Chinuch habanim

I have to begin just by apologizing. I didn't quite find the time to organize the few thoughts that I wanted to share with you this evening adequately. So what we're going to discuss, I apologize, will be rather disorganized and disjointed. But that having been said, I think the first point which ordinarily would need to be emphasized, I think the fact that this get-together was organized and is being attended, you know, attests to the paramount importance of this topic of parenting. It's difficult to exaggerate how sacred and how important a privilege parenting is. When the Mishnah tells us that pru u'rvu is a mitzvah rabbah, so pru u'rvu doesn't exhaust itself just in producing children, but it means raising children. That's why the Gemara says at the end of the third perek in Bava Batra that mishegezarah malchut that the Roman Empire imposed all its harsh decrees which made chinuch almost impossible, דין הוא שנגזור על עצמנו really the appropriate response would have been that we should have made a gezeirah not to get married. Because if you... so Tosafot asks a kasha: What do you mean not to get married? But there's a mitzvah of pru u'rvu. So how can you say that דין הוא שנגזור על עצמנו not to get married? So Tosafot says maybe it means only to have the minimum of one son and one daughter, not more than that. But Tosafot says maybe that doesn't really sound like what the Gemara means. So the alternative is because if it looks like we're not going to be able to raise the children properly, we're not going to fulfill the mitzvah of pru u'rvu anyway. So when Chazal tell us that pru u'rvu is a mitzvah rabbah, ordinarily we don't label or rank mitzvot, but Chazal do it with pru u'rvu, it means raising children. Raising children to become the link in the masoret. It's a sacred privilege. Now, one of the biggest challenges in raising children is really a challenge that we have in every area of life. And that is, in every area of life, we deal with short-term problems and pressures and challenges, and the goal is not to lose sight, not to lose our perspective or lose sight of long-term goals amidst the pressures and challenges of the moment. So that seems so simple that it's hardly worth saying. But just think about the following scenarios. How many times have you seen a pedestrian run across through traffic to try to catch a bus? Because the bus is about to pull away, and if I miss the bus, so I'm going to have to stand outside and it's a cold day, I'm going to have to stand outside for ten minutes and wait for the next bus. Okay, so that's like... how many times when you're driving in the road, so do you see someone who realizes that he's about to miss his exit, the exit, it's a four-lane highway, a busy highway, and he's cruising along in the left-hand lane, realizes he's about to miss his exit which is all the way over to the right and cuts over in front of traffic because if he misses this exit, the next exit is not for another fifteen miles, so fifteen miles this way, north, out of his way, he's going to have to double back, so that's going to be a half hour. So sometimes the pedestrian makes it across the street, and sometimes you can successfully navigate from the extreme left lane to salvage the exit, and sometimes people don't. And then we look on and we say, how can a person be so foolish? And how can a person be so penny-wise and pound-foolish to risk his life or her life because otherwise I'm going to have to wait ten minutes for a bus, otherwise I'm going to have to go fifteen miles out of my way? And yet, I think if we think about it, so we're all very susceptible to that type of challenge in every area of life. Every area in life and parenting is no exception. It's not unusual to have one child is crying and then Reuven just hit Chani for no apparent reason and when Yanky was reaching for the cookies which he was told that he already had enough of because it's Erev Shabbos, he knocks over the tray of chicken which was supposed to be the Friday night dinner. It's easy to lose it. It's easy to lose it. And it's so, so important that as parents we internalize what our perspective is and what our long-term goal is so that we never lose sight of that perspective or what the long-term goal is amidst the momentary pressures and challenges. So what is our perspective? Our perspective is the children represent an indescribable bracha from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. An indescribable bracha. And if a person has any question as to how great a bracha it is, ask someone who struggles with infertility, rachmana litzlan. It is an indescribable bracha that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us. And that's the perspective that we always have to maintain. So yes, when the kids are misbehaving and it just seems like too much, we have to try never to lose sight of that perspective. And what's the long-term goal? The long-term goal is to raise children who grow up to be independent, secure, who'll be imbued with an ahavas Torah and hopefully ultimately someday an avodas Hashem. As is the case with any basic hashkafa, when a person wants to make the transition from veyadata hayom to vehasheivosa el levavecha, so Ramchal tells us in the hakdama to Mesillas Yesharim that it's just with constant repetition, constant reinforcement leads to internalizing. There are lots of things we know but we don't feel. Lots of things we know but we don't act on. You have people who tell us, like we ourselves, that we absolutely believe in a hashgacha pratis in every detail in our lives. Every detail in our lives. When we encounter adversity, we get frustrated and we get angry and sometimes we lash out. How does that reconcile with

כל סיבה שטובה עליו מטוב עד רע כל דבר שיקרהו מטוב עד רע הוא סיבה שטובה עליו מאת השם ברוך הוא?

How do you reconcile that with, well obviously Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted me to have to deal with that stumbling block. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted me to deal with that adversity. So does my reaction of frustration or anger make sense? The answer is no, it doesn't make any sense because I know it, I believe it, but I don't feel it. If I know it and believe it but don't feel it, so then it doesn't dictate my reactions. It dictates what I'll say in a shiur, but it doesn't dictate my reactions. How does something dictate my reactions? If I not only believe it and I not only know it, but I feel it. And Ramchal tells us, the Chovos HaTalmidim talks about this also, that the way one bridges that gap between knowing and believing on the one hand and feeling on the other hand is just the constant reinforcement. Constant reinforcement. A person should wake up every morning and thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu for the bracha of children. Every morning a person should thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that shouldn't be the only time a day that we do it, but constantly. And similarly, we have to repeat to ourselves constantly, again, the way you get to the long-term goal is by navigating all the momentary pressures, but never to lose sight that the long-term goal is to raise children, again, who'll be secure and independent with an ahavas Torah, with an avodas Hashem. I think in one of his droshes, maybe more than once, I said the Rav talks about how there are two brissin. And he explains that the bris Sinai we understand what it consists of, re'mach mitzvos asei, שס"ה מצוות לא תעשה, do this, don't do this, it's clear. The avos, there weren't too many, not too many mitzvos. You have to scratch a little bit to come up with, ich vays, milah here, gid hanashe there, not too much. After all the scratching, there's not too much that you come up with. So what was the whole bris about? So the Rav says that the bris with the avos was more about a certain rhythm of life, a certain tone and tenor of life. And the bris Sinai is supposed to be accompanied by that bris avos. So again, what the home can provide, which often isn't available elsewhere, maybe sometimes it is, but often it isn't available elsewhere, is that exposure, again, to the bris avos, to a certain rhythm and tone and tenor of life. Children can learn and will learn by osmosis how one lives emunah by seeing how their parents deal with adversity, so then gam zu letovah becomes a way of viewing the world. It is no longer a Gemara. It's not something that's a subject matter for book learning, but it's something that they see put in practice. It's a lens through which the world is experienced. And ultimately that's what Torah is supposed to be. It's not only do's and don'ts, but it's a way of experiencing all of life. And that's something which we're supposed to try to create in terms of the long-term goal, a certain rhythm and a certain environment and a certain tone and a certain atmosphere which is suffused with this rhythm and pulse of Torah. What Shabbos is shouldn't be something that our children have to figure out by diyukim in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, but it should be something that they know what Shabbos is from the Shabbos table. They should know what Shabbos is from the hachanos for Shabbos on erev Shabbos, the anticipation, the chashivus of Shabbos. If the father comes home 20 minutes before Shabbos at licht bentchen and there's a system whereby the children are told to knock on the door to make sure he's out of the shower at least 10 minutes before shkiyah, it's hard for a child to absorb what it means to be yoshev u'mechakeh, to wait. If the father has a chok v'lo yaavor, he leaves work three hours before licht bentchen, three hours before licht bentchen, if there's a prediction of snow he doesn't go into work, doesn't go into work, so then children absorb, again, what it is, the chashivus of Shabbos. If they hear zmiros at the table, again, there's a ta'amu u'reu and ultimately that's what we're trying to expose our children to, not just the hadracha, that this is right and this is wrong, but a ta'amu u'reu, an experience of what Torah is, of what Yiddishkeit is. In the מזמור שיר ליום השבת, so we compare people,

צדיק כתמר יפרח כארז בלבנון ישגה שתולים בבית ה' בחצרות אלהינו יפריחו.

We compare people to plants, shulim are plants. Rav Wolbe in his kuntres on inyonei chinuch talks about how in general in this world Hakadosh Baruch Hu created that there are two processes, that there are two mahalchim. There's a bracha of Boneh Yerushalayim, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings about the geulah through binyan and then there's a bracha of Matzmiach Keren Yeshuah, that it comes about through growth, right? Building is an act of construction, growth is an organic process. He says with remarkable just brings the words to life when... refers to the process of binyan and shoresh is a root, shoresh is something organic. And he says in chinuch also that there's binyan and there's and there's netiah, there's planting. So what when you plant, so you have to know what environment you can plant in. And you have to create, you have to create that environment. When my kids were little, I read them there's a book, Yedidya and the esrog tree, anyone familiar with that book? Good book, I recommend it. Anyway, Yedidya has this, Yedidya has this dream, he's going to, he wants to, he lives up, I don't know where he lives, it's been a while since, it's been a while since I read it. So he wants, he wants, he's going to grow his own, he's going to grow his own esrog, and everyone tells him no, no, no, you can't do it. And he creates his own climate, he creates his own environment. He puts blankets around the bush and and the tree vechulu vechulu. But things need, things need, when there's netiah, when there's planting, so things have to be planted in the right environment. If you plant things which need a warm environment and you plant it in the Arctic Circle, it's not going to grow. So the question is what's the environment for again, given that people the pasuk compares to shetulim, to plants, that there's organic growth, so what environment do our children need? So there's no question, there's no question that the environment has to be one which is loving and nurturing, and and that has to be the unequivocal and unambiguous emphasis, dagesh chazak, in the home has to be that it's a loving and nurturing environment. The Gemara in Makkos which which seems to say that it's a good thing to hit children, lechora is nishtanu hateva. Puk chazi, it doesn't work today. I think Rav Wolbe says like that and I don't know if he says the sevara of nishtanu hateva, but he also also says puk chazi, it doesn't work. Just parenthetically, getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, I've seen parents hit their children on too many occasions. I've never yet once seen a parent who hit a child when the parent was totally calm and totally composed and was thinking very clearly and rationally to himself or to herself that

הנני מוכן ומזומן לקיים מצוות עשה של חינוך הבנים וחינוך הבנות.

I've never ever yet seen that and I don't know if I ever will. I have seen many times parents who are angry and who are frustrated and who because it's acceptable to hit children, so because of that they're not inhibited. So when they get angry or frustrated with someone else, okay, so it's not, if I get angry with an adult, I have to find some other way with dealing with it, it's not acceptable, וואס זאל מען טאן, but there's a sense that with kids, oh, it's acceptable, it's acceptable. So because of that there's no inhibition and really it's anger and frustration. And children know it. Children are much more perceptive than we as parents realize or at times would like them to be, and and kids know, they know whether or not the parent is lashing out in anger or whether a parent is doing what a parent should do, which is discipline as is necessary. Al kol panim, the environment is supposed to be one which is loving and nurturing. So even when you have to discipline, there are two ways, you know there are different ways of disciplining. Let's say kids are a little bit older, so they're up talking at night, it's supposed to be lights out, it's past bedtime already and you So a parent's job is not to let there be hefkeirus at home. So you can handle it in one of two ways. You can come in with guns blazing and you can start screaming, and in all likelihood they will stop talking immediately. It will yield short-term results. Rav Wolbe in the same kuntres writes, he says that parents come to him that their teenagers don't talk to them anymore. Teenagers don't talk to them anymore. So Rav Wolbe says tell me, when they were three and four years old, did you yell at them all the time? Did you hit them? So a parent says of course, I disciplined them, didn't I? So Rav Wolbe says yeah, so this is what you're getting in return. So now when they're 14 and 15, they don't talk to you. So maybe again in terms of maintaining the perspective and what the long-term goal is, the long-term goal is that children can only flourish, sh'tulim can only flourish in a loving and nurturing environment. You can discipline lovingly. You can come in and you can say lightly, what is this, shmooze night? And then you say listen guys, two minutes and then that's it. You give them time to transition. You come in on a light note, but it's clear that you say very very clearly that עד כאן ולא יוסיף. But by giving them the extra two minutes, you give them a chance to transition and you come in on a light note, so the discipline is clear and it's quite clear that they have to go to sleep now, and the discipline is accomplished, but it can be done in a loving way. One can be firm and at the same time quiet and gentle. There's no stirah between being firm and being gentle. It doesn't mean that a person has to raise his voice. The Rambam says when he talks about the shvil hazahav of anger, so the Rambam says of the shvil hazahav, it's the famous stirah in the Rambam, but anyway in perek aleph so he says that the shvil hazahav of anger is that maybe once in many years a person feigns anger. Okay, so now granted, not all of our children are on the same madreiga as רבנו אברהם בן הרמב"ם and maybe we'll have some challenges that the Rambam didn't have with Rabbeinu Avraham. But presumably Mishneh Torah doesn't just reflect the Rambam's personal experience, it represents halacha. So the Rambam says achas l'kama shanim, once in many years there's justification to feign anger. Even then one is posturing, one's feigning anger, one is not really, really inwardly losing control. Another practical application in terms of discipline is that you have to choose your issues. I would say choose your battles, but that has the wrong connotation. You have to choose your issues. Dehinu, in any relationship, it's not only true in terms of parents and children, it's true in other relationships as well, you can't work on everything at once. You have to choose one or two issues and you have to zero in on those issues. It can't be that if every, now ideally, you want your children to always talk respectfully and you want your children to be very responsible, and you don't want their shirt to be sticking out, and you don't want their shoelaces to be untied, and you want them to clear off their plate. But you know what? If none of this comes naturally to your child, and you're going to harangue and harass him or her about every one of these every day, so then the loving nurturing environment has been totally, totally displaced, totally destroyed. What results is just, again, so the parent at best is a nag and worse than that, there's just a sense of being constantly harassed and just never being left alone. So in helping and nurturing our children, parents have to triage, they have to prioritize in terms of issues. That first we're going to work on this, we'll work on this, we made headway on this, there's no need anymore to have to... give any gentle reminders in this area. Okay, so now we can take, put another two things on the agenda in terms of helping our children. But if it's everything at once, it doesn't work, it doesn't work in any relationship. In general, one siman, one telltale sign that we can look for to see whether we're doing things the right way is whether or not our behavior with our children commands respect or whether or not we're in a position where we have to demand respect. When parents have to demand respect, when parents have to walk in, listen, I'm the father, and you have to listen to me, as a general rule of thumb, again, everything we're talking about is general, general terms, obviously there can be exceptional circumstances, but as a general rule, so that means that if I have to appeal to that, if I have to demand respect and I can't command respect, it means that I'm doing something wrong, very wrong. Part of the disciplining in a way that's consistent with maintaining the loving and nurturing environment is that it has to be clear that children's behavior is being criticized as opposed to the children. I'm sure if you've gone to any talk on parenting or chinuch, you've heard it and you can't hear it too many times. We can never, ever tell our children that you're a bad boy, you're a bad girl for doing this. That was something, that was something wrong to do, maybe it was something bad to do, but never to label the child. Never, ever label the child that the child is bad. No, that was a wrong thing to do. Maybe the appropriate thing would be to say that was a bad thing to do, but not that the child is bad because children internalize, as all of us do, but children have less of a filter than adults do. They're much more sponge-like than adults. So children internalize what they hear. If they're told this was bad, they internalize, okay, so what I did was bad. If they're told I'm bad, so then they internalize that they're bad. An awful lot of people walking around with very low self-esteem and all kinds of psychological issues because they picked up on these kinds of messages in their childhood. In a similar vein, as parents we should never ever be sarcastic with children. Never ever be sarcastic with children. Ultimately, what sarcasm is and therefore conveys is a sense of bitul or contempt for the target of our sarcasm. That's what it is. If a person is sarcastic about, it's election season, so a person is going to make a sarcastic crack about all the promises that politicians make in their platform. Okay, so it can be very humorous and everything, but if you dig a little bit, so what does the sarcasm bespeak? The sarcasm bespeaks a sense of bitul and a sense of contempt. And it's clear and it comes across and it's never ever the right way to discipline a child is to be sarcastic. What we mentioned before in the context of hitting, which is 99.99999% of the time a very bad idea, but even if one's not hitting, as parents we have to calm down and we have to regain our composure before any type of discipline. Everyone's judgment is compromised. compromised when when when they're upset. When Chazal say כל הכועס כל מיני גיהנום שולטין בו, that's what they mean. That when we get upset and when we get angry, so then our our compromise our our our judgment and our self-discipline all that is is compromised and therefore we have to at least muster the discipline to to wait until until until we calm down. So let's say the child takeh does something which is really really upsetting and absolutely requires some type of response. But the parent has to calm down first. Parent has to calm down to make sure that the that the response is calibrated and calculated to do what it should do and and that there isn't and there isn't an overreaction. And maybe one one last comment on on in terms of discipline in in parenting, that there shouldn't be a good cop bad cop routine like just wait until Daddy gets home and then you're gonna get it. Both parents and the child should know this, that both parents love him or her and with no contradiction to that, both parents have lines of what's proper behavior and what's acceptable behavior. If the father happens to be on the scene, so then he should deal with it appropriately. If the mother's on the scene, she should deal with it appropriately. If they're both on the scene they should flip a coin, but none of this when Daddy gets home or when Mommy gets home, then you're gonna get it. So then it just makes the other one into I don't know into some kind of scary figure. When Chazal tell us that יראת האב על דעת של אדם, that a person that a child more naturally has a sense of mora for the father and is more naturally inclined to have kavod for the mother, so Chazal aren't saying that we should reinforce that. Chazal are saying that that a child has that netiya. It doesn't mean that we're supposed to reinforce it and and that by by setting up that kind of division of of responsibility. Well, okay. I said that was gonna be the last comment on discipline, but one more last comment and hopefully there won't be more than three or four more last comments. But one one last comment for the next thirty seconds on discipline and in general, not only discipline, even in terms of of setting goals and for children, the discipline or the goals, they always have to be something which which is feasible, which which is doable. If a child is very upset and because the child is very upset the child is the child's having a temper tantrum and throwing things all over his room. Okay. So to tell the child on the spot that this second you're gonna you're gonna start cleaning up everything this second and otherwise you're gonna get into even bigger trouble is totally unrealistic. The child needs time to transition from being in in this crazed state of anger to calming down sufficiently where he or she can then go pick things up. If you come in and you say this second and if you don't and for every every second I have to wait for you to start cleaning things up that's gonna be another week that you can't play ball with your friends, that you can't do X, Y, or Z. So that's totally unrealistic. Whenever whatever we ask of children has to be has to be realistic. It has to be something which is doable. If a child right now is so upset, so you can come in and say okay, stop throwing things. You're angry, so tell me about it. No more throwing things. First get the child to transition from that. Then later, of course the child should pick up what he what he what he or she threw in the mess. But it has to be you have to allow it has to be done done realistically. If a child, if if you come home and you find what would otherwise be lovely artwork all over the freshly painted walls in your apartment or or house and and. and and they do, so in addition to to meting out whatever the appropriate discipline is, the child also has to be, has to be commended for the honesty of of admitting what he or she did and it has to be a שמאל דוחה וימין מקרבת, not only what kind of horrible thing is that to do, to go color all over the freshly painted walls, but also I'm very proud of you that you admitted it and then then you also tell them that you're a little less pleased with the artwork on the walls, but it has to be with this combination of שמאל דוחה וימין מקרבת. In order to parent properly, a person has to be שלם בין אדם לעצמו. If a person is insecure, if a person has low self-esteem, he or she will not be able to parent properly. Many things which happen, which are just because kids are kids and children act up sometimes, and sometimes they're a little bit wild. If a parent, just to give an example of what we're talking about, if a parent has low self-esteem or a parent is insecure, so then that's going to be interpreted as, oh, that's a threat to my parental authority, that's a challenge to my parental authority and therefore I have to assert that parental authority. No, לא היו דברים מעולם. The kid is a kid and kids sometimes are a little bit wild and if, if, if, and some kids are in a, the Yiddish phrase in a very lovable sense, some little kids, they're mazikim when they're, when they're little. Doesn't mean that this is a premeditated and intentional challenge to parental authority. No, it's a child who needs to know how to channel his or her exuberance and the parent has to have that sense of of security about himself or herself and adequate self-esteem in order to distinguish what type of response is called for. So often one sees the unresolved issues bein adam le'atsmo that that play themselves out in in relationships with children. In a similar vein, and again, this, this might be relevant to some, won't be relevant to others, maybe it's not relevant to anyone, I don't know, but in the world at large it is relevant to some. People need to have perspective on their own upbringing in order to, in order to parent. Some, some people are blessed with a wonderful upbringing and their parents have wonderful parental instincts and they're tremendously patient and know how to discipline properly and create that loving and nurturing environment. And some people, for whatever reason, weren't given that beracha. They, they grew up under more challenging circumstances. And to simply mindlessly recreate and and reapply the same parenting, parenting techniques which the previous generation did, if they weren't the right ones, so they shouldn't be perpetuated. And in some cases, part of preparing oneself to parent is, is gaining perspective on one's own upbringing and one's own childhood experience. Also similarly, sometimes you see that there are parents who, for whatever reason, and again, this also has its source bein adam le'atsmo, they have certain frustrations. Maybe the frustrations are certain goals that they had in their own life which they didn't achieve and which they don't really foresee achieving, and because of that in a I mean, it's ultimately the motivation is love, but it's so distorted that it becomes more of a caricature of love, so that they then without realizing what they're doing apply tremendous pressure that their children should be what they weren't. Children should be what they weren't. So just to take an overly simplistic example, if I had a dream of going to medical school but for whatever reason my C minus in college physics or whatever it was got in the way and then I didn't make it, so then sometimes you see that the parents they push and they push and they push that the kid should go to medical school. But the kid doesn't have that inclination. The kid wants to go to law school. He wants to be a CPA, he doesn't want to go to medical school. Parents sometimes look for vicarious fulfillment through their children. And children are not there to give us vicarious fulfillment. They're there to be their own people. And again that's also something that a person has to sort of look inward before looking to his or her children in guiding them. And maybe one final comment, and if anyone's still awake, if there are any questions or discussion points, then please by all means. I will the relationship with our children has to evolve, meaning that the relationship with children begins when children are totally dependent and as parents we're totally in control. You know, if we want to go out for a walk Shabbos afternoon, the three-month-old doesn't get a vote, is not entitled to a vote. And as children get older, so the relationship has to evolve. The same way you don't talk to a newborn the same way you talk to a four-year-old, you don't talk to a 14-year-old the way you spoke to an eight-year-old. And parents have to learn to respect the burgeoning independence and maturity of their children. And sometimes you see parents who got stuck and the relationship didn't evolve and they still feel the same sense of being in control and calling the shots. So Chazal say, Chazal clearly say that a relationship has to evolve. When Chazal, the Gemara in Kiddushin has different deios, what exactly is the primary age when you can really infuse the correct mussar and hashkafa into a child, is it up until age 22 or until age 24, but it's quite clear that there's an evolution. And as children grow from being helpless newborns to being adults, so the parents' role and the parents' approach and what the parent says and what the parent doesn't say has to evolve as well because otherwise the parenting which with a three-month-old was ideal becomes stifling and children just need to break away in order to breathe. So the relationship has to evolve. And my second last comment before we stop is that there's another din in Shulchan Oruch based on a Gemara in Moed Koton which I also think doesn't get enough press as it should get. You know, in yeshivas when children are taught, so they're always taught about Kibbud Av V'Eim and how important Kibbud Av V'Eim is and that's all true, I have no quarrel with the Aseres Hadibros, I'm not coming to disagree with that. But there's also a din in terms of parents that yes, children are supposed to do parents ask them to do it, they have to run to do it. You have to run to do it. I think Rav Chaim Kanievsky tells a story, he said that his mother told him, the Chazon Ish's sister, that her mother once asked something like where's Avraham Yeshaya something, he didn't call me, he didn't come say hello. like a wind to go. So I'm not coming to minimize. The Gemara in Kiddushin says Abaye says he thanks Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he was born an orphan because he doesn't think he would have otherwise been ever able to satisfy the demands of kibud av v'eim. So I'm not, with apologies to Shakespeare, I'm not coming to bury the mitzvah of kibud av v'eim, but there's another din also, and that's a din that parents have a din that it's אסור להכביד עולו על בניהם. Parents are not supposed to impose unduly on children. The fact is the mitzvah of kibud av v'eim doesn't mean that I'm supposed to be lazy and not get up and get the cup of water or the cup of juice or the sefer that I need or anything else. It's not supposed to allow me to indulge my laziness, and it's not an open invitation to me that I have, since I have children, so I have people who have to, because it's a mitzvah of kibud av v'eim in the Torah, who have to wait on me hand and foot. And to sort of, a parent has to be very careful not to delude him or herself into thinking, "I'm being mechanech my children in kibud av v'eim." And that's why I'm telling them to get me the newspaper. And that's why I'm telling them to get me my slippers. And that's why I'm telling them to bring me a cup of tea. And that's why, such devotion on my part to be mechanech them in kibud av v'eim. So there's also a din, there's also a din that parents are not supposed to impose. And adiraba, that's one of the, that idea that you don't impose, if you want to have a say in how your grandchildren are raised, so then how you raise your children is how you'll have a say in how your grandchildren are raised. Because by the time your children become parents, you can't give unsolicited advice into how they should raise their children. You want to give advice, so the advice is when they'll reflect back on how they were raised. Okay, so these are some of the disjointed and disorganized thoughts that came to mind. I guess this is more for the men, but in terms of spending time with children versus learning, and in the next several years, should I go to the Beis Medrash or should I just stay home and learn at home, have your children, whatever it be, I just want your opinion. The question's ready for me to answer the question, just now combined with the question of Shacharis is a little bit of a different question, but I think it's more relevant than nine o'clock at night. So I think the answer is, again, let's first maybe answer in an ideal more of an ideal set of circumstances. Everything has to be adjusted to a reality in which a person finds himself. But assuming that one's wife manages very well and creates that proper environment, the loving nurturing environment that you want for your children, and it's just a question of how many hours the father should be home, so the answer is that I don't think that we're supposed to be absentee fathers. I don't think you should have to, you know, present your ID when you want to come in when you knock at the door and show your ID that you actually live here. You're supposed to be involved with your children. I don't think in an ideal family setup, I don't think that precludes night seder. You know, a father's home, he's home for supper and he's home for when the kids are young for early bedtime. It doesn't preclude night seder. Generally on Shabbos there's more of a balance to family time than there is all week long. The seuda Shabbos certainly provide that occasion. The Imrei Emes ate his seuda Shabbos I think in 20 minutes. Most of us are maarich a little bit more, but then again most of us don't count seconds the way the Imrei Emes did. And certainly a longer seuda Shabbos with divrei Torah with zemiros is a very positive opportunity for again parenting and for chinuch. I don't know of a better way to again when you have a two-year-old, a three-year-old, to begin them on the path to a love of Shabbos than then you take the child on your lap and you sing zemiros with them and it's a wonderful thing. And yes, a person is supposed to slow down enough to do that. Is there anything worth of any are there anything to share from the earlier stage with kids that are still much younger than the years that we already talked about? Meaning when they're still I think between two to whatever the age is where the punishing and hands-on parenting they dawn on them all these explanations, relationships where they can't understand when they're more infant. Again, I don't know when it turns to non-infant into a mind of its own. But whatever the age is. And of course when they're young they pick up what you're doing. But just in general just what are there any horos that you have regarding the earlier stages of kids? Well, I think generally one of the reasons that I think in a discussion such as tonight's that most of the time would be spent dealing with תינוק שיודע לדבר משהתחיל לדבר לדבר in the sense of reasoning as well as in the sense of talking is because the truth is that's when most of the challenges of parenting really come. With no offense intended to your child, I mean a newborn it's sort of like playing with dolls. I mean you dress the doll in whatever outfit you choose and you put the doll in the carriage and you take the doll out whenever you want and there's not too much, okay, you need patience when the and you need to have mesirus nefesh if the baby is up at night. So if the right thing to do is get up for the baby so don't kid yourself into thinking, "no, Dr. Spock says let the baby cry for four hours before you go because otherwise you're going to be spoiling him or her." My apologies to Dr. Spock, I don't know that he ever said such a thing. So when you're dealing with an infant it's just a question of having patience, it's a question again of realizing that even at this age it's something sacred. To take care of the Ribono shel Olam's children is a sacred trust. To have that perspective and to have the patience and the mesirus nefesh which is appropriate. But the kinds of decisions and challenges, you only have that basically when the child begins to express himself or herself. So again the challenges at the stage of infancy are just be patient and don't be selfish and have the self-sacrifice that is necessary to give children what they deserve. But you don't have any of the possible clashes with a six-month-old that you have with a three- or four-year-old and thereafter. This is a question which involves a luxury that many many people don't have. But maybe discuss the if somebody does have the option of leaving the care of a child to a babysitter especially non-Jew... I forget who it was who said that that that they once had that when I forget whose comment this was about parents who when the babysitter was coming to watch the child, the children, so they would hide all their valuables. All the silver and all the jewelry, everything had to be hidden because how can you trust these goyim and leave your valuables out? So it reminds me I once went to a levaya and the maspid, one of the shvachim that he said about the niftar was, he says, in our society, usually when people have to buy a car, it's a major investment. So you don't just look up in a catalog and say I like Chevys, I like Buicks, I like Accords. No, you go to the showroom and you drive the car, you test drive it, and you drive it and you sit in it and you stretch out your legs and you make sure that you have enough headroom and clearance. And then how do parents decide where to send their kids to school? Shoyn, I heard this was a good yeshiva, so you send the kid off. And they don't go visit the yeshiva, they don't go do anything. That's, how do you choose a yeshiva? I heard, I heard yeshiva X, Y, or Z. I heard my boyfriend, my girlfriend, whoever it is, whether it's the father or the mother talking, said that it was a good yeshiva, shoyn. The car? I don't rely on someone's recommendation for whether I should buy a Buick or an Accord. What are you talking about? I have to sit in this car and I have to drive every day. So I don't know, if children are a sacred trust, it's hard to see how it's a lechatchila to entrust them to someone with whom we wouldn't entrust a sacred trust. Okay, so there are also fiscal realities in life and obviously things have to be worked out. Part of providing your children with what they need is ein hachi nami is to pay the rent and put food on the table. But I think the question is would I entrust this person with a sacred trust? And if the answer is no, so if my children are a sacred trust to me, so how can I entrust them? Okay, so then yesh lachaleik between is it one thing to have them on a daily basis, is it another thing for an hour here, an hour there? Yeah, all these details need to be worked out, but the general approach has to be children are a sacred trust. This probably has no one fixed answer but as part of the discussion with a lot about, I might want to move to such and such a community to do such a job, but it might not be the best environment for my children, or I should let go of that opportunity because I would rather be here to know what's best, what would be a better environment for my children in terms of looking at different countries to live in perhaps, and then is this maybe children take priority, trust more so, or opportunities are there in the heart of such? So I thank you for the question. It was actually part of what you raised was something I had intended on touching on and forgot. So maybe before I get to the point that you raised most directly, you know one of the binds which parents often find themselves in and they'll come and they'll ask the following question, you know where I davven in whatever community. Let's talk about a nine and ten-year-old. So the parents don't really have the kids sitting next to them in shul davening, but they're running around and carrying on and they don't, maybe they come in and turn the pages in the siddur for a few minutes, maybe they don't even do that, but they're running around a lot. Now I realize that that's not, that's not the way I want to be mechanech my children, but on the other hand, I don't want to isolate my children because obviously part of nurturing a child is that a child should have friends and should be socially integrated. And so this is obviously just one, one example and you can sort of describe countless comparable or parallel scenarios. Now clearly, the ideal approach is what you're touching upon, is to try to preempt that as much as possible. Is that when parents decide where they're going to live, where they're going to send their children to yeshiva, what shul they're going to daven in, is as much as possible to try to prevent and preempt this kind of עשה דוחה לא תעשה situation of well, which is the lesser of two evils? Is it that my kid can't be with all his classmates? All his classmates don't sit in shul when they're nine years old. Their fathers don't think that they have to sit in shul yet, and I realize that he should be sitting in shul, he shouldn't be running around making noise. What kind of chinuch is that? But me'idach gisa, he's going to resent not being with his friends. So that's takeh a very difficult situation when you have those types of situations. Which is why hachacham einav berosho, as much as possible when a family moves into a neighborhood, so you have to look and see, is there a yeshiva where my child, my children can have the type of friends which I want him or her to have without having to compromise on our chinuch. It doesn't mean that you have to live in a totally insular and homogeneous community necessarily, but you have to know that that's available and that's possible. The shul where I'm going to daven. So if there's no shul in the community where nine-year-olds and ten-year-olds sit and daven, and maybe you can find a kulah for them to go out during the rabbi's speech, I'm not sure, but other than that, if there's no shul where the nine-year-old or ten-year-old sit and daven properly, so of course you have to think long and hard about, is that really where we want to move and where we want to live? You don't want to create these types of situations where again, where you're then forced into some type of dechiyah, either in terms of forcing your child to be odd man out from his friends, or where you're forced to compromise on your standards in order to allow the child to be socially integrated, which is important. So it's absolutely very important. Let's say you want to go to a certain neighborhood and this neighborhood has a well-deserved reputation for affluence and excessive gashmius, and excessive gashmius. So you have to think long and hard, is that something which permeates the yeshivas? And is it something which thereby by going to that community, so you're then willy-nilly you're exposing your children to that and then you're creating a situation where the child says, "But everyone else," whatever the opulent manifestation of the lifestyle is, whatever the excessive indulgence is, but everyone else does this, and it will probably be true. In a hypothetical situation, it can be true. So hachacham einav berosho. So I think a person has to weigh, am I creating conflicts through which you hear stories. But you hear incredible stories, you hear incredible stories in in certain circles about teenage children and and and parents parents do their best to maintain ignorance of what the children are doing because if they knew what the children were doing they wouldn't be able to sleep at night and yet they partially because they don't know what it means to draw lines and partially because they send them to schools where this is what's done. They send them to schools where where the teenage kids party on the weekend. So מה יעשה הבן שלא יחטא and the parents have to have to have the foresight to realize that yeah we have to live in a community which as much as possible again it may not necessarily be homogeneous or you may decide you want a homogeneous community but but it certainly has to have that track on which you want your children to be in terms of the balance of gashmius and ruchnius in terms of how they behave in shul and and in terms of and in terms of such things. I was just thinking about a specific situation I actually spoke to a mechanech about out of town so like the situation like kiruv being in a mechanech out of town so that's very like one of the biggest questions I think that that comes up that more often than not the community is different than where you grew up or where you want sort of this feeling of that sort of why you are here as kiruv as being there being a mechanech there and then the question is is there should I one stay not not only in the out of town communities if if if it more often than not creates these this tension and it should just be number one look for the community number two look for for for what what to do there. So part of the answer is simple part of it is is is extremely extremely difficult. The simple part of the answer is that that you can't do mitzvos and you can't save the world on your children's cheshbon. It's no cheshbon to say well I only have X children but look I'm going to be mekarev I'm going to be mekarev a thousand children I'm going to be mekarev a thousand people I'll make a thousand baalei teshuvah. Ee nami so my kids davka won't turn out so well because they won't recognize me on the rare occasions when they see me but on the whole I'll have accomplished. So the same way by tzedakah there's a din of לאחיך לעניך ולאבינך בארצך that achicha kodem and then aniyei ircha kodem that the first mitzvah is that if a person has poor relative so you have to support the poor relative and then after that if you have the local poor in in Washington Heights have a din kadima for someone who lives in Washington Heights for those poor rachmana litzlan from poor in in another neighborhood so it's certainly true legabei one's own children that one has an achrayus to one's own children and and we can't save the world at the expense of of our own children. Rabbi Akiva knew he had a good Rebbetzin at home to take care of the kids and Rabbi Akiva is can't ask questions from from Rabbi Akiva. Anyone who's going to be a Rabbi Akiva should feel free to discount what what what we're talking about and whose wife is a and whose wife is a Rachel. So the question is halachah l'ma'aseh going out of town. So I would have thought the answer is like this: I would have thought that the answer is that maybe when the children are very young that's sort of maybe that's the the prime time when it's efshar le-kayem sheneihem. But as the children get older so then you look to come back to where you can give them the as someone once quipped you look to come back from chutz la-aretz to New York and give them the chinuch that you'd like to provide them with. I don't know I once saw בשם רב אהרן קוטלר so that would seem to be the answer. I once saw בשם רב אהרן קוטלר as a final devar halacha that that Reb Aharon Kotler said a havtachah that that a person's children are not going to suffer because he was moser nefesh to to go out of town and try to help people. So I don't know so one has to find out whether or not what I saw what was accurate and and if you really have Reb Aharon Kotler's havtachah to to rely on because if you don't have his havtachah it's not so pashut. If you do have his havtochas, so that's a different story. Getting kind of close coming in from Bronx at a young age. Does it make sense even if they don't understand the environment, or just saying it so that they don't, even in the morning? So I think I saw maybe just to shift the question for a minute to Tefilah away from Brachos. I think I saw beshem Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, that Rav Yaakov said that the source of or the root of a lot of our problems with davening is that we're taught to daven at an age where we have no idea what we're saying. And as a result, we sort of associate Tefilah with I don't know, just saying a bunch of meaningless words. And if they're meaningless words, there's only so much that you can really be concentrating on the words because it says that the in the sefarim when talking about kavanah, it says the best way to maintain kavanah in Tefilah is to see the words before your eyes and you think about the words that you're addressing to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But if the words are indistinguishable from Japanese poetry, it doesn't do much for you. So a hundred percent in terms of chinuch for Tefilah, I think as much as possible we should try to keep pace when you teach a child to say Modeh Ani. Alright, so you don't have to, I don't know if you have to tell a three-year-old that he was like dead when he was sleeping, I'm not sure that I would necessarily give a whole shmuze on that to a three-year-old. But you can say we're thanking Hashem that we're waking up feeling good and that when we went to sleep, we were so tired and we wake up in the morning and we feel good and etc. So we certainly do as much as possible want to factor in Rav Yaakov's his insight. In terms of Brachos, I don't know that you have to wait until they can translate everything, but they should certainly know what the idea of a Bracha is. And so you tell them the same way you have to say please and thank you to Mommy or to Tati, to Ima or to Abba, so this is our way of saying please and thank you to Hashem and for giving us this food and for allowing us to eat. As much as possible, we should try that they should understand what they're doing because otherwise, again, we're true, we're ingraining in them to say a Bracha, but we're also ingraining in them to say a Bracha that doesn't mean anything to them. So let's go into media. So in terms of media, what would the boogeyman be down? Like letting your kids watch videos all the while having friends who have TVs in their home? I don't know if there's anything of... my guess is that one would be very, very hard-pressed to find anything with any redeeming qualities on TV nowadays. If there is such a thing, it's certainly batel beshishim, even bemassayim. So I can't imagine why one would want to have a TV. It's just sort of inviting conflict. It's being marbeh b'nisayon. The TV is there, so obviously the kids are going to want to watch it. So what's the point of just creating that conflict? I'm not even sure, okay, I was born in a prehistoric age, I'm not even sure why all parents think they have to have internet at home. And I'm not sure why that isn't recognized as a, again, needless spur to conflict. It obviously is a tremendous convenience for many, many things. But A, don't delude yourself into thinking that the horror stories we hear about the internet won't happen in my family because everyone says that and they do happen, so obviously they happen. And bechlal, even if if even if TV, even if you could turn things back 50, 60 years and and and it could be it could be glatt kosher, it just it induces a passivity and an intellectual one as well. You can tell you could tell once upon a time which families had TVs at home and which didn't, by the kids who had richer vocabularies were the ones who didn't have TVs at home. So instead of sitting passively and watching I don't know, Bob Keeshan or whatever whatever's you know whatever the enriching show is tonight, they're sitting and they're reading a book and and and they're engaging their mind and and they're they're doing things. If something is is only a video and you therefore only have clean and kosher videos, so then you just have to deal with the issue of of again, of passivity and and whether or not it's going to become a source of friction in terms of how much time that they should be spending on it. But I don't a TV I don't think is a havah, you know, I don't think it's a havah. I I have to apologize but I I think I have to I have to run. Okay, thank you very much.