Frum, Fruitful, Faulty

I know a lot of people are gonna get in my grill about this one, but I need to talk about it.

Birth control is frowned upon by many rabbis in the Brooklyn community. Especially the Chassidish ones. As a result of this we see couples with 8, 9 sometimes 12 children being a standard. I myself grew up as one of 8 and have seen certain common denominators in large families that compel me to be against this concept. I don't know what the exact cap would be so far as how many kids is the limit, but I know 8 or more is too much for anybody. Even if the woman has full support of her husband from every aspect of the marriage (which is not always the case) its just not doable. There are a few factors to consider.

Financially, if you're in the frum community and can afford to have that many kids (most probably not), you're doing really well. Your'e paying on average $10,000 give or take in tuition alone. Not to mention rent/mortgage, food, utilities and any other expense a family of 10+ people would have. Lets say you hire help to raise your army of kids, well then you're not really doing the raising, are you? I personally am against having kids raised by nannies. Its a substitute for something that if could be done by the parents, should be. (I'm not talking about a babysitter who watches your kid for a few hours a day. I'm talking about a live in nanny who feeds, changes and teaches your kid the ABC's. A friend of mine was a teacher at a Jewish school with mostly kinder-gardeners from well to do families. Most of these kids were dropped off and picked up from school by their nanny in a limo and talked about how they're bored with their 12th trip to Aruba, what kind of childhood do you think they're having? The ocean of money isn't helping... I'm going off topic...) Point is, even if you can afford to give 8+ kids everything they need financially, it still means you shouldn't have 8+ kids because...

A person has only so much time, patience and energy in their day. Children need to get attention from their parents. They need to know that their parents are there for them and that they're important. I can attest to this. When living in a household of 8 or more, kids get lost in the shuffle. Growing up and being used to this "brushed off to the side" situation can seriously effect a child's upbringing and development (both emotionally and psychologically) for the worst. We hear about this "middle child syndrome". Well the more kids a family has, the more "middle child" the less needy kids feel. If one of the kids G-d forbid gets sick and needs more TLC, someone is going to suffer. Either it'll be the sick kid since mommy has to tend to everyone, or it'll be the non sick kids because Mommy is giving them less attention than the sick kid. Its like this with every aspect of their lives and shapes kids into being confused, angry or resentful adults. In every 8+ family, theres always a child or two who grows up with an issue or two as a result of this. (To add insult to injury, imagine a woman who doesn't know anything about the world or how to raise kids. Married for 8 years, the most of which has been spent being pregnant, trying to tackle a house full of wild/needy/neglected children on her own without the help of her "Women belong in the kitchen" husband...okay, maybe a bit extreme. Maybe not.)

I know some of you are thinking (as you usually would). Stop being so judgmental! Who are you to say how many kids a couple should have? What makes you the authority on the subject? Well the results speak for themselves, I have first hand experience with the subject and again, two people can only handle 8+ kids so much before something bad eventually happens.

Children need to be nurtured. The raising of ones kids shouldn't be done in a half-asked manner. Kids thrive when they get the full parent experience. If they feel like just a number as a child, they'll feel that way as an adult, along with all the issues and complications that go with that experience...and the reality is, the more kids you have, the less time, energy, patience and money you have for them. I believe having too many kids is, in part, why so many child therapy agencies (government sponsored of course...) in Brooklyn are packed to the gills with frum Jewish clients...(the topic of the next post) along with  being the source of many other problems...I'll discuss some of these in the next post.

Babies Sitting Babies

Babysitting is something every parent struggles with. You love your kids to pieces but sometimes you just need a break. For those of us who have parents who are able or willing to watch our little ones a trip to Bubby and Zaydie's house comes as often as possible. Some aren't so lucky.

For those parents who have older kids, babysitting pretty much comes as often as you like. The question is, what is the cutoff age for being too young to babysit? Peoples opinions on this vary, however, I think most would agree that some kids are just too young.

My wife was walking down a Jewish block in Midwood when she came upon a little girl sitting on her front stoop (front door closed), not older than 5 years old, crying her eyes out with a 1 year old in her lap. Naturally, she approached the child and asked "Are you okay? Where is your mommy?" and got nothing but endless sobbing. After standing there for a minute or so, her Mom comes back. Before she could even being to exprience relief my wife was astounded.

Mom started yelling at her child. "Why are you crying!? I was only away for 2 minutes?!" then grabbed the keys, opened the front door and said "Get inside!". Later we discovered that this is a Mom of 8+ kids. The exact number is uncertain but it is definitely more than 8. If this is how she treats her 5 year old, I shudder to think what kind of experience the older ones had growing up.

Besides this being illegal reckless endangerment that could put all your kids in foster homes and you in prison, and besides the obvious danger and utter stupidity of leaving 2 children susceptible to being kidnapped, what about the possibility of your kids getting hurt on their own? What was this woman thinking? That her 5 year old could handle the situation if faced with something dangerous? How does she rationalize this in her mind? The answer is, she probably doesn't, or maybe she has this whole "Hashem will watch my kids while I'm gone" thing in her head. Is it really so difficult to bring your kids along with you wherever you're going for 2 minutes?

Albeit an extreme example, this is not by any means an isolated situation. I see girls as young as 8 years old babysitting more than two kids younger than 3 on a regular basis. I see them walking on commercial streets and across 4 lane parkways. Everywhere. All the time. Whats to stop some pervert from kidnapping these kids never to be seen again? What about accidents? G-d forbid some of these kids get run over, or one has some other kind of sudden medical problem. Whats to be done then? I don't think these meidelach are trained in CPR or Jiu-Jitsu in case of emergencies.

This trend of leaving babies to watch other babies is dangerous and unfortunately commonplace. My rule is, if you're not old enough to sign for the UPS package, you're not old enough to babysit. Call me crazy, but I'd rather see my kids watched by a responsible adult than watched by all of New York on the 10 o'clock news' "have you seen this person" segment.

Kosher Hitch

I'm not sure about other communities, but I know in Boro Park, Brooklyn it is common practice for frum people to hitch rides. Now, if you're an adult and make the choice of hitching a ride, albeit a stupid one, its your choice to make. When a person hitches a ride they are putting themselves at the mercy of a total stranger who can essentially drive them anywhere. In Boro Park there is also the understanding of, if theres a frum person driving the car, you're "safe". Again, if grown men and women want to risk getting into a car with a complete psycho, they are free to make that choice.

However, when kids are involved, its a whole other story.

I was recently in a conversation that included a friend of a friend who is a Boro Park resident. The topic of discussion went from high tuition to school bus service. This guy told us that he doesn't use school bus service because its too expensive (The school he sends his kids to only offers private bus service.) We asked how his kids (aged 7, and 9) get to school every day. He nonchalantly told us that he stands on the corner with them and hitches a ride. When he sees a frum person pull over, he talks to them for a minute to make sure they're "kosher" and sends the kinderlach off to school.  Yeah. Every single day.

While my other friend and I were rolling our jaws up from the floor, I thought the obvious. What would possibly compel a person to be so lazy (or stupid), that they'd put their kids lives at risk so they wouldn't have to take them to school?! We tried to explain to him the dangers of doing this, especially on a daily basis. His repeated response was either "Its okay. They're good frum Jews. Its perfectly safe." or "You don't live in Boro Park, you wouldn't understand." I definitely don't understand. After mentioning this to a few other Boro Park residents I learned that this sort of thing is common practice, although all the others said they wouldn't let their child hitch until he or she is Bar/Bat Mitzvad.

13. A 13 year old child who gets driven in strange peoples cars to and from school with the only condition being, the driver needs to be dressed the way Totty dresses. I had hoped that this was really some elaborate chassidish carpooling system, but this really is just complete strangers driving other peoples kids. How do these parents sleep at night?! There needs to be some voice of reason from within the Boro Park community about this problem. Allowing your kids to hitch rides with a complete stranger, no matter how frum they look, is reckless and irresponsible. Heck, even hitching with occasional acquaintances is dangerous! Haven't they seen enough child molesters in handcuffs to know the risks of leaving children unattended with unfamiliar people? I guess not.

This needs to be enforced either by rabbis in the community (not likely) or the police. I'm not sure how. All I know is this is a serious problem that can't continue. Maybe a child or two needs to (G-d forbid) die or get kidnapped before Frumville starts waking up.

Holiday Break

Will be back after Sukkos/Sukkot with more blogging.
In the meantime, news about some meshuga parent in Turkey. (Go figure.)

Not dead...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Some more blogging coming very soon.

Burn Baby Burn

A few weeks ago, my wife and I took our little one for a walk. It was a hot and sunny day and we pulled the stroller canopy all the way down to keep the child out of the sun. As we were walking we passed a tichel clad woman pushing her newborn baby in a cheap umbrella stroller (sitting semi-upright). If that wasn't bad enough, the infant was in direct sunlight, being blinded and sunburned at the same time (with eyes tightly closed). We politely mentioned to her as she passed that her baby was in the harsh sunlight. She responded with a silly giggle that could only be described as infantile, and continued on her way as if nothing was wrong. We both looked at each other, nodded our heads in utter disbelief and moved on.

Another time I was walking past a Jewish supermarket. By the entrance there were two frum women chatting each other up. One was holding her baby and the other had her baby in a stroller. They were all in direct sunlight. Both moms were wearing hats and both babies (surprise, surprise) were not. The baby in the stroller was crying very loudly and was clearly uncomfortable, while mom stood there either completely oblivious or choosing to schmooze rather than tend to her suffering child.

This sort of thing is not an isolated incident. I see this type of thing every day. Jewish moms wearing sunglasses or hats while pushing their babies in a stroller, sans canopy, directly under the scorching sun. How can these women be completely oblivious to the immediate danger they are exposing their children to?

Come to think of it, is sun protection even an issue that frum people think about? Well, many parents take care of their kids the way they take care of themselves. One theory could be that since tznius is a thing that is so strictly enforced, one might erroneously assume that clothing offers proper sun protection, and since these Moms are always covered all the time, they don't worry about being sunburned. Ergo, they don't think about it, even when it comes to their kids. If you think about it, its not that crazy of a hypothesis.

If you want to argue How do you know that they didn't put sunblock on their child? Why are you so quick to judge? The answer is, it doesn't matter. Babies can get heat exhaustion after spending approximately 5 minutes in direct sunlight. This can precede or follow dizziness, vomiting, lethargy and unconsciousness, to name a few symptoms... and that's just the beginning. Longer exposure can result in second degree burns and heat stroke, or worse. Besides, if these women aren't sane enough to block the sunlight that's barbecuing their infant children, you really think they're gonna protect them with sunblock?

Its sad that people in the frum community don't give this much thought. They need to print information on the back of the Kemach cereal boxes regarding sun protection. There's a wealth of information on the bad effects the sun's rays can have on human skin. If you see a Mom with a lack of interest on the subject, educate her. Maybe then Chanie will realize her baby isn't supposed to be a shtickel crispy.

Manny Nanny

The frum world is no stranger to the concept of men watching children. Heck, since the economy went haywire, for some reason, Moms are the ones with jobs and Dads are left at home to watch the kids. Kollel Dads are nothing new either. Its nice to see that people are somewhat okay with men taking care of their own kids, but what about taking care of other people's kids?

For some reason there is this taboo about men watching children who are not their own. Who could blame people? All those horror stories about Jewish children being molested always involved men. (As if a woman isn't capable of molesting children...hmmm...) Growing up, my younger sister had weekly opportunities to make lots of money babysitting. She made no effort to ask people. The phone calls just poured in and she'd waltz right on over to said home and basically get paid to sit in their living room for 3 hours while the kids were shluffing. Talk about a sweet gig. As a teenager who grew up in a big family I was used to being around babies and knew my way around a home with little kids. Watching kids was part of my responsibility, but when it came to, say, babysitting someone else's kids when my sister wasn't available, their tone of voice shifted to the usual vocal shrug in the form of Well, uhm..nyum...no thank you we'll find someone else. click.

When I first started college I wanted to be an occupational therapist for children. I was very good with kids and it seemed like the natural choice. Plus you could make your own hours, and God help us, there are so many Jewish children who need therapy, especially in the frum sector. I was sold. I started taking the appropriate classes and when asked about my collegiate goals, told people I was going into an OT program. Upon hearing this, people's faces began to conduct a hellish frenzy of gestures expressing extreme discontent but attempting to mask it with some kind of a haphazard grin, followed by Oh...interesting...

My little brothers were getting help with OT and PT and some of their therapists were male. I figured I'd ask them about their experiences. They responded with a resounding "Oh man don't even start me on this." Almost 9 times out of 10, when dealing with frum families, the parents always requested that no male therapists be sent in, women only. I don't know if this has to do with the whole yichud thing, but either way its just plain ridiculous. These men are coming to help your children get out of the developmental mess they're in. (which, in some instances, could very well be your own fault.) They are just as qualified as female therapists and theres no reason to have a bias against them. (and no, just because a guy deals with children for a living, doesn't mean hes gay or a pedophile) This problem doesn't just exist in the ultra-frum community. Some of the modern orthodox world is guilty of this as well. (By the way, it turned out that OT wasn't really the thing for me anyway.)

Its hard for many to have a solid opinion on this. How do you know you can trust someone? Oh, well if its a woman, what could she possibly do to this child that could be so bad? I don't think I need to even answer that. A man on the other hand could be more of a threat, right? Why? Because he has testicles? Because his voice is deeper? Because he has facial hair? (Hell, I've seen more facial hair on some women than on some guys!) Allowing a male to be around your kids not any more of a risk than allowing a woman to be around them. Period.

People need to lighten up. Practice caution with a man as you would with anybody who would spend time with your kids. Be there to supervise and if you can't, do the same background work you would on a female babysitter. As this blog and many other sources can tell you: Possessing the ability to give birth doesn't qualify you as an expert in childcare. To extend that thought, not possessing that ability doesn't disqualify you either.