"What if we taught girls how to remain hopeful through the dating process? How to cope with all your friends getting engaged and married while you’re still single?"
Ariella Schiller’s story about the woman who finds that her job is taking away from her ability to be there for her family hit home for me. As a working mom who enjoys learning and growing in my field, the decision to work more part-time or to follow a less competitive career path is difficult. Balancing being wife and mother while enjoying a career is a tough one. Your story highlighted this challenge in a very tangible way. I felt like you were in my brain. Keep the stories coming!
Your friend in the Midwest
I’m deeply concerned by the premise of the article “Gut Reaction,” about how a mother was finally able to resolve her son’s health issues with the aid of a healthy diet and fermentation.
I’m saddened that a mom would so reflexively blame herself for a yeast overgrowth. It’s a shame that mothering and self-flagellation go together so casually. Ladies, unless you were on drugs while pregnant, you did your best. Move on.
Respiratory issues could and should be dealt with using Western medicine with naturopathy being used as an adjunct only. Go for the borscht or whatever, but lema’an Hashem, please provide the western medical cures as well.
Remember, just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s safe.
For example, some essential oils (think lavender or teakwood) relax the muscles. If you have a child with a pseudo wheeze due to floppy upper-airway muscles, using these very potent products can have catastrophic side effects. But unless you have significant experience or see a competent doctor regularly, you will not know what you are hearing.
Doctors have a whole lot of training. Prevention magazines, the Shulem hotline, or a Google search are not appropriate replacements for med school.
So, to summarize:
It’s not your fault.
Find a doctor you can trust.
Give the inhaled steroid along with the borscht.
A Jewish mother with 20 years of experience in respiratory medicine and a long string of letters after her name.
Thank you for publishing the Words Unspoken about asking seminary teachers to prepare girls so that they don’t panic about shidduchim. As a seminary graduate, the piece really resonated with me. Seminaries have so many marriage classes that are very insightful and necessary, and I’m sure a lot of girls benefit from sitting through them. But shouldn’t we give girls other tools in addition to those classes? After all, not everyone gets married right after stepping off the plane. What lessons will those girls cling to?
What if we taught girls how to remain hopeful through the dating process? How to cope with all your friends getting engaged and married while you’re still single? What to do when your younger sibling starts dating? How to retain what you learned in seminary in the coming years?
There are so many other classes seminaries can give, but perhaps the most crucial lesson seminaries can give over is the one the author mentioned: “…instilling within them true faith in Hashem, and fortifying our daughters with something they’ll need more and more as they travel through adulthood.”
A Seminary Graduate Who’s Been There
It’s very nice to ask seminary teachers to help stop their students’ panic about shidduchim, but perhaps you should be addressing some of the real and ridiculous sources of panic. A sense of panic evolves when there are unreasonable and ridiculous realities put into place for shidduchim. Change those realities across the board, and the panic will dissipate.
For a case in point about a valid source of panic, read no further than the letters referring to the previous Double Takes column, about the people upset at their mechutanim for not providing more support to the couple. To the girls reading the original story and the letter that followed: You can avoid both situations by a very simple approach. Don’t enter into marriages in which you are dependent on others to support your husband’s learning. If you are genuinely interested in starting your marriage with strong kollel years, be prepared to live simply and to support yourselves.
There are happy and successful kollel marriages in which none of this meshigas occurs because the couple (and their parents) do not feel entitled to any outside support. The couple is mistapek b’muat and supports themselves. Their marriage is not tied up in any wealthy father-in-law’s business, and their shalom bayis is not dependent on the stock market. It’s not easy, but they do it….
It’s beautiful when parents can support their children in kollel and choose to do so, but if your parents can’t do it, don’t worry. Torah is the yerushah of all Klal Yisrael and not just those with wealthy fathers-in-law! If you are prepared to live a simple lifestyle, and you really want your husband to learn in kollel, start asking around — it’s possible. Speak to those happy people who have put in the hard work and have done it successfully.
There are a lot of reasons for shidduch panic, but asking seminary teachers to address these deeply rooted societal problems by conveying emunah to the girls is really missing the point. Let’s teach our children responsibility before marriage and focus on the problems at hand. Yes, seminary teachers can inspire with emunah and bitachon — but as a society, let’s simultaneously show achrayus where it is due.
A Reader
Create a free account to keep reading.
