What My Parents' Deaths Taught Me About Family

By Rabbi Robert Orkand for ReformJudaism.org

My brother the doctor said the cause of my dad’s death was a “medical mystery.” I claim that he died because he willed himself to do so.

For the past six years, my parents had lived together in the same room in a small nursing home in Los Angeles. My mom, who had a bit of dementia, was content. My dad, who was physically frail but mentally sharp, was miserable, but in his mind, he needed to stay alive to take care of my mom as best he could. He did just that, and at my mom’s funeral, he said, “My job is done. I can now die, too.” And so he did, peacefully and without any regrets.

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Parents Reveal What They Wish They'd Known Before Having A Baby In Tear-Jerking Video

The Huffington Post, By    Caroline Bologna

It's no secret that becoming a parent is a life-changing event, and with it come new challenges and a whole lot of questions. To provide some guidance to new moms and dads and parents-to-be, Extra Space Storage put together a video called "10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Having a Baby."

The tips range from "make room for the baby" to "hold onto keepsakes and memories" to "take time for yourself."

But perhaps the most spot-on piece of advice is #1: "The one thing you can't understand and prepare for, that you're not going to know until you experience it, is all the love. Be prepared to love something more than you ever thought you could."

Damn onions.

If you cannot view the video, try here.

Our Kids Have Way Too Much Homework–And it Needs to Stop

Rachel Fadlon for Kveller

I am officially the crazy, anti-homework lady at my children’s Jewish day school.

Believe me, you would be too, if your typical afternoon looked like mine: I leave work and pick up my kids from school. We have a nice, calm ride home, and I get to hear about their day. Pretty mellow so far, right? That’s because I’ve purposely avoided the dreaded topic, which I ask as calmly as possible as we walk in the house: “So, what homework do you have today?”

My 9-year-old son immediately tenses up as he pulls out his weekly homework packet, which is due at the end of the week. That is in addition to his Hebrew homework, nightly reading, and online FASTT Math that he has to do three times a week. He goes into his usual routine about how he hates Hebrew (which is precisely why we are sending him to a Jewish day school!) and finally rushes to do the least amount of homework possible so he can go and play.

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How Orthodox Jews in Fiction Hurt the Ones in Real Life

By Yvette Alt Miller for Kveller

“He was so cruel!”

This was uttered–in a tearful, anguished voice–by a cousin my family was visiting when I was 19 years old, in what was possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life.

I’d just transferred colleges at the beginning of my sophomore year, and had met Orthodox Jews for the first time. From my first encounter with this new group at Hillel dinner, I was intrigued: drawn to their passion; their eagerness to discuss weighty questions; their joy in their religious observance. I’d grown up “Conservative,” and in our home, that meant following a few commandments, both real and imagined: eating gribenas and schmaltz on major holidays; having strong feelings for our local Chinese restaurants; and the strict observance of exactly one mitzvah–thou shalt not eat pork. Everything else seemed negotiable. Now that I was getting to know a very different type of Judaism, I’d started keeping some new Jewish rituals, too: attending Shabbat services; eating kosher foods; even saying the traditional “Shacharit” morning prayers each day.

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Why I’ve Stopped Taking So Many Pictures of My Baby

By Courtney Naliboff for Kveller

When my in-laws came this spring to meet Penrose, they brought with them a DVD containing several months worth of baby videos of my husband. They were taken in 1981, when household-use video cameras were new on the market. His grandparents and aunts feature prominently, as does his mother, and of course, my husband, baby Bill. His father is behind the camera, being directed by his grandfather. The videos capture the family sitting around, happy together, and there’s lots of loving footage of tiny Bill, who looks so much like Penrose it’s uncanny.

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The Hardest Part of Moving to Israel With Kids

Abbey Onn for Kveller

My son’s first words to me when he woke up this morning were: “Mom, I want to sleep in our real house.” He uttered this sentiment while sitting amidst blankets on the floor of my parents’ living room, his toys strewn on the couch in front of him and upwards of 10 suitcases framing the room around him. We are five days away from moving from Brookline, MA to a town just north of Tel Aviv in Israel, and my son wants stability.

In the last three weeks, we have moved out of our apartment (AKA our “real house”), spent a few nights with my parents, and then flew west to not only escape the nine feet of snow in Boston, but to say goodbye to friends before we make this move. Aviv and Maya, my 3.5-year-old son and newly 2-year-old daughter, slept on planes, in cars, in cribs, in trundle beds, on hotel floors, in bed with us, and even midway through meals.

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Studying our History to Build a Jewish Future

By Saul Kaiserman, ejewishphilanthropy

The most important thing you can do for your children, writes New York Times columnist Bruce Feiler, is to tell them true stories about your own family. The more children know about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the greater their resilience in the face of stress. By sharing our childhood memories and the stories of our parents and grandparents, we teach our children that they are part of something larger than themselves, something intergenerational and ongoing. As our children discover that they, too, can be story-tellers, they learn how to make sense of the confusing and sometimes unpredictable world around them.

Stories of redemption – family narratives that tell of overcoming setbacks and recovering from failures – are the most beneficial, according to psychologist Dan McAdams. We help our children to be courageous in the face of adversity when we let them know that although we have had both good and bad times, we have always persevered. Telling stories about the times when we endured hardship without losing hope gives our children confidence in themselves and their capacity to succeed. Further, McAdams’ research shows that those who have both this sense of personal agency as well as intimate, caring relationships are most likely to demonstrate a concern for and commitment to promoting the well-being of future generations.

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