Families in Stress

 Sruly has been out of work for six months already and the family finances are in a bad state. Thankfully Rachel has been able to work extra hours to put food on the table. However she’s clearly worse for wear: getting up early and then coming home late to a house that still needs cleaning and kids who are showing signs of mother-deprivation is not working for her. She is irritable exhausted and overwhelmed.

Unfortunately she can’t turn to Sruly for support. As the designated “cause of the problem” Sruly feels guilty enough. He doesn’t want to hear about how hard things are for his wife. He is sleepless with depression and anxiety. While he “knows” that Hashem will take care of everything he cannot move this knowledge down to his chest. Tightened muscles shortness of breath and even occasional palpitations fill the area that should be permeated with the soothing warmth of emunah and bitachon. His poor score on this spiritual test only adds to his feelings of inadequacy and failure. Sruly actually needs support as much as his wife does but he can’t get it either.

So instead of anyone helping anyone husband and wife continue to snap at each other and overreact to minor misunderstandings. Anger and tension escalate as the weeks and months of unemployment go on. Of course when conflict escalates the whole house spirals downward. Husband wife and children suffer trauma. Whether things have reached that point or stopped short of actual verbal or physical violence intense periods of stress take their toll on each member of the family.

Children and Intense Stress

When adults are seriously stressed they cannot always afford the “luxury” of tuning into their children. Of course they will take care of their kids as usual providing the necessities of life and sometimes even the standard “frills.” But it may be provided in a distracted manner by a parent whose mind and heart is elsewhere. For their part children may not appear to notice. Against the background of adult financial struggle marital crisis health crisis family crisis — even death or divorce — the kids seem preoccupied with their own little lives. They play with their friends. They do or don’t do their homework as usual. They fight with their siblings beg for new clothes and toys read their books and in general carry on as usual. Their parents are relieved because they have so much else on their minds that they really don’t have time right now for extra problems with the children.