Category Archives: parenting

Sending food, sending love

canning, food preservation, parenting

In my last post, I shared about processing jars of home cooked stews and meats for my boys in a dorm. It’s shelf-stable and they just have to heat it up. In response, someone commented:

>>The soup/stew solution seems like a really good start, but hard on you.<<

I appreciated the intent to offer suggestions that would make it easier for me and put the ball in their court.

My kids are very capable – very. Though I understate my kids’ abilities and capacities when writing about them, I can safely say you won’t find many boys their ages as capable as they are. They can certainly shop and cook for themselves; they don’t need me to help them find a solution for this. Since they don’t have cooking facilities, their solutions are unlikely to be as good as mine, but they aren’t spoiled and have a make-do-with-a-good-attitude ethic.

But you know what? I want to do this for them. In so many ways, doing this for them says, ‘I love you’. Every time they heat up a jar of food I prepared for them, whether they think of it consciously or not, they’re imbibing some of my love, knowing that I went out of my way because I love them, and connecting to that love.

I’m not interested in skimping on that. I’m not so busy with more important things in my life that this is a pressure for me, or one more thing to do on my overly full to-do list. I do have a list that doesn’t seem to get much smaller regardless of what I do, but being present for my children and having a relationship with them is high on my list – even if they’re far away and it’s a non-verbal food interaction. Not only is making this food not hard on me, I welcome the opportunity to show them how much they matter to me.

There are different ways to show love, and people perceive love that is given to them in different ways. For my older son, I know this is meaningful for him. Someone else might say, ‘Meh, nice but it really doesn’t matter much to me.’

I’m so, so aware of how quickly time goes by, how short the time with our children is. The process of growing up is gradual, a constant spreading of one’s wings and becoming more independent. Independence doesn’t happen suddenly when they go away to school or get married. The relationship with a child changes as they go through increasing levels of independence, and by necessity your active role in their lives shifts.

We tend to associate food with times we spent with love ones, with warm memories, with feelings of being cared about and taken care of. Good food, served with love, has the ability to reach a person in ways that other things don’t.

I can give my boys money to buy food if they need to, and I’m glad to do it. But feeling loved through the money for food is more distant than feeling loved by eating the food itself.

Preparing food so my boys can have a home cooked meal whenever they’re hungry is something I can do for my older son this year. This is when he needs it and especially appreciates it. Next year he’ll be in yeshiva gedolah, where the food is usually much better, so this probably won’t be needed.

I’m embracing the opportunity that I have now to send my sons love from a distance. It only looks like jars of food sitting on their shelves. But now you know what it really is.

Avivah

How I’m providing nourishing food to our boys in a dorm

canning, frugal strategies, parenting

>>I know how you cook and care about feeding your family nourishing meals- how do you “handle” (for lack of better word, handle seems a bit dramatic), your kids’ diets while they are away in their schools?  <<

We’ve found the meals in Israeli dorms in the past to be decent, with good amounts of protein and fresh produce. It helps that my children aren’t picky eaters. I don’t really worry about their food once they’re out of the house; I assume they’ll make the choices that are right for them and work within the parameters of what’s available. They do appreciate home cooked food much more when they come home, though!

However, at the current yeshiva both my boys are at, the menu seems to be scaled down; it’s heavy on the starches and light on proteins; there’s hardly any fresh produce. This isn’t a complaint; I think this is typical of yeshiva ketanas, and that the yeshiva high school my boys attended in the past had unusually good food. In any case, we have a situation we haven’t had come up before.

When I spoke with my sixteen year old son at the end of last week, he mentioned how helpful it was that I sent them with so much tuna, since he eats a can every day.

I sent it thinking it would be something he would have once in a while, and asked him why he was eating it so often. He explained that if he doesn’t have it a couple of hours after lunch, he’s so hungry he can’t think about anything but eating dinner the entire afternoon. He’s never said anything like this, so I asked him about what and how much he was eating. Since he has a cavity that just started that he wants to heal, he’s trying to avoid processed carbs. That’s the bulk of what is served at his school, and since he’s not able to fill up on bread/pasta/white rice, the small amounts of protein leave him unsatisfied.

I wondered what I could do about this. What could I send him other than tuna? I wanted him to have foods that would be satiating. Cookies and crackers wouldn’t be helpful, nor would any of the snack foods available in the stores. I couldn’t think of anything that would be filling that doesn’t need refrigeration or involve some kind of preparation.

Then I had a brainstorm. I asked him if he had room in the dorm for electric burners and a pot. He said he did. I asked if I sent him home canned foods, would he heat them up and eat them? Yes, he would.

I offered to make him some hearty homemade soups to supplement his diet and asked what he wanted. He requested split pea soup, so that’s what I started with. I made a thick stew with a generous amount of rich broth, to pack in nutrition and calories; he could eat as-is or thin it down for a more typical soup consistency.

I pressure canned seven liters of the soup, as well as seven pints of chicken wings. When ds15 returned back to yeshiva after Shabbos, he was traveling by bus with just a backpack and therefore could only take only a few of the jars back with him. Ds16 called to tell me that even without being able to heat it up, he enjoyed it at room temperature.

One jar is four cups of soup, and is enough for both boys to supplement one school lunch. Based on their feedback, though, from now on I’m going to can pint sized jars for them, so they can eat separately according to their schedules. This week I’ll make them some beef stew, and by periodically canning different dishes, they’ll have some variety.

This Shabbos both boys will be coming home, and I’m planning to send them back to yeshiva with a suitcase containing the burners, pot, and jars of food. They’ll bring the empty jars home for me to reuse. I’m also going to send some fresh vegetables and fruit, and a frozen bottle of raw goat milk. I suggested he buy yogurts and produce at a local store to supplement.

This is a first for me. Until now, the food served at the dorms has been adequate for all of our boys. In this case, I’m sure they could have found a different solution, but this is one that I feel good about nutritionally. I hope this will be a good solution to keep them nourished from a distance!

Avivah

From expansion to contraction – so many children leaving home at once!

homeschooling, parenting

We’ve been enjoying our summer with lots of guests and activities! For the past few weeks my oldest daughter was staying in the house behind us so on most days we had twice daily visits from her with our grandchildren. Then our second daughter came with her family for Shabbos, joining our 21 year old daughter and all the boys other than ds20 were home (he went back to yeshiva early to get settled in). It was so, so lovely to have Shabbos together with all of them.

From expansion to contraction – it happens abruptly. On Saturday night, our second daughter’s family left. Sunday morning I took our sixteen and fourteen year old sons to yeshiva in RBS; our 21 year old came along and I dropped her off at a bus stop to Jerusalem. I returned in the evening and learned that our oldest daughter and her family had returned to their home that day. So it’s just me, my husband and the three youngest boys at home now. Two of them will be starting school in a few hours; by the time you read this they’ll already be sitting in their classrooms.

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Last night I attended the introductory meeting for mothers for my five year old’s class. I was the first mother to arrive, and I had time to say only ‘Hello’ before the teacher exclaimed, “Let me guess whose mother you are!” (She met the students when she came in one day during camp.) I waited for a moment, and she guessed, “Rafael Werner!”

Right, I told her with a smile. (She accurately guessed all the other mothers who arrived afterwards as well.) “I could tell because he looks just like you.” Isn’t that nice? She’s not the first one to say he looks like me! But she’ll probably be surprised when she eventually learns that he’s not my biological child.

Afterward the general meeting she commented I had been quiet. I told her I didn’t come to talk, but to hear what she had to say. It’s an hour drive to the school, so it’s a commitment of several hours for me to attend. I make the effort not because I learn anything important for me, but because I want his teacher to know who Rafael’s mother is and to be aware that we’re actively involved in his education.

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It’s been a long summer but it seems to have gone by so quickly! We chose to keep ds10 and ds5 home for six of the eight week vacation; I enjoyed having them home and at the same time, feel ready for them to go back to school. Not with a sense of, ‘finally, I get time to myself!’ More like, they’ve been filled up by all this time and they’re ready to fully benefit from their time in school, and for the first time I’m sending them without any ambivalence.

As we did last year, the boys will leave school by 1 pm, returning around 2 pm. This is unusual since the school day is officially over at 2:30 and all the other children stay for the afternoon program, which ends at 5 pm (they would get home close to 6:30 pm). Some of you will remember that we started this arrangement the year before last, when ds10 began attending this school towards the end of the year. We were told this was the only time slot available for transportation for him. Then last year, I told them we would be willing to take that slot again, and at the end of the year filed a formal request for them to be allowed to leave school early.

So this year we’re doing the same early dismissal for them. 

Don’t think they come home and I fill their day with lots of enriching activities. I don’t. I don’t ignore them all afternoon, but we made the above choice with the understanding that it’s draining to be in school, and we want them to have the downtime to relax. When I can do activities with them, I do, but I also appreciate that they know how to constructively occupy themselves together. 

(The most important aspect of this choice is that it’s much harder to be emotionally connected to a child/parents you hardly see, and we like to be around our children and for them to be around us. )

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My fourteen year old is now attending the same yeshiva as his brother. He’s been homeschooled for most of his life (he attended gan/kindergarten for 18 months after moving to Israel eleven years ago), he’s a very likeable and enjoyable person to spend time with, and it wasn’t easy to think of him leaving for a dorm. I just tried not to think about it. Then a little thing – seeing a bowl of freshly gathered eggs from his coop and thinking he won’t be here to gather them anymore – got me all choked up before he left and it was hard to reel that sadness back in. Sometimes feelings come out unexpectedly sideways.

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A number of people have asked me why I chose to send a child to yeshiva, when he was excelling in every way when homeschooled. It was a hard decision, and I spent several months thinking about it before bringing it up to my son. When a child is so happy with their lives, when it’s so well-balanced (spiritually and materially) and filled with good things, it’s hard to change anything. Why mess with success?

I knew that my son could continue in the path he’s on, and would do well. But as I told him, we’re put in this world to grow, not to stay comfortable. I want him to expand as a ben Torah, specifically in reaching higher levels of Torah learning and in connecting with a variety of Torah role models, and that meant sending him somewhere where he could access more opportunities. As much as I strongly value having my children living at home, building relationships with them daily….his spiritual development is even more important to me at this stage of his life.

We talked about this a lot. He was concerned that the long day of learning would be difficult and stressful; his hesitation was if he was unhappy, then that wouldn’t constitute growth. I suggested he look at being at yeshiva as a different kind of happiness; rather than as giving up everything that makes him happy now, he could focus on the gains he was making. I told him that what he has here now will be waiting for him if he chooses to come back to it, but the opportunity to go to yeshiva at this stage of life will pass.

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So what will I do with myself now that I’m officially homeschooling just my thirteen year old? I don’t know yet. I do know that I want to be very conscious of spending time with him. The dynamics change every time a child leaves home, and this time the dynamics are shifting in a big way. We’ve never had just one child being homeschooled before. There have always been siblings to do things with.

Last year, when ds5 began school, I had time in the morning for myself, something I hadn’t had for many years. But I still had two teen boys in and out of the house all day. My bedroom is like Grand Central. I go in there to take a nap, and within a short time everyone follows me. It’s uncanny how that happens. 🙂 During vacation I can easily have five or six of my sons sitting around there at one time. 

Each time one of our children has moved out, it positively shifts my relationship with the next child in line as they become the oldest in the house and have more time one on one with me. I know how fast time passes, how quickly our children grow up, and I don’t want to get so busy with other activities that I let this time with ds13 slip away.

What that means practically speaking is that I’m considering scheduling our morning time to ensure that we don’t miss each other, so that our schedules coordinate. This has been a challenge for me and ds13 until recently, as he was a night owl and I get up early. By the time he would get home from shul and daily learning, I’d be ready for my midday rest; he’d be ready to talk late at night when I could hardly keep my eyes open. After his bar mitzva three months ago, he began going to sleep earlier in order to be at shul by 6 am. That has meant that our schedules are much more naturally aligned than they were in the past. 

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For those of you beginning a new school year, whether at home or at school, I wish you a wonderful start!

Avivah

How my kids are staying busy during vacation

aliyah, homeschooling, parenting

>>I’m trying to keep everyone happy and occupied during the summer break.  Do you have any good suggestions?  What are your kids doing to keep busy? <<

I believe the question is directed more towards younger children, so I’ll begin with that. Fortunately, my ten and five year old boys are close friends and so they always have someone to play with. A single child is more easily bored and generally looks for more outside assistance in structuring his time.

Having a pool makes a huge difference for our two younger boys. They are in and out of the pool all day. Though that results in towels and clothing dropped throughout the house during the day, it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. During the week before Tisha B’Av when they couldn’t use the pool, I opted to send them to camp. Swimming is great exercise, it keeps people cool and during the heat of the summer (and it’s very hot where I live) that means being less irritable. Swimming is the single biggest activity for them. My daughter who lives locally also comes to visit daily with her children, so they join our boys in the pool.

Otherwise, it’s the usual: including them in meal prep when I’m cooking or baking, reading together, occasionally I’ll play something with them but generally they play on their own. I encourage my kids to occupy themselves, as I think it’s very healthy. They find things to stay busy with around here.

With a day old chick

Collecting eggs from the chickens
View of the chicken coop in the spring

The shade cloths above all the local parks have been removed due to older kids climbing on them and tearing them, so this summer I haven’t taken them out to parks since it’s too hot without the shade. That means that we’re home most of the time. My husband takes the younger boys to shul most evenings during vacation, and their older brothers have taken them an a couple of hikes, which has been really nice for them.

I don’t take them to the beach at the Kineret during vacation season, since it’s too crowded. I prefer to take them before and after the summer vacation, and am so grateful that I have that possibility.

As far as our teens: my sixteen year old is running the yeshivas bein hazmanim at shul for teen boys (until he got married, my 23 year old son did it), and all of our boys ages 13 – 20 spend several hours each morning learning in shul. (My sixteen year old also took on himself to raise all the funds for the program, which wasn’t easy for him but he did a great job and he ‘grew his muscles’, as I call it when they do things that are outside their comfort zone.)

We’re blessed to live where the older boys have a lot of opportunity for purposeful activity and outdoor fun. All the boys ages 13 and up have as much paid work as they want, and I’m wondering what the people they’re working for are going to do when they go back to yeshiva! They are all good workers and they spend a few hours working every other day or so. We don’t give our sons pocket money so this is a good opportunity for them to earn money for the coming academic term. They schedule their work in a way that they still have time for fun.

They do a lot of hiking/biking/camping. The friends they go with differ from time to time; for example, this week a friend from yeshiva of my twenty year old son is visiting, so our 13 year old took him on a morning hike to a spring. Then my older son got back from learning, and all three of them went on another hike.

Meanwhile that same day, ds16 took a group of younger boys on a hike.
He does this as a community service, since there are no local camps and he sees the boys appreciate the outings. Last week he took them on a bike trip, and this week is taking them all on a hike to a natural spring.

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This week in yeshivas bein hazmanim, they had a shiur given by a visiting rabbi about how to kosher meat. That was followed by a trip to a farm to see a chicken being butchered and then kashering the meat. The same rabbi gave another shiur about Sukkos and the mitzva of lulav, and then they went out to harvest palm fronds. Hands on learning!

A couple of days ago I took ds16 and ds13 driving in the dirt roads among the agricultural fields. (Meaning, I let them drive for the first time.) That was such a nice thing to do with them; we all enjoyed it so much! I’ve never done that before, but would love to do it again before their summer vacation ends in a week. In Israel we don’t have the possibility of getting a learner’s permit and then driving with an adult; all driving happens only with paid instructors until a person gets a license. Driving isn’t a very hard thing to do, and practice is what makes a person good at it. But there’s nowhere to do that with a minor here; hence my realization that I could do this in the back roads meant a new opportunity.

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It’s really nice to see how constructively busy and happy they all are. A vacation is an opportunity to recharge and connect with your family and friends, and I love that they’re doing that. Life is made for happiness and meaning, but too often the day to day grind that has become the norm.

Someone staying in my vacation apartment commented that living here, I probably never need to go away on vacation. She’s right. I live in a place and in a way that is relaxing and renewing for me, and I have no desire to ‘get away’ at all. My vacation time is special to me because I have all my boys at home, and I cherish that.

Eleven years ago today, our family left the US to make aliyah. It’s a very wonderful thing to be where we all are after all these years!

Avivah

Ten years after our Trisomy 21 diagnosis…reflections

parenting, Trisomy 21

Last week we celebrated Yirmi’s tenth birthday. It doesn’t seem like a decade ago that we got the surprise diagnosis that our newborn son had Trisomy 21. I suppose time always seems to pass more swiftly than you expect it to.

I’ve learned quite a bit along the way, but the biggest ongoing lessons have been: believe in yourself – you love and care about your child more than anyone and you are capable; believe in your child – you know him and his potential more than anyone; and keep believing in him even when externally it looks and feels discouraging.

As I just wrote that and looked at it, I thought to myself, well, what was so different about that than any child? And the answer is, nothing. But these have been my biggest takeaways during this last decade, and continue to be what I hold in the forefront on my mind.

I’ve shared before that I’ve often felt inadequate, wishing I had the resources to do more for him. I’ve had to put aside thoughts of what other mothers do to support their children and not compare myself.

In spite of what I haven’t done and continue not to do, I have an intelligent and capable son who happens to have T21. He’s doing great and continues to develop and mature. And I’m maturing, too, continually becoming more appreciative of things in the present moment, as they are right now, without holding out for perfection.

I really don’t believe in perfection, but when it came to Yirmi I wanted so much to be able to give him the support I felt he deserved that would enable him to actualize his potential. While that is a noble intention and came from a place mostly of love (but let’s be honest, there’s always ego there), realistically I have to wonder how many human beings on the planet have fully realized their elusive potential.

I had an internal struggle after having Yirmi, since my educational philosophy is based on giving kids the space and time to step into who they want to be and want they want to do. I’m not a fan of pushing kids much. But the proactive moms of kids with T21 whom I most identified with, do a tremendous amount to actively support their children. The accomplishments of their children looked so compelling, and I wanted those for my child, too.

I can feel guilty about it or not, but I am who I am. I’m a fantastic mediator, I’m a good role model of life-long learning, and I provide a lot of hands-on, skill-based learning opportunities. That comes easily to me; I don’t have to read books on how to do it or schedule it in to my day, or work hard to remember I should be doing that. I read quality books to my children, use good vocabulary when speaking to them, and their comprehension and verbal expression reflects that.

Other things don’t come naturally to me…activities that don’t come naturally to me are the things I end up feeling inadequate about. I felt they should be done whether I found them easy to do or not, since my child deserved to have this kind of support.

It’s so, so easy to slip into focusing on what you’re not doing. My challenge has been to let go of that ‘not enough’ voice and actively appreciate where we are now: “My kids are doing great, I’m enough and let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.”

I’ve also found peace of mind about having him in a special needs school. Letting go of my ideal of inclusive learning wasn’t easy. While the school he attends is a state of the art school and I very much appreciate all that they do and how they do it, I felt I failed by not continuing to pursue inclusive school environments. Why not? Because it felt like too much pushing, too much advocating, too much interfacing and educating teachers and administrators. I questioned if it was fair to him to put him in a school system where he was likely to be at the bottom of the class, no matter how hard he tried. I’ve never put my children in high pressure environments, since I don’t believe that’s beneficial developmentally. I wouldn’t do it to my neurotypical kids, so why was it desirable in the name of inclusion to do it to my sensitive, open-hearted child with T21?

I can sum up the last decade by saying, I’ve had and continue to have opportunities to practice appreciating who I am and putting the focus on that. The more that I’ve stayed true to myself, to what I believe- even if I disappoint those who would prefer I promote a different message or take different actions – the more at rest I feel within myself.

We seek to create an atmosphere at home in which our children can find that critical ‘rest’ that is so necessary for development, a place of not having to prove, of being safe, of knowing he is just right the way he is – and this is the same kind of space we should be creating for ourselves as parents.

You can see that most of the last ten years wasn’t about Yirmi – it was about me sifting through lots of information and perspectives, and making room for my own beliefs. It was about letting go of frustrations I sometimes felt when he wasn’t hitting milestones at a pace I would have liked, and replacing it with genuine appreciation and acceptance for his personal timeline. It’s been hugely about accepting and appreciating my own self.

Raising children isn’t for wimps. Raising kids with special needs has the potential to make you look even more closely and deeply at yourself. While I can look at what others do and genuinely appreciate their efforts and be glad for them, I no longer participate in T21 groups that I had considered a source of inspiration, because the inspiration I received paled next to the inadequacy I was left with. Recognizing something can be valuable to someone else but doesn’t serve me at this time, and being willing to let go of it is an important lesson.

Someone asked me today, is it really much harder to raise kids with T21? I paused, because I don’t want to sugarcoat and I don’t want to exaggerate.

Two and a half years ago I went on a two day trip sponsored by the school ds5 was in at the time, and it was such a positive experience for me to be in a room with other parents of children with a diagnosis, and I hope I’ll have another opportunity in the future to participate in a similar kind of getaway. It was a relief to be able to mention an area of challenge, without feeling someone would judge me as complaining or judge my child for being limited.

So yes, there are things that are harder or different, things that have required me to be more patient, to work harder, to do more. Has it helped me grow as a person? I hope so.

I feel the most accurate answer to the above question is, “It’s mostly the same as raising any child, with some differences.”

A teaching assistant of Yirmi’s told me a couple of years ago, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Yirmi and his developmental pace. The problem is the world expects it to be different.” There’s a deep, deep truth to that statement.

Avivah

A beautiful bar mitzva! Photos and updated family pic

parenting

What a busy, beautiful weekend of family celebration, in honor of our newest bar mitzva boy!

Silly brothers pic
My mom with the bar mitzva boy
Our oldest son with his family
Our oldest daughter with her family
Our second daughter and her family
Our newest couple – our second son and his wife
With nephews

I appreciate that the photographer took a lot of spontaneous pictures.

Me with our two youngest boys and two granddaughters
My mom with her youngest great-grandson
My youngest daughter with my youngest granddaughter

It’s not easy to get a picture of a large group of people, and it’s basically impossible to get a picture without someone blinking or moving. And with late afternoon temps in the 90s, tired children….everyone did great!

Our greatest blessing in life – our family.

It was a lot of work cooking and baking and organizing, but I had so much sincere enjoyment that it didn’t seem so significant.

This week’s Torah portion was the third longest in the entire Torah – my last son had a double parsha, and this parsha was more than twice as long as the double parsha!

This bar mitzva boy is a late reader, but he not only prepared the entire parsha, but the haftarah as well. Many people commented to me on how confident he was, that his reading was clear, loud and accurate. He was consistent and persistent in his preparations, and we are all so proud of him!

His reading took an entire hour. Literally. It was really, really long. Afterwards, he told me he felt a bit sad that it was over, and he was sorry he hadn’t read the haftarah more slowly to enjoy it even more. He’s already planning to prepare some of the Torah reading for an upcoming week!

He’s a wonderful young man and it’s been gratifying watching him grow up.

I’m feeling quite a bit of poignancy, some bittersweet feelings. This was the last of three bar mitzvas in just a little over three years, and it will be a few years until the next one. They really do grow up so fast….

Avivah

Formula shortages and formula options

frugal strategies, health, nutrition, parenting

A few weeks ago there began to be a shortage of formula in the US, a situation that has reached what some officials have called a ‘crisis situation’.

Baby formula is in dramatically short supply, with many stores locking up the formula, limiting it to one per customer, or the stock in the stores simply not there. Parents of babies who need formula are having to drive far distances, pay exorbitant online prices to opportunist sellers – or do without.

As a mother of 11 who has been deeply committed to breastfeeding, I nonetheless have experienced the challenge of not being able to nurse two of my babies. I nursed my tenth child, who had a weak sucking reflex, for four months, while simultaneously pumping for several hours a day to keep my supply up. I finally gave up when despite all my efforts, I couldn’t produce the milk he needed. (I later realized that the two pumps I had borrowed were faulty and that was the source of the problem, but in my exhausted state and with very limited community resources, I couldn’t access other options.)

I turned to formula, trying different kinds while also looking for goats’ milk and mothers’ milk donors, for the most part without success. Finally, after five months we found a formula he could tolerate, that was only available by medical prescription and cost over 1000 shekels a month.

When my eleventh child came into our lives via the legal system, I began seeking out mothers’ milk donors before he even arrived home. I was then living in the center of the country, and access to community resources was dramatically different. Like his brother before him, he couldn’t tolerate regular formula. For the first two years, we were blessed to be able to give him mother’s milk for all but two months (a week here, a week there, when the donor milk couldn’t be found), and for those in-between times we supplemented with a medical prescription formula. I later donated the many unused cans we had purchased to a mother in financial need whose child used that specialty formula. I was so grateful to have the resources that I needed to keep him healthy.

When I think of these desperate mothers seeking food for their babies, it’s heartbreaking. I once ran out of formula due to logistics in prescription/purchasing rules (those have since changed) and we ended up in the emergency room on Shabbos as a result.

These mothers need options. While breastfeeding is wonderful and I fully support it, it’s not an option for everyone. It’s disturbing for me to see commentators – especially men – suggesting that if mothers would be breastfeeding they wouldn’t be in this situation.

Many women physically can’t produce milk no matter how much they try, due to illness or physical challenge on the side of the mother or baby; there are foster/adoptive parents/grandparents raising children that they didn’t give birth to.

I do believe that steps will be taken to to increase formula production and hopefully this will be a short-lived crisis. In the interim, parents need help. If you are a nursing mother and know someone struggling with the formula shortage, perhaps you can offer to help out by pumping. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the tens of mothers who kept our youngest nourished and healthy thanks to their donations. Or if you see formula in your stores, buy it to donate to someone else who can’t find it. Or share the below information for how to make their own.

How did people feed their infants in the days before commercially produced formula was available? Hiring a wet nurse was a common practice, but in cultures that didn’t have that practice, parents made their own. Here’s are two recipes for formula that are nutritionally complete that were published in Nourishing Traditions; one is dairy and one is meat based. Goat milk is an excellent replacement for mother’s milk, though it needs to be supplemented with vitamin B12 and folate. Many of our elders who were bottle-fed were raised on evaporated milk mixed with Karo syrup; here is a simple emergency formula replacement recipe using evaporated milk, as well as an excellent explanation for why evaporated milk is a better option than regular milk. **Disclaimer: of course every parent needs to verify with their medical professionals that the option they are considering is appropriate for their child.**

Hopefully this situation will quickly be resolved. In the meantime, parents can look to alternative solutions and feel empowered knowing they have the tools to keep their babies fed and happy.

Avivah

My father-in-law’s passing and musings about memories we leave behind

parenting, personal development

Thirty years ago, my husband and I dated and then got engaged while we were both studying in Israel. Afterwards we flew back to the US to meet each other’s parents.

It was erev Pesach when he picked me up to take me to meet his parents. I was going to be spending the seder and the subsequent meals of the first two days of the holiday with them. It was a rainy day, and he admits he was a little distracted and didn’t notice the exit we were meant to take until it was almost too late; he exited the highway too quickly, the car spun out of control on the slick road and we crashed into the side of the road. It was at the service station we had been towed to that I first met my father-in-law, when he came to pick us up.

He was kind and gracious, notable since it was his car my husband had been driving, and it was a few hours before Pesach began, a time that is generally very busy. This gentle, kind quality is something that has been consistent throughout the years.

At the beginning of this week my husband got a call that his father was suddenly given a very short time to live, and to get there as soon as possible. He was able to get a flight that night, and was there for three days, waiting for what we all knew was inevitable. He passed this morning.

My husband was the only one of my immediate family to be present at the funeral in person, but the rest of us were present via webcast for the funeral services. It was a gift to be able to participate in that way, to hear what was shared about my father-in-law. All of what was said was consistent with my own experience.

Afterward I spoke with my oldest son, and we talked about how a person’s life is summed up in just a few minutes. What are you remembered for when you’re no longer here? It really comes down to character and relationships. I would hazard a guess that even someone who was professionally very successful would not have this directly referenced as his greatest legacy unless he had no relationships that were of significance.

It’s not comfortable to think about what people will say about you at your funeral (at least for me it’s not), but I think it’s worth asking one’s self what you want them to say.

I’ve been thinking lately about acts of kindness. A couple of weeks ago, the weekly Torah portion included the concept of loving another person as yourself. We shared several stories at our Shabbos table of how people extended themselves for others, and I felt very aware that I have plenty of room to grow in this area.

Also in the last couple of weeks, the indoor mask mandates in Israel have been dropped, and I feel differently when I’m out and about. Warmer, more open, more friendly, more kind. More like the person I used to be. That means that my normative behavior has become more closed and self-focused in the last couple of years when I’m in public.

My newest daughter-in-law has an aunt and uncle in Baltimore (where my in-laws live) who during this week have been a beautiful model of how to reach out to others. They have visited the hospital daily, brought loads of food, sung and prayed with my father-in-law, picked up my husband from the airport, driven for hours to the burial in New Jersey – hardly knowing my in-laws or us. That kind of response comes from people who are so used to doing acts of service for others that they do it as naturally as breathing.

I think that when one is more open-hearted, one naturally notices others and wants to be of assistance. It’s first and foremost a way of thinking, that leads to a way of acting. I feel like a person who has been sleeping and has to shake off the lethargy, and consciously remind myself to do the kind of things I used to do on a regular basis.

While I don’t yet have an answer about what I want people to say about me after I’m gone, I’m clear that I don’t like the self-oriented focus that has slipped in. While in large part this has happened because I’ve perceived others as closing themselves in and not desiring contact with others, with this new awareness, I’m starting to make some very small shifts in the direction I’d prefer to go.

Avivah

Ds12 putting on tefillin

parenting

Guess who put on tefillin for the first time today?!

After my husband and the boys came home from shul, my husband and I took a walk, and I said, “Remember when we had the bigs, the middles and the littles?” (Our nickname for the groupings of our first nine children – we had three children born in three years (the bigs), then a 2.5 year break, then three children born in 3.5 years (the middles), then a 3.75 year break, then three children born in three years (the littles.)

My long term readers will remember me referencing our children as such.

Well, this is the youngest of the littles. He’s been growing up for a long time :), but now officially that era has ended.

He was the second child born after I started this blog, the only one to have a picture of him posted right after he was born – the first picture of a family member on this blog. He’s grown up to be an amazing, mature, kind, social, connecting person with tremendous natural empathy and understanding of others.

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We had a lovely Pesach with almost all of our married children here for the seder – the only exception was our newest couple, who instead spent the last days of the holiday with us. We are extremely blessed that although we have a lot of people here together at once, they all get along well and it’s harmonious and comfortable.

It’s a lot of work hosting, but it brings me such joy. Watching our three granddaughters (between the ages of 3 – 3 3/4) play together, along with my five year old, is so wonderful. Hopefully the four grandsons (born within a year) will also have that friend-relationship with their cousins.

When we talked about moving here, one big concern was that it would create more distance between us and our married children and grandchildren. My husband said that they would come less frequently but when they did, it would be a different kind of experience for them to visit us. He was so right.

It makes a huge difference having a larger home and a comfortable space to host when family comes. It means a lot to me when my oldest son told me that his wife is the one who initiates their visits, who really enjoys her stays here, that they chose to come for Pesach even though officially this was her parents turn to have them for the seder. My second daughter told me that they never could have stayed with us for a week and a half if we were still in RBS. Our space, though adequate for short visits, wouldn’t have been comfortable for an extended visit.

Now, they can feel like they’re on vacation when they come, since it’s a more country like atmosphere than where they live.

When our grandchildren run through the grass and jump on the trampoline together, when they see the newly hatched chicks and hold a rabbit, when they splash around in the pool together, when the babies swing in the bucket swing that I bought several years ago picturing them using it….I feel so content.

Sometimes I marvel to my husband at how miraculous it seems, how G-d has blessed us with so many special people in our lives, and he agrees and then reminds me how much effort we invested into creating this outcome.

When almost everyone went back home to Jerusalem (we still have two teen boys home from yeshiva break for just two more days), there was a slight bit of wistfulness. I do love having all my chicks in the nest.

It’s nice to know that we’ll have everyone back here in another month for the bar mitzva. I’m hoping to get an updated family photo. The last one was taken three years ago at my sixteen year old’s bar mitzva, and there are five new family members since that picture was taken. I thought we’d get an updated photo at the wedding eight months ago, but due to logistics, we have no family picture that includes our newest daughter-in-law. The photographer said he would photoshop her in, but when the albums came, she was still missing from the picture. The photographer did a beautiful job on all the pictures, and it’s really for the best. The colors and background color of the wedding photos wouldn’t have been a good match for our living room, and two babies were born since then so it’s all good.

Having my oldest daughter living close by is so nice, and then there’s the added bonus that for the bar mitzva she’ll be able to host one couple or family at her house. Last week new bunkbeds arrived for one boys’ room, to make it possible for all the boys at home to double up and free up a bedroom if necessary, thereby making room for another couple. Even though it’s doable, it’s more comfortable to share the hosting with my daughter and son-in-law.

Someone asked me about what our plans for the bar mitzva are. When I told her: a kiddush on Shabbos morning, meals for the family all together for Shabbos, and then on Saturday night a party at our home for men and boys, she told me how fortunate we are to be able to keep things simple. It’s true. I’m appreciative of living in a place where there isn’t a high material standard to be pressured by.

Avivah

Doing all the right things as a parent…so why did my kids turn out like this?

parenting

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a long-time blog reader in our vacation apartment here in Yavneel, and enjoyed the opportunity to get to know her. She shared that she had resentment towards the parenting approach promoted in a particular forum, since it seemed to offer a tantalizing promise of results that didn’t actualize in her life, despite doing all the right things.

Years ago, someone asked me why anyone should listen to anything I had to say about parenting, since at that time I had written about a child who was going through a rough period.

And one more encounter. Last week I was interviewed by an Israeli charedi writer about homeschooling. One thing she expressed surprise about was that a parent who is homeschooling would still feel frustration, impatience or a need to have personal space.

All of these reflect the simplistic (and false and dangerous!) belief that there is some kind of perfectionism possible in the world of parenting. If you do everything right, the thinking goes, your children will be poster children. (Or if you have poster children, it’s because you’re the perfect parent.) The flip side of that assumption is, if your children are challenging or challenged in some visible way, you did something wrong.

Sorry. Parenting isn’t a perfect equation like that.

I deeply appreciate something I heard Dr. Gordon Neufeld say on one of his video trainings. He said, sometimes people think if you are parenting from a place of understanding and using the principles of healthy attachment, that you’re never going to have any issues. Not so.

What understanding and using these principles does do, he continued, is give you a way to ride out the storm, to not make a bad situation worse, to get to safe harbor.

This is so important to understand and internalize. Your child is going to have his own journey through life, and all of the factors in his life can’t be controlled by you, nor can they be blamed on you.

While there are families that have less than ideal parenting practices who would greatly benefit from being more accepting and compassionate of their children, many, many solid families have faced significant challenges with their children. If you’ve had a smooth and unchallenged parenting path, chances are very high that your children are still relatively young – or that G-d chose to challenge you in a different area of your life.

I’ve been blessed with wonderful children, and people look at our family from the outside and make comments that presume it was easy, that we’ve never faced challenges, that our children always like us and want to be around us. Let me pause while I hold back a strangled snort.

I didn’t write about parenting or do parenting consultations for a year and a half while two teenagers were simultaneously going through a period in which they were convinced I was the worst parent in the world. I won’t describe that period, other than to say it took all my emotional energy to keep thinking good thoughts about them, not to descend into hostility, and not to feel discouraged. I kept holding on to the principles that I write about, trusting that we would get through the storm. And we did.

I don’t believe in simplistic answers, I don’t believe in making false promises, and I certainly don’t believe in advocating perfectionism. While it sounds nice and neat to package parenting into a set of practices and then guarantee results, who can do that in a process as complex as parenting? There are so, so many factors, personalities and abilities, traumas that some children experience, and all of these factors will affect their development.

However, I do deeply believe in the power of love and acceptance of our children, especially at times when that feels hard. I was asked if someone who has children who didn’t stay religious should be teaching about parenting. (Black and white thinking – your kids turned out perfectly, you have the right to teach. They don’t, you don’t.) I told her if the person has a good relationship with her children despite the religious differences, there’s a lot to learn from her.

It’s the people who have had to work for what they have that you can learn the most from, not those for whom it fell into their laps.

My interviewer fell into the trap of making black and white equations – ‘if you do this, then you won’t feel that’ – idealizing and putting a homeschooling parent so far up on a pedestal that she was closer to an angel than a human being. I had to strongly stress repeatedly that a parent is going to sometimes have negative emotions regardless of how and where his child is educated, and we all have to work on that.

We parents put so much pressure on ourselves. Take a step back from the harsh judgments of yourself and other parents. We’re all doing the best we can. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s hard to see your child struggle and I don’t want to minimize how hard that can feel. But what I’m saying is to drop that black and white programming that is still running on your mental computer, thinking that you were the defect in the system, that it happened because you were inadequate and failed. There is no guarantee of results because it’s not possible. We all do the best we can and the results are up to G-d.

Avivah