“I wish they would teach kids in college stuff like how to balance work with life.”
The words were spoken by a smart, articulate, successful Jewish woman at our Federation’s recent 3rd Annual “Women Leaning In” event. After the panel discussion, based on Sheryl Sandberg’s best-seller Lean In, all about women maintaining a work-life balance, we had small table discussions. We lamented that young women were being told to get out there and achieve their dreams, but that honest conversation about what that might look like once they want kids is glaringly absent.
My mind wandered to my daughter in Israel. She’s in seminary – a one-year gap program from September to June. It’s full day, Sunday through Thursday (that’s Israel’s work week) plus organized tours, Shabbat experiences, and seminars. It’s intensive Judaics all day. And they are getting “stuff like how to balance work with life.”
They have seminars from published authors, international lecturers, and ordained rabbis on marriage – from how to maintain your own identity within marriage to how to detect a normative marriage from a non-normative marriage. They are learning how to identify abuse within marriage and what to do when that happens. They’re learning about the role of a profession. What it says about you and what it doesn’t. Where it defines you and where you define it. What the value of family is. How to balance your own quest for spirituality with taking care of a family. How the skill set of being a student is different from the skill set of being a mom, and how there may well be a adjustment period and learning curve. They’re learning the role of a rabbi or mentor – and where the limits of that role are.
In Sheryl’s book (we’re on a first-name basis by now) she talks a bit about professional mentorship. And in one of my classes when I was talking about cultivating personal mentors to see how people we respect navigate life, a woman commented that this is so common in the professional sphere, and so absent in the personal sphere – where it counts the most. I agreed! A few days later I found that one of the women at the class had posted this on Facebook:
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| It’s real now because it’s on Facebook. |
So I thought again of my daughter. About how she’s being taught these things. About how cool that is. About how happy I am for her. About how I love that she snaps pictures of her notes and sends them to me so we can discuss. And all is right with the universe.
Beautiful post!
I'm sure you like it!
It is great to talk to young people about marriage, family, etc. I do wonder how much of that is retained when (if I understand rightly) the students aren't yet married or with kids. Although I guess in your O context they aren't very far away from starting to have all that. And they aren't so far removed from the family they were raised in. It makes sense to may that the family an O grows up in will very much shape their expectations of their own future family life. (I imagine that with a longer stretch of unmarried adult life and more exposure to portrayals of all kinds of families/marriages in movies etc., there is more a range of possible expectations.)
It is SUCH a piecemeal thing for employed women in the USA. If you're lucky you work at a place that allows flexibility. If not, you don't. And it depends on what kind of work you do. And all the women I know feel guilty–guilty that they aren't spending more time with kids/family, or guilty that they aren't earning money or using their training and talent. Do O women not have guilt about these things?
That's a very good point about how it works because they're close to getting married at the time. It would probably be less effective if they weren't going to get married for 20 years.
And yes, some Orthodox women feel guilty, although others don't.
Also, I didn't grow up Orthodox but the family I grew up in does do a lot to shape my ideals for my family.
Orthodox women can feel guilty like anyone else, but I do feel there's more of a value-based decision making process (an idea that was not talked about at the event I attended) that really helps.
I really loved this, Ruchi.
Thank you Nina!
I am a stay-at-home mom. And orthodox. And I feel guilty all the time that I am not giving my kids what they need (time, attention, love they can feel). I think it's just part of being a mother, the guilt.
It's always there waiting in ambush. What's up with that??
Is there a bigger guilt with bigger families, because the kids (maybe) don't get as much individual attention from parents? Or would an O's idea that s/he is fulfilling commandments with a big family mitigate that kind of guilt?
Both are true. I don't happen to have a lot of guilt but what I have is definitely parenting related.
Both are true. I don't happen to have a lot of guilt but what I have is definitely parenting related.
1. Thanks for another thoughtful post
2. Mentors are great. I have heard that in the Chabad world this is very well developed and both men & women have mentors (mashpia) to turn to
3. Yes, even the best mentor is limited. The primary responsibility for living our lives is ours (and in the case of our kids or anyone else, theirs). I have worked so hard to learn and figure out so many things about life; I wish I could gift wrap it and hand it to my kids. But truly each person / neshama has it's own tikkun, and has to walk a unique path. I am sure they benefit from my efforts in ways hard to see or explain and as often as we can it's good to share what we have learned. It's just not some kind of magic for preventing them from ever having to work things out for themselves, the hard way…