend, and so on. Even when we notice a strange-looking person or animal, we can say, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, who varies creation…†Continue reading
Make Plans to Do Nothing This Summer
Welcome to summer when the kids are out of school, and many of us parents are out of our minds already. The mixed emotions that mothers in particular experience this time of year doesn’t come close to the euphoria our children feel on the last day of school when they empty their desks of all the broken crayons and crumbled worksheets that they bring home to us as presents. Students from grade school to college are on a high right now, and I’m convinced it has something to do with breathing in all those pencil shavings. Continue reading
Jewish Girls Don’t Camp: Part II
It was the longest night of our lives when my family tried to survive our first sleepover camping trip inside a tent and in the middle of the woods. Even my eyeballs were cold, if that’s possible, and we all were tired, dirty, grumpy, and miserable as we laid on top of a deflated air mattress that covered the rocky dirt like a cheap tablecloth. I guess it was about 5 a.m. because the birds started to chirp, and the sun was still half-asleep when I realized that my family was not cut out for camping after all.
My realization was confirmed when my daughter Sari told me that she felt sick and started to cough. Instinctively, I grabbed the nearest plastic grocery bag and held it in front of her. Only then did I realize how many s’mores she actually devoured the night before. Continue reading
Jewish Girls Don’t Camp: Part I
As if the Jews didn’t suffer enough for the last several thousand years, I volunteered my family for our first real camping trip through my son’s Boy Scout program at school. My intentions were, in part, a well-meaning attempt to dispel the old adage that Jewish girls don’t camp.
Despite protests from my husband Scott, who is more comfortable with a computer than a compass, and ridicule from my mother, who hassled me, “What, are you crazy?†I was determined to take advantage of this perfect opportunity to bond with my children in the great outdoors.
Since many aspects of Judaism intertwine the importance of being one with Mother Nature— Tu B’Shevat, the celebration of trees, for example—I wanted to make this camping adventure a religious experience. So did Scott, who prayed everyday that I would change my mind. I convinced myself that we all could benefit from a change of scenery, and surely we could survive 24 hours in the woods. After all, we were surrounded by a pack of den leaders, and every one of them knew how to utilize those mysterious gadgets hidden inside a pocketknife. As a devoted scout mom, I figured the least I could do was sacrifice the comforts of home for one day so that my son could earn more arrow points.
Little did I know that our outdoor overnight would make Camp Sabra seem more like Club Med. Continue reading
A Mother’s Day Salute
In honor of Mother’s Day, I dedicate this week’s column to all mothers who have accepted their job of raising children without really knowing what they were getting into. Even if we knew ahead of time that motherhood meant giving up a good night’s sleep for years to come, chances are we still wouldn’t think twice about it.
All moms are working moms. In fact, we define multi-tasking—just look at a typical day planner crammed with school functions, room mom meetings, activities, sports, doctor appointments, birthday parties, grocery lists, babysitter phone numbers, and plenty of scratch-outs that signify anything can change at any given moment. We don’t get paid, but the experience makes us rich. We never retire, but the vacation time makes it all worthwhile. Continue reading
Teaching Children to “Swim” Gives Them Wings to Fly
If a typical Jewish mother is notorious for one thing, besides a curious habit to discuss dinner plans at lunchtime, it’s the genetic disposition to love her child too much. I realize there are exceptions to this rule, but I’m not one of them. I spoil my kids, not so much with material things, but in a maternal way. In fact, I was the neurotic parent in playgroup who carried an apple corer and peeler in my diaper bag so that my infant son could nibble on a fresh, wholesome snack at the park.
Even now, I rarely leave the house without packing a “little something†in case Jack or Sari gets a hunger pang. When I take the kids to the swimming pool for lessons, for example, my oversized turquoise tote bag is so weighed down with bottled waters, granola bars, cantaloupe balls, and spare change, that I have no room for sunscreen. When the Talmud says, “a father is obligated to teach his child to swim,†I don’t think toting snacks are what the Jewish thinkers had in mind. Continue reading
Children Teach Parents Lessons in Life
As parents, we are our children’s first teachers. Never mind the fact that I haven’t understood my son’s math homework since he was in third grade. However, when it comes to life lessons, such as teaching the value of helping others, Judaism takes our responsibility as good role models very seriously. In fact, the Hebrew word for parents, horim, shares the same root word morim, which means teacher.
Still, I have to admit that the roles are often reversed in my home, and my kids are the teachers who show me what really is important. I just have to keep my eyes and ears open at all times. Continue reading
Turn Your Dinner Table Into an “Altar”
When I was a child growing up in the 70s and the television classic “Leave it to Beaver†was considered a reality show, one of my most vivid everyday family rituals was the Dinner Hour. The Dinner was the same—on Mondays, broiled chicken sprinkled with nothing more than paprika, not even salt—and so was the Hour—five o’clock when my dad walked in the back door from work and emptied the car keys in his pockets.
Charlotte, that’s my mom, followed the old-fashioned food pyramid like it was one of the Commandments: A mother shall serve her children a protein (preferably dried out), two vegetables, one starch, a glass of cold low fat milk, and, on special occasions, lime gelatin with sliced bananas for dessert. Continue reading