Take A Kid To Shul

Rabbi Horowitz asked me to bring up this topic on my blog. There are lots of kids in our communities who live in single parent households. While, thank God, I have never been a single parent, I have known quite a few. These people (usually, but not exclusively, mothers) put in long, hard hours trying to raise kids while holding down a job (and possibly even going to school). How they find the strength to do this I don't know -- but they do it simply because they have to.

However tough it is on the single parents, it's also difficult for the kids. Kids from single parent families know (very keenly) that their family is different from other families. Very often, they are ashamed of the fact -- even though they are not at fault for the condition. It's a terrible thing for a kid to live with that sort of shame. It manifests itself in various ways. In a mother-only household, the boy may watch with envy as his friends sit with their fathers in shul and he sits alone. He sees his friends go to father-son learning programs on Saturday night, and he either has to make do with a tutor, a "lesser" relative, or simply not go at all. In single-father households, girls often miss out on the mother-daughter activities that schools have. Boys and girls need positive role models from both genders, and sometimes, for whatever reason, it just isn't present.

I know of this because I grew up in a single-parent household. My parents separated when I was nine years old. My mother moved to Brooklyn and became a ba'alas t'shuva, and Skipper and I did so along with her. My father continued to remain as he was -- not frum. So, in a biological sense, I had no frum male role model. I did have two frum male relatives, but neither were very accessible to me as a kid -- either they lived too far away from me or were just too old to really relate to me on a personal level. As such, when we first moved to Brooklyn, I went to shul alone. Sitting by yourself in shul on a Shabbos morning with a bunch of older men whom you don't know can be pretty intimidating as a nine or ten year old. Sure, I knew that my mother was sitting right behind the mechitza, but, since she couldn't sit with me, it didn't help much - she might as well have been on Jupiter.

As it turns out, I soon made some friends of kids my own age in the shul. It certainly helps for a kid to have friends. However, it also helps even more when those friends have caring fathers.

My friends' fathers in many ways took me under their wing. Skipper and I were often welcome by their houses. We ate Shabbos and Yom Tov meals with their kids, celebrated Pesach sedarim with them, went places with them, etc. I know that each of them cared for Skipper and I and always looked out for our wellbeing. In some ways, these three* men became surrogate frum role-models/father figures for me.

Two of these men are gone now. One of them even passed away on the same day as my father's father (imagine having two funerals to go to on the first day of Chol HaMoed Pesach). I still miss them very much. One is still around -- I think I'll give him a call soon.

The point, I suppose, is this. I know that kids from single-parent households can be embarrassed about their home situation. They can be afraid or ashamed to go to shul without their father or mother. They can be angry and/or upset that they can't participate in the father-son/mother-daughter activities that are prevalent in our communities. I know this because I *was* that kid. I was that kid who didn't have a father who could help me with my Gemara learning. I was that kid who didn't have a father (or older brother) to sit with in shul. I was that kid who never saw his father make a seder. I was that kid who hid the fact that his parents were no longer married from his classmates/bunkmates. And I was the kid who needed someone to step up and help out. I thank God that Mr. N a"h, Mr. E a"h and Mr. P (in no particular order) were there for me to help me in that crucial stage of my life.

What we need today is more men (and women) like them -- people who will take an interest in the kids in our community who don't have a positive role-model of the appropriate gender to look out for them.

The Wolf

* That's not to say that other people haven't taken us (as a family) under their wing. Many people helped my mother, Skipper and I on our path toward frumkeit, each in their own way. And certainly, many of them showed kindness to me (as a kid) along the way. But those three were certainly the ones I was closest to as a kid growing up. The others came along after I was already more confident in my yiddishkeit and at a point where I was a little older and wasn't afraid to go to shul alone and at a point where I was no longer embarrased/ashamed about my home situation.

Average Kids

Rabbi Horowitz had an article last week (OK, so I'm somewhat slow...) about kids who are average learners (even if they are excellent in middos and yiddishkeit) finding it more and more difficult to get into mainstream yeshivos. More and more often, these kids are being pushed into "alternative" yeshivos where they are often grouped together with "at risk" kids when, in reality, they don't suffer from the same problems that many at-risk kids suffer from.

As the parent of an eighth grader who is less than stellar in Gemorah, his article certainly struck a chord within me. Eeees and I were dreading the high-school application process because we knew that our son was average at best in Gemorah.

Maybe it's because we didn't apply to schools like Mirrer, Chaim Berlin, Torah V'Da'as, etc., but it seems that B"H, we were matzliach. He applied to four schools of a more "modern" bent (how I hate that word in that context) and he was accepted into three of them.

Sadly, the way Rabbi Horowitz reports it, it's a vicious cycle -- parents demand more excellence, so more "average" kids get left out. As the schools are increasingly populated only with excellent students, the average is pulled ever higher.

Truth to tell, I think that it is the responsibility of parents to try to find the best school that their son will fit in, and not necessarily the best school. We certainly could have applied to a school such as the type I listed above, and who knows, maybe he would have gotten into one -- but he certainly wouldn't be happy there. He needs a school that will work with him on his level of learning, challenge him to grow in learning to the best of his abilities and provide direction for post-graduate learning -- in limudei kodesh AND limudei chol. Simply going for the "best" school because of fear of losing social standing or future shidduch issues is incredibly counter-productive and the harm that you can cause a child far outweighs the benefits. Engaging in such behavior does far more to put a kid "at risk" then sending him to a yeshiva that accepts "average" students.

The Wolf

Standards, Expectations and Unconditional Love -- What's the Right Mix?

This weekend, I made a trip up to YU for the annual SOY Seforim sale. One of the books that I picked up is Off the Derech by Faranak Margolese, which I am finding truly fascinating. So far, I've finished the first seventy pages or so and am eagerly looking forward to the rest.

One of the main points that Ms. Margolese makes early in the book is that people leave observant Judaism not because of intellectual issues (Science/Torah and the like), but primarily because of emotional issues. Adolescents can gain a negative emotional view of Judaism from parents, teachers, school administrators and friends. These factors together can contribute to a person's decision to "ditch" observance of the mitzvos as they get older - regardless of any belief in the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai or the Creation story as told in B'raishis (Genesis).

One of the factors that is brought up is the need of children to feel loved unconditionally. She brings a few anecdotes of people who felt that their parents' love for them was conditional on the level of their observance (whether that was actually the case or not). Because they felt that their parents wouldn't love them as much if they weren't observant, Judaism developed as a negative in their minds as adolescents and was (in their own admissions) a part of the reason that they strayed from observance of the mitzvos.

I can certainly understand the need for a child (including adolescents) to feel that they are loved without reservation. As a child, friends may come and go, teachers may be good one year and bad the next, this year's well-loved or well-hated principal may be out the door next year, but parents (barring the truly drastic of life events) are just about the only constants in a child's life. They are (or should be) the one place that a child knows that they can turn to no matter how bad things become. Parents are that last thrown life preserver in a child's life when stormy seas threaten to engulf them. In short, children need to know that when the chips are down, their parents are there for them.

On the other hand, there is much to be said for maintaining standards and expectations of a child. One example that Ms. Margolese brings is of a girl whose father would ask her in the morning if she davened. If she replied no, then he would tell her to go daven. However, since she was not particularly interested in davening, she would simply go up to her room, read for about half an hour, and then come back down and tell her father that she davened.

Now, as parents, I do believe that we have a right (and indeed a responsibility) to set standards and expectations for our children. We have an obligation to tell them what behavior is considered acceptable and which is not considered acceptable. Who among us wouldn't try to reprimand our teens if they were caught stealing? Certainly we would go about it in different ways -- one parent may try the "soft approach," another parent a stricter approach and yet another with a mixed message. Not all responses are valid or correct, of course, but we would all agree that *some* measures are called for. Only the most irresponsible parents would take no action at all.

Well, just as we impose standards for behavior in the realm of bein adam l'chaveiro (relationships between people), we also set standards for behavior in the realm of bein adam lamakom (relationships between man and God). When my children are older, they will have to know, for example, that I will not allow them to bring chametz into the house on Pesach. They will know that I expect them to daven and learn every day. I expect him not to sacrifice his little sister to Molech. In short, I expect a certain minimum commitment to the observance of the mitzvos. Of course, if he does more -- all the more power to him; but a minimum is expected. I believe that children need standards in order to achieve... and that applies to all realms, academic, behavioral, religious, extra-curricular, you name it.

Of course, the question then becomes how to express your expectations and make them stick without endangering the security of the child's knowledge of the parent's unconditional love. You can't just sit your kid down and tell him "Walter*, we expect you to do A, B and C, but even if you don't we still love you," because such a statement lacks the force that is necessary to tell the kid what you expect of him. It's weasly and wishy-washy.

Of course, as adults, we can separate love and approval as two separate concepts, but I'm not so certain that most adolescents can emotionally make that distinction. You can try to explain it to them, but I don't know if (at the younger ages of adolescence especially) they can really distinguish between the two. I can tell an adult that I may still love him or her even if I don't accept what they are doing. Heck, I love my mother, but I strongly disapprove of her life-long smoking habit. She knows my feelings on the matter of her smoking -- she has for a long, long time, but she also knows that I love her unconditionally. But if I ever (God forbid) caught my kid smoking (something I don't expect too -- I think we've well ingrained the anti-smoking message into our kids), I could probably tell him the same thing I tell my mother, but I don't think he'd react the same way - one is a teen and the other is nearing sixty. My mother is much, much more mature than my son - and can understand disapproval of an action much better than Walter can.

In the end, we don't want our children to go off the derech. I think that among those of us that are observant, having our children become observant is a major goal in life - if not (for some) the most important goal. But we don't want to create an atmosphere that is so overbearing that the child will rebel at the first opportunity. We want to infuse them with a Yiddishkeit that is positive, not negative. On the other hand, we don't want to give blanket approval for any and all behavior. Adoniyah turned out the way he did, the Navi tells us, because Dovid never bothered to correct him on his behavior. As usual, there has to be a happy medium somewhere in the middle. It's up to us to find that exact message.

The Wolf


* No, Walter isn't our son's name. But it is one of any number of nicknames that we sometimes call our kids.