Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Marjorie Ingall: Ethical Parenting is Essential

So another reprint. A vital reprint. From Tablet Magazine - one of the best Jewish places on the web. Get their regular e-mail updates. Now. -- Ira


Ethical Parenting Is More Than Possible. It’s Essential, for Parents and Children Alike.

Don’t break the rules just to help your kids get ahead. Teach them to be mensches by setting an example with your own behavior.

By Marjorie Ingall

New York magazine ran an article by Lisa Miller last week called “Ethical Parenting.” At first I thought it was going to be a serious piece about the tough choices we parents have to make to raise mensches. Instead, it was a self-justifying piece of entitled crap wrapped up in fake hand-wringing. The central question: Can you be a decent human being and a parent at the same time? Miller’s answer—spoiler alert—is no. Let me quote some of Miller’s assertions so you can see why I’m drooling in fury on my keyboard right now.

“Parenthood, like war, is a state in which it’s impossible to be moral.”

“Always be kind and considerate of others, except in those cases where consideration impedes your own self-interest or convenience. Then, take care of yourself.”

“Parenthood means you cannot possibly behave as though society’s rules and norms apply equally to all.”

Shut up.

Now, New York magazine frequently makes me want to move into a Unabomber cabin in the woods. (Ditto the New York Times’s T Magazine, which I’m pretty sure did a feature on artisanal bespoke Unabomber cabins made by Bushwickians with luxuriant civet-conditioned beards.) But there’s always been just enough of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink element to the publication’s portrayals of wilding teens, entitled hedge-funders, and the next hot neighborhood you already couldn’t afford. We were supposed to be horrified by these caricatures of human beings; we normal people were actually all in it together, gaping at those who were destroying society. This piece seems to start in a homologous us-vs.-them vein, pretending to offer up “the corrupt child-rearing customs … of the aggressively rising class: the mother who, according to Urban Baby legend, slept with the admissions officer (with her husband’s consent!) to get her child into the Ivy League, or the one who sued an Upper East Side preschool for insufficiently preparing her 4-year-old for a private-school test,” but then it goes on to argue that the rest of us are pretty similar. “Schadenfreude elides a more difficult existential truth, which is that ever since Noah installed his own three sons upon the ark and left the rest of the world to drown, protecting and privileging one’s own kids at the expense of other people has been the name of the game. It’s what parents do.”

No, it’s not. And you did not just compare giving a fake address to get into a better public school district, or sending a kid to school with lice so that she won’t miss a state standardized test, to the Noah story. Let’s review: God ordered Noah to build an ark because the earth was full of wicked people. The people who deliberately lie and cheat so their kids can get ahead are the wicked people. Noah’s ark-building impulse did not come from a realization that there’d be less competition for Harvard if all the other teenagers drowned.

Please go to the original article on Tablet to read the rest of the article! It is worth it. 
(Fair usage issues prevent me from reproducing the entire article!)


Marjorie Ingall, a Life & Religion columnist for Tablet Magazine, is the author of The Field Guide to North American Males and the co-author of Hungry.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Thou shalt help those with special needs find their best place among us!

Paul Kipnes is the rabbi at Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA and my classmate at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at HUC-JIR (Class of '91). He has a terrific Blog called Or Am I? Below is his post from yesterday. It sends a very strong message of inclusion which I echo. And he asks an important question: Who else makes it a point to meet the learners with special needs where they are? And I am asking not only about Bar/Bat Mitzvah, but also about other points of connections. 

For congregational schools: Is your school willing to include any child in your established classes if they are included in their weekday school? Are you willing and able to provide paraprofessionals or madrikhim to shadow them if that is how they best learn? Is your school willing to create stand alone learning for those students for whom inclusion is not the best answer? What about physical needs? Is there a ramp or lift on the bima? Large print siddurim and a hearing assist system? Do you have an elevator if the synagogue has upper floors? There are more things we could be doing.

In the Torah, Amalek is considered the ultimate in evil. He was no the only king to attack the Israelites, but he gets the biggest black hat because he ordered his troops to attack the rear of the Israelite column. that is where Moses had positioned the non-combatants, which surely included those whose physical and other abilities prevented them from being effective fighters. We can assume that if they had people with special needs (it is possible that such people didn't survive long as slaves in the ancient near East) they were among those to suffer first at Amaleck's hands. The message is clear to me: that it is a compelling positive mitzvah: Thou shalt help those with special needs find their best place among us!

I am proud of Paul, Doug and their congregation for what they do and what Paul told that parent. I am equally proud that my congregation can answer yes to all of the questions I listed above. I am proud that two of our madrikhim (one is my son) work closely with two young men with autism in a stand alone classroom and that we we have a special needs coordinator who monitors all of our learners, helping avocational teachers learn how best to respond to those learners' needs. 

Please comment to this post by sharing the ways in which your school/congregation/institution works to meet the needs of learners (children and adults) who encounter the world differently from the statistical mean. And now for Paul's post: 


I received a message recently about a parent of a child with special needs. It seems that this parent was unsure that the special needs child could ever become a Bar Mitzvah. Here's my response to the parent:
Recently, Cantor Doug Cotler and I officiated at two different B'nai Mitzvah services of children with special needs. In each case, the parents were sure that their child would never read from Torah, lead the service or become a Bar Mitzvah. Like the few dozen other such families who thought the same, they were overwhelmed and blown away when their child led the service, read from Torah and gave a speech. There wasn't a dry eye in the house!
At Congregation Or Ami, we are committed to the idea that any child of a member who works to the best of his or her ability, has the privilege and right to a Jewish learning experience and to becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The children participate in a real service, just one that is subtly tailored to each child's unique abilities (which, by the way, is basically what we do for EVERY child). 

What does that mean?
  • Maybe he will read Torah but not Haftarah.
  • Maybe he will sing the prayers he knows and explain others.

  • Maybe his service will be before only 15-20 of the closest and then there will be a bigger party.
  • Maybe he will only chant one verse of Torah per aliyah.
  • Maybe his Torah portion will be the V'ahavta prayer, which he will already know by heart (the V'ahavta in the prayerbook, comes from the Torah).
  • Maybe... maybe... maybe...
The keys to it all are three interlocking elements:

  1. The commitment of the Temple to say "YES, this CAN and WILL happen."
  2. The creativity of our B'nai Mitzvah tutor Diane Townsend to figure out ways to get each child to do his/her best. Diane works with me to tailor the service in a way that outsiders would not realize is tailored, but makes your child shine brightly.
  3. The willingness of the parents to let go of their sense that it cannot happen, but instead to believe that yes, my son - just like every other Jewish boy - can become a Bar Mitzvah.

By the way, I have NEVER encountered a child with special needs (at Congregation Or Ami or at my previous synagogues) who could not and did not become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah.
I so look forward to celebrating as your son becomes a Bar Mitzvah. So don't worry. Just say to yourself, "Yes, this will happen." Then breathe...
We can talk more if you want.
Gosh, I wish we could better publicize this message. I wish that all synagogues would realize that there should be NO barriers to children with special needs, especially with regard to Jewish ritual.

Alas, we can only work in our little corner of the world...



What is happening in your corner of the world? Please post a comment and share! - Ira

Friday, March 4, 2011

"Finding God in my Phone"

This was written by friend and colleague Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin. She is Congregational Educator and Director of the Religious School at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, CA. It was written for the members of the congregation on their Synablog, and it draws some wonderful lessons form the recent NATE conference.

Every Friday, Jonah Bryfman lights Shabbat candles with his grandparents.  They always make it a point to be together as they say the blessings and welcome Shabbat. His father David explained that due in part to this weekly ritual, Jonah's grandparents played a significant role in fostering Jonah's powerful connection to his Jewish identity. 

Here's the catch: Jonah's grandparents live in Melbourne, Australia.  David and Jonah live in New York.  Their Shabbat tradition takes place over videochat on the computer.  Despite the distance, grandparents and grandchild are able to share this simple moment together from thousands of miles away.  Does the fact that they have only met in the flesh a few times lessen the power of their connection?  Does it make their bond any less real?

I spent the last week at a conference for the National Association of Temple Educators, and the theme was technology.  While I was a fairly young digital immigrant, I am not nearly as tech savvy as most of our students at Temple Emanuel.  The topic posed a fair challenge, and I went in skeptical about the degree to which recent advances to the digital landscape will really impact Jewish education.

But I came out of the conference changed.  I was reminded of the ways that I myself have been part of virtual communities that have been different from the norm, but still meaningful. For example, so many of us were deeply impacted by the music, memories, and sense of togetherness shared at Debbie Friedman's funeral, even though we were only able to attend via the streaming internet broadcast.  May we learn from this that there are times when we can extend the power of our prayer at Temple Emanuel to include those who are limited by the boundaries of physical space? 

Recently at Temple Emanuel we have seen our prayer and our learning enhanced by Rabbi Aaron's beautiful and thoughtful visual components of Shabbat B'Yachad.   In the future, perhaps our students will also learn to interpret ancient prayers through this kind of contemporary visual artistic expression.  The ways that technology can enhance our Jewish experiences are limited only by our own imagination.

As Jews, we are the people of the book.  It's true that we resonate with scrolls and pages, pens and ink.  But as our lives expand to encompass the mobile realm, so too can our sanctuaries.  Not only does God dwell among people who study together from across a table, but God can also dwell among people who light candles together from across an ocean.  The screen does not have to devalue our ancient words and texts.  Rather, there are times where it may have the power to make holiness even more accessible to those who are as adept with the flick of a finger across the surface of a smartphone as they are with the flip of a page in a book.

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