All posts by Avivah

How and why I decided to homeschool – reposted from 2009

Can I ask one more question? Why do you homeschool? What is the financial, hashkafic, halachic reasoning behind such an unorthodox choice for a family that seems (from your bio) to be pretty normal? I am dying to know.

This isn’t a short answer, but I’ll try to be as succinct as I can without leaving out the major factors.

I didn’t set out to homeschool – Hashem kind of led me to it and I feel unbelievably blessed that He did.  When I moved from Israel in August 2000 (my husband had been offered a position as a shul rabbi so we moved to Seattle for that), my oldest was a seven year old in second grade and struggled because the secular subjects required reading and writing skills that he didn’t yet have, and his Judaic skills were much more advanced than his classmates.

We brought him home for half a day with the intent to bring him up to par in secular subjects – I did it out of desperation, because he was so stressed out that it was affecting the entire family, and nothing else I was doing was helping.  (This was one of the worst periods of my life, which has shown me how often the best things come from the most difficult situations.)  I didn’t know anything about homeschooling, and didn’t consider myself to be homeschooling him.  I was just tutoring him at home.  The principals and teachers were very supportive of me doing this, because they knew they didn’t have the ability to help him catch up.

Despite the many obstacles (like not knowing what I was doing and constantly doubting and second guessing myself), he thrived and we achieved our goals for him. Along the way he became much happier and more relaxed, which positively affected everyone.

We put him back into school for the full day about three or four months later with no intent to bring him back home.  But then we started to see behaviors we hadn’t seen for a long time that were attributable to nothing but being in school, behaviors that were subtle and everyone would say were normal. 

In the past we thought it was because he didn’t yet have friends, was pressured academically, felt the strain of a major move, etc.  But now he was doing great academically in all his classes, socially comfortable, the family had settled down, and life was all around positive and relaxed – there was absolutely nothing wrong.  And I saw that school actually created a kind of tension in children, even a child who was succeeding, something I never would have recognized if it hadn’t been totally absent from him for so long.

For the next few months, I thought about the significance of this.  I thought about what it would be like to have all the kids at home (if it was such a big improvement with one child home just half a day, imagine if everyone were home all day!), without the school induced pressures of carpool, tuition, mandatory parent service hours, and constantly worrying about keeping up with exactly what the school was up to, all issues I had to deal with when he was home for half a day.

What if we didn’t have to rush everyone to bed so that they could get up on time the next day, what if I could relax through our morning routine instead of rushing to get them to school on time; what if my primary goal wasn’t school centered but values centered?

I had by now started reading a lot about homeschooling philosophies, educational models, and thinking very seriously about what it all meant to me and where I stood.  I was working through some very major ideas about where parenting and education met, and my role in that.  I thought a lot about the kind of children I wanted to raise, the qualities I wanted to help them develop, and in what environment those would best be nurtured.  I strongly felt homeschooling would help us best meet those goals, though I had no idea how right I was.

But I was scared.  I was a conservative kind of person, someone who was very much part of the mainstream, who was comfortable being part of the mainstream and in fact found security in being clearly identifiable as being mainstream.  I didn’t want to be different from everyone else.  I didn’t want to listen to my conscience.

Not only that, my three kids were all doing great in school (preK, kindergarten, second grade) – there were no behavior issues, academic issues, social issues – nothing.  And the following year all three of them were going to have the most experienced teachers in the school, teachers who were so good that people would actually switch their kids for the year to this school to have these teachers. Who in their right mind would take out their kids at a time like this?

But the problem was, I was trying to live my life with integrity and I couldn’t silence the voice inside me that kept telling me that this was a change I should make, that even as seemingly successful as the kids were, that there was more they could be than model students.  I couldn’t ignore what I really believed was best.

I had two discussions at this time about this that gave me the support I needed to make the leap to homeschooling, one with my husband, and one with the wife of the rosh kollel of that area, and with both I expressed my fears and feelings of inadequacy.  My husband told me that no matter how wonderful the teachers were, he was confident that I could do just as well.  The rosh kollel’s wife, when I told her my fears of appearing non mainstream and not being like everyone else, said, “Who cares what people think?” (I fell out of touch with her when we left Seattle; when she visited Israel in 2020 we reconnected and I had the opportunity to thank her and tell her how pivotal her encouragement was). These two conversations gave me the final boost I needed to do to begin to live out my vision.

It was making the decision to homeschool that was the hardest thing. But since then, I’ve never looked back.  It was clear from the very beginning that it was the right thing for our family – there were so many advantages that I can’t begin to express them here.  I had the advantage of knowing what life with my kids in school was like, and it was very easy to compare and contrast that to homeschooling.

Life with kids in school is a pale (and stressful!) comparison to a homeschooled life.   Though people have told us that because we’re such good parents our kids would have been great anyway, I know it’s not true and they’re making false assumptions.  I’m not an amazing or unusually good parent.  But homeschooling my kids and the time it’s given us together has been the factor that has made all of the difference.

To go back to the original question, there were no negative factors – tuition was affordable for us (I’ve never felt that finances alone were a reason to homeschool), the kids were successful in school (and I was happy with the school), and I had a great rapport with the administration.  I don’t have a bone to pick with schools, not then and not now.  Choosing to homeschool wasn’t coming from negative motivations, but rather from a strong philosophical belief that it was the best thing for my children, to educate each of them according to their individual needs and personalities (‘chanoch l’naar al pi darko’).

I didn’t and don’t believe that a one size fits all institution with hired workers can know and understand a child and their needs (crucial to effectively educating them) as well as a loving and motivated parent.  I felt that building a strong family would happen most effectively when the family had ample time to spend together in a relaxed way, not pulled in lots of directions all day long, every day, with everyone coming together at the end when they were tired and uptight.  And there were lots of other more specific concerns about education and child raising that I had.

As the years have gone by, my conviction about all of these things has only gotten stronger. I’m at the beautiful place in life where I don’t have to wonder if this homeschooling business was all a major mistake on my part and what will all come out from it in the end. I’ve been so fortunate to have seen the things I trusted to happen, happen, beyond what I ever hoped for.  Is life perfect?  No.  Are my kids perfect?  Obviously not.  And me?  You all know I’m not perfect by now! 

But I can’t tell you how incredibly grateful I feel every single day for the life I’m privileged to have with my family.  I don’t take it for granted because I hear and see from all that goes on around me how special what we have is.

Avivah

Is homeschooling expensive?

Following the last two posts that I wrote and shared years ago on a homeschooling forum, below is my follow-up to questions asked, about an article on budget-wise homeschooling that I mentioned just having written, babysitting and curriculum costs, and burnout. The costs are all specific to the activities mentioned in the last post. Again, this was from 2004, with six children ages 2 – 11.

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The article I wrote was for Live Free Learn Free (a mostly unschooling mag), and should be out soon (printing was delayed because of the holidays), and was titled, “Homeschooling, expensive?  Naah!”  In that I detailed how we spent less than $150 for the year for six kids, including all outside expenses, including Girl Scout and 4H dues. 

I have never hired babysitters to watch the younger kids, and have always had babies and toddlers since I started homeschooling.  (My youngest is now 2.5.)  So we didn’t have that expense. The first year I started homeschooling, I purchased curriculum used on vegsource.com (namely Saxon math).  It cost less than half of what I would have paid for it brand new, and I resold it three years later when I switched to Singapore for the price I paid for it.   (And then that money was used to make my new purchases. :))  For the three years I used it, I didn’t need to make any further outlays.

There are always free and low cost alternatives, regardless of where you lived.  In Seattle, we had great community centers and my kids were able to take swimming, dance, karate – all very cheaply.  Otherwise, we did things on our own as a family. 

In Baltimore, classes like that are four times the price, so we do different things.  Here I am hooked up with the larger homeschooling community and can go to activities as part of a group and get the sharply discounted rates.  Recently, in the space of three weeks, I took my kids to a concert at the symphony hall (got free tickets from a friend), a dance concert at the university (free), the Nutcracker (student performance – $4 per ticket), a Chanuka concert for the family ($5 for family), and a musical of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (I blew my usual budget and paid $6.50 per ticket for this, also a student ticket price).  That is a lot of entertainment for the money, though people will tell you that providing quality exposure to the arts is pricey.

My girls now take sewing lessons once a week – it costs $10 for each of them per lesson.  That is my largest ongoing expense, and $80 a month doesn’t compare to what I would pay for school even with the biggest tuition break I might qualify for.  The knitting club is free, 4H has minimal dues, Girl Scout dues are about $30 – 35 a year each. 

I have a membership to a science museum which allows me reciprocal privileges that I use at other places (science centers, cultural museums, aquariums) when I travel – that’s $50 a year.  We use the library a lot, frequent the library book sales and thrift shops for cheap reads. 

A couple of my older kids will be joining a math club next week, and it will be $30 per child for the semester (which goes until the beginning of the summer.)  When my kids took a sailing class, it was also as part of a homeschool group, and we got much better prices than the general public because they were already there and had very little business in the middle of the week.  When we go ice skating, I go to a homeschool session – $4 for the first person, $3 each additional person, and it includes the skates. 

Parks and nature centers are free.  Lots of historical events are free or minimal charge.  Even for events that charge, there are times that it is more affordable – for example, I took the kids to the Renaissance Faire in September, which is $17 for adults, $8 for kids.  I went on the one weekend that kids under 12 were allowed in free, and at the gate they gave me a $3 discount on my ticket because I shop regularly at a certain supermarket (I didn’t know that until I got there and they asked me).  So it cost me $14 for the entire day with all six of my kids and a friend of my son, going to plays, jousting, puppet shows, historical reenactments, etc.  Would the next weekend at full price when they did the same events have been more satisfying? 

I buy Singapore math books – the textbooks are non-consumable and can be passed from once child to the next, so it is a one time purchase (about 7.50 each). The workbooks are about also about 7.50 each, and each child uses two a year. That’s $60 total for my purchased curriculum.

Games are cheaply bought at any yard sale, and can provide loads of educational value. Paper, pencils, and art supplies also aren’t expensive.  Fun with friends is free. I don’t send my kids to a private rebbi or tutor for Judaics – not because I can’t afford it, but because I enjoy learning with my kids and learning groups tend to become very school-like in their approach.  This is where I see most frum homeschoolers paying big bucks. 

Homeschooling is about choices, but homeschooling with minimal costs doesn’t mean doing without or burning out.  It means choosing what is worth spending money on – I wouldn’t pay $10 per person for any museum or class.  (Remember I have six kids so with at least four kids in a class this would add up fast.)  As far as burning out, a parent always has to be aware of their limitations and act accordingly, or they will become overwhelmed. 

I do a lot with my kids, but I monitor my energy so that I don’t get caught up in running around to every possible opportunity that presents itself.  ‘Know thyself’ is applicable in many circumstances, particularly to moms who want to do it all and do it well.  Burnout would be less of an issue if people didn’t keep pushing themselves when all their internal warning signals were bleeping dangerously.

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Are you enjoying the recent ‘look back to the past’ posts?

Avivah

A homeschooling day with six kids, ages 2 – 11

Continuing from my last post, circa November 2004, responding to a question as to what a typical homeschooling day looks like for us… it seems particularly timely to have found this when I was writing about how our family life has changed over time. It’s poignant for me to reread the details of those days, to look back on a snapshot of our lives.

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Well, I gave my philosophical perspective, but here is a sample of what our days are like. After breakfast, we have our academic time.  (Davening may be before or after breakfast, my kids now daven on their own so it depends on how early they wake up.) 

I learn chumash with each of the older kids separately, and listen to my 5 year old do kriah (Hebrew reading).  While I am busy with one, the others will be busy with math.  We all are in the living room during that time, but if someone has a question, they have to wait until I am finished with the person I am with. 

After everyone finishes, we may sit around and do a read aloud – this week, I started a book about kids who go back in time to the Mayflower.  This part of the day takes about two hours.  Then we have lunch (usually sandwiches), and the rest of the afternoon is spent on other activities.

This describes our most ‘school-like’ days.  It is pretty dry and doesn’t even begin to capture the richness of our days.  It doesn’t run like this on the days that we are out with various activities in the morning (eg September was busy with sailing classes, Oct. had gym classes), and never typical for Fridays or Sundays. 

Twice a week, a couple of my kids help out at a sheep farm for the morning.  We attend a book discussion for kids once a month, the girls have Girl Scout meetings twice a month, they all have 4H at least once a month.  A couple of my kids participate in specific 4H projects, sheep and beekeeping, which have them out of the house more often. 

My girls have sewing lessons every week, knitting club every other week.  We go to the libraries regularly, nature centers, friends, and then there are the one time trips. Last week a couple of kids were busy digging a fire pit in the backyard of someone’s home for the colonial feast that is being planned this Sunday, they all attended a program on Woodland Indians (in which they not only listened to a presentation, but ground corn with a mortar and pestle, dressed in authentic Indian clothing, went in a wichot (wigwam), shot arrows, and much more), and my son read a biography of Daniel Boone (history/social studies). 

Yesterday one daughter was out with a couple of friends painting a backdrop for the puppet show they are planning for Chanukah, and have been working on weekly (writing/halacha/holidays/arts and crafts).  Two other kids were out at a different friend’s home (socialization – just joking, everybody!!).  My oldest son has been very busy for the last couple of weeks building a tree house (math/measurements), sewing cushions for the bench inside (real life skills), planning a treehouse club for his siblings, which includes various prizes and incentives.

They have all been busy getting ready for Chanukah by making presents for family members and friends and listening to Chanukah songs on cassette (Jewish holidays).  We have a trip to North Carolina in a few days, where we will attend the local science museum (science), and on the way home will probably stop by the Science Museum of Virginia.  (Last year when we went to Colonial Williamsburg, I stopped on the way in Richmond at the SMV to break up the trip. It was a good plan so we will try it again.) 

We attended a concert at the Meyerhoff Symphony hall a few nights ago (music), have a play scheduled for the beginning of Dec (literature and the arts), and a ballet for the middle of Dec (music, the arts and social studies). 

I read regularly out loud in the evenings to everyone (though my selection doesn’t always manage to hold everyone’s attention equally :)), and usually choose Newberry honor or medal books, classic type material (literature, grammar).  My kids read a lot independently (spelling, reading comprehension), and also enjoy listening to audio books (auditory processing skills).  The younger ones listen to their own selections of books with cassettes – my 4 yo recognizes her favorites at the library and ‘follows’ along with her finger in the text as she listens.  Even my 2 yo sits and listens with them. 

They enjoy board games and card games (my 4yo is fantastic at Uno – I don’t know how she got so good at strategy, but I have to work to beat her – the last game I put down my last card right before she put down her last card, and I only was able to win that time because I happened to see her cards since she isn’t careful about how she holds them!). 

We have brain teaser kind of stuff around, which they pick up and play with as they like.  They listen to the radio when I have it on and have picked up a lot of information, as well as critical thinking skills.  We have great conversations on many different topics.

Now the question is, what was the schooling part of the day?  There is lots of learning going on all the time, but it doesn’t resemble many classrooms because we don’t do much worksheet kind of stuff.  Being relaxed doesn’t mean doing nothing – for us, it means being busy with things we enjoy and learning lots along the way.

This probably didn’t help you much, though, right?  Because you may be thinking you don’t enjoy this kind of activity or your kids are too young or you are too tired or there isn’t enough scheduled…….. That’s why it all comes down to developing your own philosophy and finding what works for your family. 🙂

Avivah

Parenting – get clear on your goals, know who you are and where you want to go

In the middle of writing my last post, I did a search in my inbox using a keyword that didn’t pull up what I was looking for, but did result in me finding some things I had written about homeschooling in the past that I had long forgotten having written. The following was shared on a Orthodox Jewish homeschooling email list at the end of November 2004. I was active on this listserve for years and loved the far ranging and fascinating conversations we had (no comparison to the brief answers given on a FB group), but it’s been closed for many years now.

However, the questions and responses are just as relevant today as they were then and though specifically addressing homeschooling, are just as applicable to any parent thinking about his approach to parenting.

>>Hi, I just joined the list. I have a 21-month-old boy, who is nowhere near ready for school yet, but I’m thinking about home schooling, yet need to learn more about it. One thing that I want to be able to visualize is the structure (or non-structure) of home schooling–i.e., how is the learning set up. Please enlighten.<<

I think you are incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about homeschooling before your children are school age.  Homeschooling is a remarkable opportunity, precisely because it is so individual.  One person’s schedule may look totally different from someone else’s, but what counts is how it works for that family.  

I prefer a relaxed approach, and find it very effective for my family and my goals.  What I find stimulating and productive might seem too undefined to some, too busy to others.  A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a homeschooling mom who was proudly telling me her schedule, and I had the strongest feeling of sympathy for her kids, but it seemed to work for their family.  (This might also have been related to her answer to my question about her homeschooling style – “We push through until we get it right.”  My question followed her description of how she forced her kids to play sports even though they came home crying after every session. But I digress.) 

She has four kids, ages 4 – 10, and starts at 9 am every day, and goes until 3:30 or 4 pm every day, with an hour for lunch.  She isn’t Jewish, so she isn’t doing a dual curriculum, so in my opinion, this was overkill.  Gosh, I felt like I had hives listening to her.  But then again, she might have had the same feeling listening to me.

As someone else suggested, read up on homeschooling. Don’t limit yourself to any one approach – read about them all, and you will find yourself developing your own ideas and opinions as to how you want to do things for your family.  Think about what education means to you – is it the same as schooling?  Why or why not?  What do you think is positive about the school experience?  What is negative?  Why?  How do your children learn best?  How do you perform best?  What are your goals – not just regarding academics, which may be one of the less important things in raising children, but in terms of character development, etc.?

Homeschooling and parenting styles overlap so much that it becomes hard to distinguish where one ends and the other begins.  Talk to people, get ideas, but most importantly, give yourself lots of time to think through the issues yourself.  And for now, just continue enjoying your child – it will be years before you will need to do anything in a more structured way than what you are already doing.  

Avivah – mom to (then) six great kids in Baltimore

Why a family dynamic is constantly evolving

My husband looked at a family picture of when we had just six children that was temporarily moved to his desk, and commented, “The older half of our family!”

This past Friday night at the Shabbos table, I looked around at everyone there and thought about how our family has completely changed through the years – not one person sitting there was alive at the time that the above mentioned photo was taken.

A friend who grew up as almost the youngest of a large family told me that her experience growing up in her family was very different from her older siblings. Now I’m seeing for myself how true that is.

Younger and older children in a family will always have a different experience growing up in the same home, with the same parents, because things change over time.

Getting older and more mellow – My husband and I have been parenting for almost thirty years together. We have gotten a lot of experience and consequently are fairly secure as parents, and feel relaxed in our parenting at this stage. We aren’t constantly questioning ourselves and wondering how to deal with different things that come up. We genuinely trust that our kids are awesome people who are going to grow into amazing adults. We know it. We don’t have to work hard to remind ourselves of that, to affirm it, or to agonize over the challenges they experience. We know who we are, what our approach to parenting is, and our relationship with one another is steady and consistent. This is a product of time.

Living in a different country – Not every family will experience the major moves that we did, but moving to a different country has made a huge difference in what our children experience. Growing up in the US provided different opportunities and challenges than living here in Israel. The children who are now teens in our home moved here as young children eleven years ago. They speak an additional language, they interact with different people, and they have different interests.

I could give lots of examples of this! Here’s just one: my two oldest boys were excellent baseball players, the top in their leagues. During baseball season, our family spent hours every week attending their games. This activity has been completely absent from our lives from the time we moved to Israel. While their younger brothers have the potential to be just as athletic, there isn’t a framework for that here.

It’s been interesting for me to notice my homeschooling style evolve, and that has been specifically related to living in Yavneel. Until moving here less than three years ago, I’d self-identified as a ‘relaxed homeschooler’. That meant that we had regular daily academic activities of reading, writing and math, integrated read-alouds of historical fictions, lots of trips and outside activities. This was consistent of our family homeschooling style for almost twenty years, wherever we lived (except the trips – after we moved to Israel we did very few trips).

Now our boys have opportunities to follow and develop their interests in a way they never could before, and my style has evolved to almost completely unschooling. While they periodically pull out a math workbook at my bequest, that’s no longer an important factor for me. I trust not only their own inner desire to learn, but I trust the external framework provides the possibility of them being able to independently pursue their interests. For example, I mentioned my boys helping someone out with his horse a couple of weeks ago. Well, one son has continued working with the horses daily. Where will it go? I don’t know. But there’s the opportunity to do learn and experience much more.

My thirteen year old began traveling locally by bus last year when he took a year long sailing course at the Kineret. He’s now expanding his comfort zone and learning to use public transportation to get to RBS, so he can stay in relationship with friends made when we lived there. When someone can get to where he wants to go independent of being driven by a parent, it opens up possibilities. This is something I’m comfortable with in Israel that I would not have allowed in Baltimore due to safety concerns.

How your family is ‘built’ – Of our oldest five children, three were girls. For years people thought of us as a girl-family, because the presence of our daughters was so significant. When our next six boys joined the family, their presence obviously made a big impact as we had a very busy home with lots of young children. But our older girls remained highly involved and visible in our family life. When our oldest two daughters got married within twelve days of one another five years ago and they weren’t a daily presence anymore, things changed a lot.

It’s been years since anyone has thought of us as a girl-family! Right now the younger boys are 20, 16, 15, 13, 10 and almost 6. We have a lot of male teen energy. I was watching my fifteen and sixteen year old sons wrestling tonight, and remembering how for years I never allowed wrestling in our home. Now I see it as appropriate and healthy.

Parents don’t independently create a family atmosphere and impose that on their children. Children are partners in creating the family with their own personalities and interests, too. For years, we enjoyed singing at the Shabbos table. Then we had a few years when our two middle children were the oldest at home on Shabbos, but they didn’t enjoy singing at that stage (now they do) and we naturally sang together less as a family. Our Shabbos meals became much shorter and more discussion-heavy.

Life continued to evolve and our three teens who are usually home now enjoy singing chazzanus (cantorial music) together when they are getting ready for Shabbos. It’s not my personal style but they enjoy it and it’s a nice thing to hear them enjoying together. Our sixteen year old went to the Friday night tisch of a chassidish rabbi, and heard a beautiful complex tune which he took time to learn well. He taught that song, and another equally complicated song, to the rest of us. Those songs are new to us, but are now becoming staples at our Shabbos table, and we once again have lots of singing at the Shabbos table.

Not only that, our family itself has expanded, with the addition of four spouses and seven grandchildren (so far). Each of these people have added to our family dynamic, too!

So life is continually evolving, even at my stage when it would seem that we’ve been doing this so long and you might expect that it’s the same old, same old!

Avivah

Why my husband cashed in his pension fund

I’m a reader and when there’s something I want to learn about, I tend to dive in deep. So no surprise, when years ago when I was interested in learning about finance and investing, I checked out – and read – every single book on the library shelf. Literally.

My takeaway from all that reading came down to two points: 1) Since very few people can beat the stock market, the simplest approach for the average person to take was to ‘buy the market’ (ie a fund that represents the market). 2) Over time the market goes up and if you do dollar cost averaging you’ll generally do well. Don’t panic during downs, don’t get euphoric on ups, keep your emotions in check and keep in mind the history of the market.

I did different things to help our children learn about saving and investing money when we were living in the US. We lived a very frugal life, but always put something aside a little something to save and invest. That was helpful when we suddenly decided to make aliyah.

When I moved to Israel, I didn’t understand how the financial markets in this country worked, so I put any thoughts of investing to the side. That would have been necessary in any case since we went through a very challenging time financially when starting over here and honestly didn’t have any extra to put into savings. It was a major accomplishment to have stayed out of debt during those years! So my interest in investing money went completely dormant.

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A couple of years ago, I began wondering what the financial consequences of worldwide shutdowns would be on the global economy. I began listening to different financial podcasts, with my goal being to get a sense of how events affect financial markets, and to consequently make responsible choices for my family.

Almost exactly a year ago, I talked to my husband about my concerns – the potential for significant inflation and the possibility of a major stock market correction in the following two or three years – and we discussed his pension funds. We had put our financial future into the hands of some anonymous fund manager that we don’t know, who doesn’t know us, who will get ample compensation regardless of how our funds do.

To answer some of our questions, he met with the contact person at his company for the pension funds. While I didn’t get specific answers to some questions I had (I wasn’t there to ask my questions!), the meeting clarified how much we could expect monthly after retirement. The rep gave us an optimistic number and told us we’d have to supplement our income even in the best case scenario. That wasn’t surprising, seeing that we didn’t start saving for retirement until after we made aliyah.

I wasn’t worried about the supposed shortfall of the optimistic scenario. Those numbers could be doable, albeit tight. What did concern me was the potential impact on our retirement funds if the market took a big extended hit. Was it likely to recover in time for us to benefit? The market has always rebounded, but it takes time. After the Great Depression, it took 25 years until the market got back to what it had been right before the crash. Yes, that’s an extreme example. Despite my understanding of the two key points I summarized regarding the market above, which would lead me to keeping the funds invested and trusting the market to recover, I kept asking myself if we were gambling to let our funds stay invested in the market at our age?

I don’t know if it was due to a gut feeling, being a fiscally conservative person or being paranoid because of all the podcasts I listened to but I felt very strongly about this. We began to talk about withdrawing the funds, but just opening that topic was a scary thing for us to consider. When you have retirement money invested with a professional, it feels like you’re safe, that you’re going to be taken care of. That’s what everyone does and doing what everyone else is doing is reassuring.

However, I haven’t found in any other area of my life that institutions care more about me, or do better for me than I or my specifically chosen representatives can do for me. This opened a thought-provoking and ongoing discussion between my husband and me for weeks.

After a couple of months, my husband was ready to withdraw his funds. He paid a heavy penalty for early withdrawal (I don’t remember now if it was 30% or 35%). It’s not fun to see the original sum be dramatically whittled down like that. A month after requesting to cash out his pension, the remaining pension funds were deposited in our bank account, and I felt a weight had been lifted from me.

In the last couple of months, I’ve seen a lot of people talking about losing 25 – 40% of their pension funds, and now they’re wondering if they should pull their money out and pay the penalty fees on what is left, or leave it in the market and hope it’s going to recover. I don’t know what our funds would look like now if we hadn’t withdrawn them, and I don’t know what they would look like in eleven years if we left them invested. Taking them out could have been the worst possible thing to do with our money, and only time will tell. However, I’m comfortable with our choice regardless of which scenario plays out, and am glad to have pulled them out when we did.

I’m not a financial advisor and not offering advice to anyone. As with everything else I write, I’m simply sharing my personal experience.

Avivah

Baked Oatmeal – gluten free, sugar free

My sixteen year old son baked a few large pans of Amish oatmeal for the yeshivas bein hazmanim breakfast that he organized for the Sukkos vacation and it was a big hit. It’s one of several baked oatmeal recipes that I have – they’re all good but more dessert-like than I prefer to serve for a regular breakfast.

Here’s a healthier version that I jotted down ages ago and finally made this week – I made it the evening ahead so it would be ready for breakfast the next day, but half the pan was gone before everyone had gone to sleep! This has a mellow sweetness that my family enjoys; it’s gluten free and sugar free.

For me this was a very frugal recipe, but please don’t make the blanket assumption that if I say it’s frugal, then it will be equally inexpensive for you. I use a lot of strategies that keep my food costs down that you may not use, and have different resources available that you may not have. And you have frugal resources and options that I don’t have! If the exact recipe doesn’t work for you, take the general principal of frugal cooking – use ingredients that are inexpensive for you to make meals with.

Baked Oatmeal

  • 1 c. applesauce
  • 10 large Medjool dates
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 c. milk
  • 1/2 c. juice
  • 2 T. baking powder
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 6 c. rolled oats
  • 1 c. fresh or dried fruit, chopped

Blend the dates with the milk, juice, applesauce and eggs. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the applesauce mixture to the dry mixture. Fold in fruit.

Pour in the pan, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, you can top with nuts if you like. Bake at 350 degrees F/180 degrees Celsius for 35 – 45 minutes, and serve warm.

My cost breakdown:

  • applesauce – I got the apples free, and cooked and preserved the applesauce when I got them last season
  • dates – free (my son picked them locally)
  • 4 eggs – 3 shekels
  • milk – I used a half of a carton of coconut cream, 7.5 shekels (purchased at restaurant supply store I told you about; at Shufersal I saw it for double the price I paid). Dairy milk would be cheaper.
  • juice – didn’t use it, instead I cut the coconut cream with water
  • baking powder, cinnamon – purchased in bulk bags of 1 kg each, don’t know how much a spoonful would be but let’s say .50 for both
  • 6 c. rolled oats – 6 shekels
  • dried or fresh fruit – I left this out

Total: 17 shekels for a deep 9″ x 13″ pan or two shallow 9″ x 13″ pans; this makes a generous amount for two breakfasts for a family of six.

Avivah

Breeding our goats and saying goodbye to Oliver

Back when I bought our first two goats in July, I asked the seller if I could bring our females back for breeding, and he agreed. When I called him a few weeks ago, he said it would be better for the male goat to come to our home. He could bring him, but he would have to charge me for that service, and would be glad to let me take him myself for free.

I was very nervous about that, but he assured me it wasn’t a big deal and would help me get him into our vehicle.

When we got there and saw the owner bring it out, I thought, “Oh, my goodness, he’s massive!” and that was an alarming thought, not admiring. But what came out of my mouth was a mild, “Oh, he’s big.”

“No, he’s not big,” responded the owner. “He’s enormous.”

Well, yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking. And that was not what I was expecting and it was very intimidating.

The owner and his son got him into our vehicle, and he was remarkably calm during the short drive home. Two of my teenage sons led him into our yard to our pen – or it would be more accurate to say he pulled them both since together they couldn’t hold him back. I had read a lot about the aggressiveness of male goats and was apprehensive about that, but Oliver, as I named him, seemed kind of shy and was actually pleasant to have around.

I was very pleased with Oliver, as the personality of the father is important to what the personality of the kids will later be. In addition a couple of other desirable traits he had, he was a polled goat (born without horns), a quality that I prefer but in Israel this is the minority of goats. All of my goats are polled – and now the kids born will be polled as well. Though many people prefer goats with horns, I’m not one of them, and I’m not interested in having to remove the horns of baby goats.

Oliver spent a couple of weeks here and it was constantly on my mind as to how we were going to get him back in our vehicle to return him. Finally, the day came when it was time to go. The female goats were all sad to see him go and very verbally expressed their feelings as he was led out.

On his way out with ds15 and ds13

Other than my fifteen year old getting pulled to the ground at the last moment when Oliver was startled by a sudden action that was intended to be helpful by my thirteen year old, it was smooth and uneventful.

Arriving back at the farm

The owner told me he’s never allowed anyone to take any of his animals on loan before. (He’s been raising and and selling animals for many years.) I didn’t ask him why he made the exception for us, but I certainly do appreciate it!

I felt kind of bad for Oliver when he was led to his pen back home, as he lives alone there (the two males are separated so they don’t fight) and he clearly enjoyed the fellowship of the does.

Back in his pen

I feel accomplished to have taken care of getting all the does bred. Now we can relax for the next 4.5 – 5 months and wait to see how many kids make their arrival!

Avivah

A deeply enjoyable trip to Kangaroo Park

My daughter-in-law consistently plans nice trips for their family every vacation. This summer, they came to visit us after a day trip to Kangaroo Park, a 45 minute drive from us. She told me she was able to buy tickets for a discounted price using a pass that her work offers everyone there, and told me she’s allowed to buy tickets for extended family members if we were interested.

Since the older boys plan their own trips, and the younger boys are happy to stay local, we really haven’t done many official outings for a long while. Getting tickets at less than half price was a great opportunity, and this is a wonderful place to visit, so I asked my dil1 (my first daughter-in-law) to buy tickets on our behalf. She did, and told me they need to be used by the end of 2022.

Yesterday ds10 needed to stay home for a blood test and the weather was beautiful, so it was the perfect time to use our tickets! The park was very quiet – one of my favorite things about doing trips as a homeschooling family over the years is that we can go off-season when it’s quiet and relaxing. I don’t enjoy crowds at all.

The only negative is that ds13 couldn’t join us, because he had planned his first solo trip by bus to Beit Shemesh for that day. He was away for a couple of days and it was very empowering for him to successfully travel alone to a different part of the country. He enjoys staying in touch with friends there and now he won’t be dependent on me driving him to see them. That’s freeing for me, too! I was so glad that ds15 could come with us.

Right after we got there, they announced that the large parrot aviary was open for fifteen minutes, so we went there. It was interesting but the parrots were shrieking in alarm because they had been given a new plant that they didn’t recognize, and it was very loud.

The docent told me that in another fifteen minutes, she’d be doing a presentation at the small parrot aviary. That was a highlight for us. Usually each participant is given one skewer with a piece of apple to feed the parrots, but we were the only ones there at first (and even afterwards just one other family of three came in), so we were given two skewers each – and then we got a second round with another eight skewers. Each skewer represented an opportunity to have an interaction feeding a parrot, either on a wooden perch or with one of us serving as the human perch. It was really nice.

There are 52 kangaroos in a large grassy enclosure, all of whom are very gentle and used to people. There’s an option to buy pellets to feed them, which was fun but more of our time was simply stroking them and being alongside them.

We took our time there, and sat down next to a group of kangaroos for a long while. It was so pleasant.

This is a mother kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. It was fascinating to me to learn about the birth and development of a joey inside the pouch. He is born tiny, the size of half a peanut, then climbs into the pouch where he literally gestates for months until he’s ready to climb out.

I noticed an adolescent male kangaroo engaging in behavior that the docent said the alpha male wouldn’t allow if saw it. I asked the docent what would happen if the alpha male was there. He told me he wouldn’t have to do very much to show his displeasure, since he has such a dominant presence that the teen kangaroo would quickly stop doing what he was doing if the alpha expressed displeasure.

Even though we have goats of our own, the boys still enjoyed these pygmy goats.

Ds5 saw this water and quickly peeled off his socks and shoes, rolled up his pants and sat down to enjoy swishing his legs in the water.

Ds10 and ds5 were having a great time for a long while running up and down a ramp that led to a second floor structure. At one point ds5 ran down the ramp and didn’t go back up. After waiting several minutes for him, I took a quick look around. I found him sitting across from the pond, watching the black swans swimming. Just being in the moment.

Nowadays our attention spans are much shorter and we expect to be quickly entertained wherever we go, but when in a natural setting like this, gratification isn’t instant and you need to take more time to absorb the experience and let it settle into you. That’s something I really, really appreciated about going when there was hardly anyone there – we could take our time, go at our own pace without distractions and experience the park in the moment.

This space for inner quiet is something that I deeply appreciate, and I’m so glad we had an opportunity for a trip that was a lot of fun, while also giving us together time, and personal inner quiet time.

Avivah

Training a wild horse and teaching a child boundaries

Today my husband got a call from someone who owns a couple of horses. He and my husband went horseback riding a while ago, and at that time the guy mentioned that his horses don’t get enough exercise.

My husband suggested that our boys might be able to help out some time with the horses. Quite a lot of time went by, and finally today the owner reached out to find out if they were available. They were.

When they got back, I asked what they did. The horses have gotten wild from lack of regular riding and need to be retrained. So the boys can’t ride them right away. They spent their time today standing in the middle of the pen, holding the rope the horse was tied to and having the horse walk in a circle around them. The idea is to teach the horses to go when told to go, and to stop when told to stop. The horses have to learn they can’t do whatever they want, but to do what they’re told. It’s been over a year since the horses have done this, and though they were trained in the past, now need to be reminded of what is expected and then practice those behaviors.

Since these horse aren’t learning these behaviors for the first time, they should be able to progress fairly quickly from one stage to the next. Next time the boys will ride them inside the pen, and then progress from there until they are riding the horses freely.

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You know what’s coming, right? I can’t help but see examples of the parenting process everywhere I look!

When a child isn’t used to having clear expectations and boundaries, he’s going to get wild and misbehave. He’ll be really unpleasant to be around. This behavior isn’t a reflection of the character of a child, but a reflection of the lack of regular ‘training’. I feel very strongly that it’s crucial that children are taught to be respectful. Letting kids do what they want and not taking the time to actively guide them generally comes from a place of not knowing what to do, and for many parents, believing that it’s enough to love them.

Yes, love is the critical component, but we show our love with our actions. True love means actively giving children clear boundaries and teaching them to be responsible and respectful human beings. While some kids figure it out on their own in spite of their upbringing, it doesn’t generally happen by itself.

To begin to teach a child who is out of control about boundaries, you can’t begin with major expectations and demands and expect that you’re going to whip them into shape and have them ready to jump when you speak. You have to walk before you can ride. 🙂

It would have been asking for trouble for my son to hop on top of the horse and try to ride him. The horse wouldn’t have been ready to listen to him. Your child has to be used to listening to you with small things before you can expect him to be responsive to you with big things.

What do you do when a child is out of control, wild and won’t listen?

You begin with a teaching process as to what is expected and what is accepted, while simultaneously building the relationship with positive interactions. You start with small interactions as you keep them ‘on a short rope’, keeping them close to you and immediately redirecting them if they get off track. You give them a chance to be successful with the small things, and as they develop self-discipline and respect for what you tell them, you
gradually lengthen the rope while continuing to build the relationship with positive interactions.

When your child is clear about boundaries and you have a relationship of trust with one another, you can give them a lot of independence. I give my children a lot of space. You don’t need to micromanage their activities, though periodic redirection as needed is appropriate. But just as it would have been dangerous for my sons to get on those horses today when they were untrained and resistant to authority, it’s asking for problems to give a child independence before they’ve developed the ability to manage themselves and be responsive to the guidance of their parents.

Avivah