Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Yes, I'm sending my son to Israel

By Nina

It never ceases to amaze me  -- the looks of horror I get when I tell people I'm sending my 16-year-old son to Israel for the summer.  Even from Jews. 

Well, I'm in the south now and down here people think nothing of asking you straight out, when they first meet you, "What church do y'all go to?"  And then when you tell them you're Jewish and you don't actually go to church, but you belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, three minutes later they say, "Now what was the name of that church you go to?"   OK, maybe it's hard to wrap your brain around the tangle of Hebrew that is Shearith (remnant) Israel (Israel).  This stuff doesn't even rattle me.  It's almost cute.

What I hate are the looks of grave concern when you say you're sending your child to Israel.  You'd think I was sending the kid to Baghdad.  In fact I'm sending him to his homeland, the most progressive, impressive and remarkable nation in modern history.  He will be touring with other teenagers from North America, under strict supervision in what is turning out to be one of the most robust summer tourism season in a few years.  Israel needs that badly. 

I don't want to preach here or get too political on you, but this I believe.  Israel is a brilliant democracy that sits in a very bad neighborhood.  It is surrounded by neighbors who would like it to disappear from the earth.  Egypt is digging tunnels to run guns and supplies to Hamas in Gaza.  Syria and Lebanon, it's puppet state,  have rockets aimed at the Golan Heights and Tel Aviv.  And let's face it, Iran's nukes, whether you believe they exist or not,  are intended for Israel. Only Jordan, ruled by a modern and educated King, understands the utility and potential of "making it work" with Israel.

My son will start his trip in Europe.  He'll tour Prague and visit Auschwitz and see the remnants (that Hebrew word Shearith again) of once thriving Jewish communities where his ancestors  lived, learned, taught, created and prospered.  Then he'll sail into Haifa Harbor, like the Ma'apilim (immigrants)  who survived the Holocaust and made new lives in the Jewish State. He'll see the good, the beautiful, the ugly.  He'll see the security wall and the checkpoints.  He'll see Jews and Arabs struggling to coexist in a complex shared destiny.  He'll hear Hebrew, a language resurrected from the pages of the bible, as a living, breathing modern tongue with its own unique street slang and poetry.  He'll see contradictions and complexities on every street corner. 

Israel isn't neat and tidy. It's loud and messy.  It is all at once western and eastern, orthodox and progressive, secular and religious.  It is our pride and our pain. These ads express our immense pride in what Israel has achieved amidst staggering challenges.

And that's the way I want it.  I cannot protect Grumble from everything.  In truth, I think life in Israel is safer than life in America. People are connected there in ways that can barely be expressed.  When you ride the bus and someone thinks your baby might be under-dressed and chilly, 5 surrogate mothers will step in and offer their sweater as an extra blanket.  Once in a restaurant where my 5 year old wailed for pizza, the proprietor sent a waiter across the street and got my kid a slice.  When Israeli soldiers were camped out in a field near Efrat during the 2nd Intifada, my friends cooked for them as if they were their own sons and daughters.  That's the kind of place I want my son to experience. 

There will be an armed guard on Grumble's bus.  He will not travel outside the so-called "Green Line" and security reports will determine when and where his group travels.  But there will also be songs and sights and stories I cannot give him in America. For 5 weeks he'll be in a danger zone.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thank You Note Season

By Nina Rubin

Thank you note season starts a little early down here in the south.  In Georgia, school is over by late May or the first days of June, so all the end-of-year honorifics get cranking the minute the buds appear on the trees, which in Atlanta is actually late April.  Spring unleashes not only pollen, but an avalanche of graduation parties, weddings, engagement and baby showers.

This year in our little family we have Jaws graduating from college and Grumble's Confirmation.  Graduation ... well, you know what that is.  Confirmation?  In the Reform Jewish tradition, which started in 19th century Germany, Confirmation is the culmination of one's formal Jewish studies...and it's big deal.  It's usually done at the end of 10th or 11th grade, coinciding with the Jewish holiday Shavuot which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai and the so-called "first fruits" of the harvest.  The ritual has a deeply Lutheran high-church pomp and circumstance aesthetic -- the kids wear robes, sometimes the girls carry flowers, there is much speechifying and the kids write a "creative" service. In old historically German-Jewish congregations like The Temple, you'll hear the organ pumping out sturdy old Reform hymns.  All in all, it's the kind of "show" that prompts people to give gifts. 

But wait, this isn't about Confirmation, it's about thank you notes. See, I have a thing about hand written thank you notes.  Call me old fashioned, call me quaint, I like real thank you notes on real stationery. People have actually complimented me on my thank you notes. So I'm a major nag on the topic.  Silly me, I just don't think an e-mail thank you always cuts it.

With teenagers one has to be flexible. Teenagers and thank you notes...yeah, it's a horror movie.  Especially when you were married to a rabbi for 22 years and congregants not only sent you stuff and expected to be thanked, but were secretly rating you (and your kids) on the promptness and quality of your thank you notes. 

Imagine your child's bar mitzvah where the whole congregation had been invited...and fed. Think 400 thank you notes.  You gotta feel for clergy kids.  It's a crushing number of thank yous.  So here's what we did for our kids:  Printed up 400 generic thank you notes in the own child's handwriting that said something like: 

"I am so pleased that you could be with me when I was called to the Torah.  Thank you for honoring me with your presence and your gift." 

Friends and family got real handwritten notes, but the rest of the pack got the pre-printed generic ones.  I'm reasonable and compassionate, but in the end, there will be thank you notes.

So now let's up the ante:  we're in the South where people are Southern, make eye contact, and talk slowly. Thank you notes?  Not optional, mandatory.  Roll the soundtrack:

Me:  Sweetie, you have another package.

Grumble:  Huh?

Me:  I think it's from one of the Temple ladies in Dad's torah class, Mrs. Hutzenplutzenreuther.

Grumble:  Who?

Me:  You know, Mrs. Hutzenplutzenreuther who invited us for dinner when we first moved here?  The one who brought me roses from her garden (thank you note written).

Grumble:  Whatever.  [OPENS PACKAGE]  Oh, cool!  A travel alarm clock.  [DROPS WRAPPING PAPER ON FLOOR AND RESUMES PLAYING GRAND THEFT AUTO].

Me:  Did you send a note to the Blumenthals?  They made a donation to the youth fund in honor of your Confirmation. [Teenager has no concept that even there is a youth fund.]

Grumble:  You didn't give me their address.

Mom:  Yeah, I did.  It's listed in the synagogue directory which is on the dining room table . . . with your stationery. 

Teenager:  [THROUGH CLENCHED TEETH] I said I'd do it.  Back off, Barbie!

At times like these, it's the shrill voice of you own mother you hear.  You have morphed a shrill Harpie, a relentless nag clinging to the opinion of others, as measured through the currency of thank you notes.  You are an enforcer, a bad cop, an evil cyborg grownup who sees the rolling of eyes behind closed doors.

But here's the thing: You also know you're doing the right thing.  By insisting on something as old fashioned and Luddite as a hand-written thank you note, you are making your stand for manners and the power of the pen.  I don't know about you, but most of the time I actually think it's worth it.

 

Why is the World Round, and Other Imponderables by Jenny Gardiner

Me and my teen mom homies, we've been dealing with it all, and then some, lately. We're almost cliched, in fact, pondering as we are how much easier it was back in the days when we merely had to drag a tantrum-hurling 2 year-old from the grocery store, versus tackling the many heady issues parents of modern teens face as their offspring teeter on the precipice of adulthood. It's enough to make a girl go gray, stress-eat the ever-so-divine limited offer Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms, and cuss a blue streak to no one and everyone in particular. Not that I would be susceptible to the latter two...

I think in the world of raising children, barring unforeseen circumstances, you start out with the cake course. Parenting 101. You know, the diaper changing, the calming of an irrationally petulant child. The easy stuff (that at the time seems insufferably impossible to navigate). By the time the kids are teens, parents have unwittingly entered into the post-graduate phase of things. Everything becomes so much more involved, so much more complex. Black and white blurs into gray, with no necessary right or wrong, but rather a "hope I don't screw this up too badly" mode. At this point, I find visualizing into the future, to a point at which your kids are through with college, in the work world, happily dating, or maybe even married, is a vital coping tool. Because only then might we be secure in the knowledge that we were able to transcend the stressful makes-your-head-hurt stuff that is the domain of the teen parent.

Consider a few recently teen quandaries my homies and I have encountered lately:

*The high school senior, the one who can't yet seem to keep track of a permission slip let alone a passport, who wants to travel alone through Europe this summer. That same one will be off on his own by summer's end, so perhaps allowing this risk-taking venture is a way to encourage some necessary maturation before he cuts loose altogether? Or perhaps that un-street-savvy kid will end up mugged and left for dead in a gutter, passport, cellphone and wallet lifted, unable to contact his parents for help. Of course approving this venture for the boy then means his younger sister must also have this opportunity, and hey, like it or not, there is a double standard when it comes to females traveling alone abroad, especially at that young age.

*The high school sophomore who met a boy last year one week before he moved six states away. They've remained in cellphone/IM contact throughout the school year. Now he wants to come visit, staying at the girls house over a holiday weekend. Having this complete stranger under one's roof can be one of two things---a positive chance to spend plenty of time with him, to get to know him and trust his intentions. Or it can mean ready-made opportunities for him to hook-up in the middle of the night with the daughter while the mom sleeps (the dad will be out of town at a soccer tournament with one of the kids). To deny this certainly offers up a large platter of forbidden fruit, and we all know how much tastier that type is...

*The teen girl who insists upon booking her first Brasilian waxing. (clearly this girl has no clue what she's getting herself into, pain-wise!). Truth is, we all know why anyone chooses a Brasilian wax job. And it ain't comfort. So that in and of itself suggests there's reason behind this (trust me, it has nothing to do with swim suit season being upon us). So now that that mom knows what her 16 year old is up to, what's a mom to do?

*The high school prom, for which an alternate, unsanctioned prom sprung up after school administrators decided that grinding was far too scandalous and issued a 10-inch rule (get your mind out of the gutter, not that type of 10-inches!): a mandatory 10 inches of air must be sustained between a dancing couple. Is grinding mighty sexually suggestive? Sure. Is this much different than adults banning Elvis and the Twist? Not really.

*Then there's the high school senior who questions what it's all about---after all, why bother with any of it when ultimately we're all gonna die. Um, how do you truly answer that question? Anyone deep enough to ponder such things is not going to be satisfied with a pat answer. And who actually has a legitimate answer to this question?

Okay, some of these issues are far bigger than my head can wrap around. The we-are-merely-a-speck-of-dust-on-the-pinhead-of-some-larger-entity is far more than I can/will/choose to ponder with any success. It makes me too dizzy and slightly depressed. But at least I'll tackle the prom thing, and by extension, perhaps address my feelings and worries about the state of teen-hood today.

The pat advice to all parents is this: pick your battles. On the issue of dirty dancing, I do feel as if this is a battle best left alone. After all, teens nowadays have their wings clipped to the point of no longer being birds of flight. In our home we have a parrot, and when she was younger, we regularly clipped her wings (a practice akin to trimming fingernails). The idea was to keep her from flying around the house. But the reality was it caused her to fall off her perch and drop like a lead weight to the floor---her wings sans flight feathers sort of led to her fall from grace.

After our parrot fell enough times so hard that her breast bone punctured through her skin, our vet decided it was a good idea to let her flight wings grow out. And you know what? She doesn't fly around the house. Sure she still spreads her wings, flaps them vigorously on occasion. But if she falls, the amount of feathers she's got enables her to enough loft to land without such a violent thud.

I think society has gone way overboard in clipping back the flight feathers of our teens, particularly at a point at which they need to be spreading their wings and learning to fly, even if it means they fall hard and fast to the ground. The simplest of bad judgment errors for teens nowadays can result in a loss of all academic honors, membership to sports teams, hell, even college admissions. We don't allow teenagers the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. They're expected to learn vicariously from others' errors, I suspect, when in reality that doesn't quite work the same way. We have raised a generation of future adults with probably far less life experiences than we ever had, because most were never allowed to take risks, were clamped so tightly in their car seats and then strapped down with onerous activities and then just when biology started mandating that they stretch away from the weight of our protective shield, we further reduced their ability to take those important strides toward adulthood, errors or not.

I remember once reading about Eunice Kennedy, mother of umteen children, and she spoke of how she let her children fail, even when it meant they suffered for it. We parents---armed in this dreadful age of information with the myriad fearful possibilities of what could go wrong---cherish our children so greatly that we are afraid to allow failure to happen. We don't want them to be hurt, or even worse, killed. We don't want them to fall flat on their faces, to suffer the pain and/or humiliation of trying and faltering.

But have we really served them best in this regard? I know so many of my contemporaries look each other in the eyes when discussing our own jaded youth with that knowing wide-eyed gaze of "Damn, how the hell did we live to tell about it?" The sad reality of it is there were those of our peers who didn't live to tell about it. That's the sucky thing of it. For this, we are all so fearful that our kids will be amongst that unfortunate group. Thus we keep our birds caged, wings clipped, hoping they can get to adulthood injury-free. Yet truly, probably, sorely untested, and lacking some important life experiences that they need to become complete adults.

All of these ponderings lead to me to wonder what is the answer to these teen parent dilemmas. Of course I no sooner have these answers than do you. I'm just muddling through it the best I can, trying not to eat too many of those Mint Crisp M&Ms. After all, they are a limited edition, and when they're gone, they gone.