After about ten minutes of waiting for the feeding to begin, I turned to MBB and said "do you know what I realized?" and he responded, correctly:
"That we are the only English speaking people here?"
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Tourists and Jews
As we sat on the cold stone steps waiting for the sea lions to be fed at the Central Park Zoo today, we realized who besides Jews goes to the zoo on Christmas morning.
After about ten minutes of waiting for the feeding to begin, I turned to MBB and said "do you know what I realized?" and he responded, correctly:
"That we are the only English speaking people here?"
After about ten minutes of waiting for the feeding to begin, I turned to MBB and said "do you know what I realized?" and he responded, correctly:
"That we are the only English speaking people here?"
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Smokey Nos
Last night we were out with my brother and sister in law. As readers of the Yated they informed us there was an alleged Kol Koreh from many Rabbonim saying that boys should get married at 18.
Married at 18? A father at 19?I would not want an 18 year old to attempt to be a husband to my daughters. An 18 year old boy? Seriously. It would be very simple. We would become (which in a lot of ways we have already) like the Chassidim, where being married means not being independent at all, going to parents every Shabbos, and most nights of the week for supper.
It really is the natural progression for the way we live our lives. Children have no responsibility, need to be happy and coddled all the time, and the boys, well they get extra coddling. After all, they get up early to go to Minyan, and they have very few days off, and always need to be learning. The off shoot of that is extra coddling and little responsibility when they come home. This ties in with the idea of parenting from fear, if we don't make the admittedly hard schedule easier for them, then they may not want to stay in learning.
How about that. We have an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff in a system that is upside down and haywire, but most parents aren't willing to do it. If a kid loves learning he will learn, and keep to his schedule, and participate in household chores when he is it at home. You know, like real life when he gets married. And if we are going to marry them off at 18, then you're darn-tootin' this is something to start in High School.
Though it's not likely to work.
Guys today are getting married as young as 21, and their heads are so full of how great they are, and how everyone must be machshiv them (including baking them cookies), that they cannot think beyond themselves. They have been so coddled that when they marry a girl who has a great job, or is great at it, it matters not. They are moving where THEY can learn better, regardless of the long term effects this will have. Girls can leave a well paying job for a lousy one, or commute, or leave a teaching job they are GOOD at so that a guy can learn in Lakewood. Teachers are a dime a dozen in Lakewood, those jobs are hard to come by. So one girl who is a fantastic teacher is now a secretary in an office in Lakewood. In that case the pay scale is the same, but for the girls who give up well paying jobs to move elsewhere why not make some good money before the bills, and the kids really start coming?
Which brings up another issue. How dare these girls leave their teaching jobs in the middle of the year because their new husbands want to learn somewhere else. Teaching is more than a job, and when dealing with children yo have a responsibility that goes beyond showing up for three hours a day. The Torah is timeless, and placeless, and can be learned and is everywhere. S why does all the scarifice for Kollel seem to be on the women? They give up good jobs, and commute, and get paid less so they can work harder and eventually leave their kids for longer.
Where is the sacrifice from the men? Yes, they are learning, and yes it is hard to keep up the fire and it's hard to sit and learn, but earning a living is hard too, and I do not believe the sacrifice is the learning.
Obviously this all generalizations, there are individuals always who will be truer or stronger in what they are doing, and men who will sacrifice.
Just not at 18.
Married at 18? A father at 19?I would not want an 18 year old to attempt to be a husband to my daughters. An 18 year old boy? Seriously. It would be very simple. We would become (which in a lot of ways we have already) like the Chassidim, where being married means not being independent at all, going to parents every Shabbos, and most nights of the week for supper.
It really is the natural progression for the way we live our lives. Children have no responsibility, need to be happy and coddled all the time, and the boys, well they get extra coddling. After all, they get up early to go to Minyan, and they have very few days off, and always need to be learning. The off shoot of that is extra coddling and little responsibility when they come home. This ties in with the idea of parenting from fear, if we don't make the admittedly hard schedule easier for them, then they may not want to stay in learning.
How about that. We have an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff in a system that is upside down and haywire, but most parents aren't willing to do it. If a kid loves learning he will learn, and keep to his schedule, and participate in household chores when he is it at home. You know, like real life when he gets married. And if we are going to marry them off at 18, then you're darn-tootin' this is something to start in High School.
Though it's not likely to work.
Guys today are getting married as young as 21, and their heads are so full of how great they are, and how everyone must be machshiv them (including baking them cookies), that they cannot think beyond themselves. They have been so coddled that when they marry a girl who has a great job, or is great at it, it matters not. They are moving where THEY can learn better, regardless of the long term effects this will have. Girls can leave a well paying job for a lousy one, or commute, or leave a teaching job they are GOOD at so that a guy can learn in Lakewood. Teachers are a dime a dozen in Lakewood, those jobs are hard to come by. So one girl who is a fantastic teacher is now a secretary in an office in Lakewood. In that case the pay scale is the same, but for the girls who give up well paying jobs to move elsewhere why not make some good money before the bills, and the kids really start coming?
Which brings up another issue. How dare these girls leave their teaching jobs in the middle of the year because their new husbands want to learn somewhere else. Teaching is more than a job, and when dealing with children yo have a responsibility that goes beyond showing up for three hours a day. The Torah is timeless, and placeless, and can be learned and is everywhere. S why does all the scarifice for Kollel seem to be on the women? They give up good jobs, and commute, and get paid less so they can work harder and eventually leave their kids for longer.
Where is the sacrifice from the men? Yes, they are learning, and yes it is hard to keep up the fire and it's hard to sit and learn, but earning a living is hard too, and I do not believe the sacrifice is the learning.
Obviously this all generalizations, there are individuals always who will be truer or stronger in what they are doing, and men who will sacrifice.
Just not at 18.
Monday, December 17, 2012
I Just Don't Know
There's a lot of talk now about gun control. Even those who are for bans on certain types of weapons know that it won't do much. THIS explains a lot of why certain bans don't and didn't work in the past.
I have a few thoughts on this subject.
I can't think of a reason that any law abiding citizen needs an automatic weapon with a high capacity magazine. For those who claim they need to be armed in case the government ever goes bad and turns on its people? A bad excuse. Legally attainable guns are no match for Military grade weapons and technology . When the Second Amendment was written this was not the case. The citizenry and the military had the same type of weapons, so it would have been a fair fight if the nascent American experiment had turned sour.
For those who say they need weapons of this caliber to protect their families? They will often at the same time speak of how safe they are in storing their weapons and bullets in two separate places. Really? In the middle of the night with someone in your home attacking your family you will have time to open two safes, get the weapon and the bullets, and hope they're not all dead by the time you've put it all together with shaking hands?
This country has a love affair with guns. It's almost a religion to some people as any thoughts to try to curb some of the more dangerous weapons is automatically met with resistance. But this may be the tipping point. Whether or not a ban on certain types of weapons would even help (because if someone wanted to illegally possess a gun they likely could) I don't think an event of this magnitude will pass without some action.
And that action (assault rifles, automatic/semi automatic/high capacity magazines) and that conversation cannot be allowed to be painted as gun banning by those who like to consider gun CONTROL as more than the middle ground of this debate. Because that's what control is, not a ban, control.
But I do not think much action will change anything until the culture of violence and the religion of guns is changed. As more and more people connect on social media, they disconnect from the world around them. We have learned to be mean in anonymous internet comments and blogs, we have learned to see each person as an impediment to what we want with our own personal desires taking precedence over everything. There are different views and different perspectives in the world. People grow up differently and have different life experiences. Rarely is any one way 100% correct in a social- secular argument. Yet we have become angry on the one hand, and less accepting of those who are different or "off" on the other. WE worship the beautiful and the superficial, and we let the fringe people fall through the cracks.
Why is this so devastating? Because we need to live in a world where we can kiss our children good bye in the morning and assume that we will kiss them good night the same day. So to all those people who must have their 30 round clips in their one pull of the trigger, I must ask what is WRONG with you? Don't worry you can still kill a lot of people with a nine or six shooter, just spend a little more time at the range until you are good at it.
I am left with one thing after what happened in Connecticut, it applies to so many aspects of what happens in this crazy world, and it comes from a man I mostly do not agree with:
This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.
I have a few thoughts on this subject.
I can't think of a reason that any law abiding citizen needs an automatic weapon with a high capacity magazine. For those who claim they need to be armed in case the government ever goes bad and turns on its people? A bad excuse. Legally attainable guns are no match for Military grade weapons and technology . When the Second Amendment was written this was not the case. The citizenry and the military had the same type of weapons, so it would have been a fair fight if the nascent American experiment had turned sour.
For those who say they need weapons of this caliber to protect their families? They will often at the same time speak of how safe they are in storing their weapons and bullets in two separate places. Really? In the middle of the night with someone in your home attacking your family you will have time to open two safes, get the weapon and the bullets, and hope they're not all dead by the time you've put it all together with shaking hands?
This country has a love affair with guns. It's almost a religion to some people as any thoughts to try to curb some of the more dangerous weapons is automatically met with resistance. But this may be the tipping point. Whether or not a ban on certain types of weapons would even help (because if someone wanted to illegally possess a gun they likely could) I don't think an event of this magnitude will pass without some action.
And that action (assault rifles, automatic/semi automatic/high capacity magazines) and that conversation cannot be allowed to be painted as gun banning by those who like to consider gun CONTROL as more than the middle ground of this debate. Because that's what control is, not a ban, control.
But I do not think much action will change anything until the culture of violence and the religion of guns is changed. As more and more people connect on social media, they disconnect from the world around them. We have learned to be mean in anonymous internet comments and blogs, we have learned to see each person as an impediment to what we want with our own personal desires taking precedence over everything. There are different views and different perspectives in the world. People grow up differently and have different life experiences. Rarely is any one way 100% correct in a social- secular argument. Yet we have become angry on the one hand, and less accepting of those who are different or "off" on the other. WE worship the beautiful and the superficial, and we let the fringe people fall through the cracks.
Why is this so devastating? Because we need to live in a world where we can kiss our children good bye in the morning and assume that we will kiss them good night the same day. So to all those people who must have their 30 round clips in their one pull of the trigger, I must ask what is WRONG with you? Don't worry you can still kill a lot of people with a nine or six shooter, just spend a little more time at the range until you are good at it.
I am left with one thing after what happened in Connecticut, it applies to so many aspects of what happens in this crazy world, and it comes from a man I mostly do not agree with:
This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Time and Place
I have no problem with all men strolling over to the women's section during simchas that are separate seating (though I do enjoy giving certain people grief about it). I know to some people separate seating is silly, or ridiculous, and they say unnecessary halachackily, as long as there is a mechitza and separation for dancing. That may be true, but it isn't in practice.
I would like to know why there are so many men who find their way into the women's section during the dancing, especially during the second dance when they want to leave, and are looking for their wives while the dance floor is sparse and mostly filled with jiggling 20 year olds ( I am being kind and not referring to those men who must come in to shmooze with their wives). Either they should wait or find some one to find their wife without being in viewing range. It's unfair to the girls.
We spend all this time telling the girls about the lengths of their skirts and the visibility of their collar bones, and then these men come waltzing in where they don't belong, and now these mostly careful girls are dancing in front of their neighbors, their shul mates or their parents friends.
I am sure there are lots of rationalizations as to why it's really fiiiine to see young girls you know dancing and gyrating, and the answer is not "they shouldn't move like that." This goes back to this whole idea that tzniyus is for women, and men have no responsibility in it. It's wrong, and this and the tight suits, tight pants, and the way a lot of married women dress is further proof that the men just don't care.
If it looks good...go for it.
I would like to know why there are so many men who find their way into the women's section during the dancing, especially during the second dance when they want to leave, and are looking for their wives while the dance floor is sparse and mostly filled with jiggling 20 year olds ( I am being kind and not referring to those men who must come in to shmooze with their wives). Either they should wait or find some one to find their wife without being in viewing range. It's unfair to the girls.
We spend all this time telling the girls about the lengths of their skirts and the visibility of their collar bones, and then these men come waltzing in where they don't belong, and now these mostly careful girls are dancing in front of their neighbors, their shul mates or their parents friends.
I am sure there are lots of rationalizations as to why it's really fiiiine to see young girls you know dancing and gyrating, and the answer is not "they shouldn't move like that." This goes back to this whole idea that tzniyus is for women, and men have no responsibility in it. It's wrong, and this and the tight suits, tight pants, and the way a lot of married women dress is further proof that the men just don't care.
If it looks good...go for it.
Monday, December 3, 2012
We Have A Little "Situation" Here
Little Mr. Two Year Old is quite the creature of habit. So when we got to the Library early for story time today, he had time to do his second favorite thing there: use the water fountain. Normally he uses the fountain in the main section because story time is in a room off of there. So normally there is a stool. Lo and behold in the children's section he didn't need a stool since, well, it's the children's section.
So being relatively tall enough he worked the fountain on his own, and was no longer thirsty, but a bit wet. I looked for books for some of the kids, and we walked back to the main section to wait for the room where the program is held to open. There were some young adult soft cover books right outside the room, so I was able to look for more books while little man followed me.
And apparently started to unbutton his shirt.
I caught it before he got the whole shirt open, then as we stood on line to check out the books, he again made it almost all the way, but was thwarted before the final button.
Books checked out, program complete, we were off to New Jersey to pick up something a friend had ordered from Bloomingdales. He really behaved, really well. At one point he wanted to walk, and I let him out of the stroller. As we were about to go outside I realized he was again one button away from strippage, and though it was pretty warm out, and neither he nor I had coats, I did not wish to be arrested for having a shirtless baby outside in the Northeast in December.
Crisis averted.
We did a few more errands, and ended up a few hours later at the Post Office. ( He got confused and actually thought he would see the person we were mailing something to, it was quite cute). I waited on a very short line, and was reading the different rates on a paper a mere two inches from head. when I turned back to glance at the boy....
He was shirtless.
Completely.
On the day he wore no under shirt, he was standing in the Post Office in his jeans with some diaper sticking out. Through my laughter I managed to tell him that it could be a federal offense to strip in the Post Office, and the kindly woman behind the counter yelled "Hey, you have to wear a shirt in the Post Office." Giggling, he let me put it on, and as it was our turn I distracted him by putting him up on the counter and closing his buttons while he watched the transaction unfold.
This was a new one for me.
So being relatively tall enough he worked the fountain on his own, and was no longer thirsty, but a bit wet. I looked for books for some of the kids, and we walked back to the main section to wait for the room where the program is held to open. There were some young adult soft cover books right outside the room, so I was able to look for more books while little man followed me.
And apparently started to unbutton his shirt.
I caught it before he got the whole shirt open, then as we stood on line to check out the books, he again made it almost all the way, but was thwarted before the final button.
Books checked out, program complete, we were off to New Jersey to pick up something a friend had ordered from Bloomingdales. He really behaved, really well. At one point he wanted to walk, and I let him out of the stroller. As we were about to go outside I realized he was again one button away from strippage, and though it was pretty warm out, and neither he nor I had coats, I did not wish to be arrested for having a shirtless baby outside in the Northeast in December.
Crisis averted.
We did a few more errands, and ended up a few hours later at the Post Office. ( He got confused and actually thought he would see the person we were mailing something to, it was quite cute). I waited on a very short line, and was reading the different rates on a paper a mere two inches from head. when I turned back to glance at the boy....
He was shirtless.
Completely.
On the day he wore no under shirt, he was standing in the Post Office in his jeans with some diaper sticking out. Through my laughter I managed to tell him that it could be a federal offense to strip in the Post Office, and the kindly woman behind the counter yelled "Hey, you have to wear a shirt in the Post Office." Giggling, he let me put it on, and as it was our turn I distracted him by putting him up on the counter and closing his buttons while he watched the transaction unfold.
This was a new one for me.
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