lynnef@tekgvs.UUCP (Lynne Fitzsimmons) (03/01/86)
Sorry this is late, it has been a busy week.
This week's class was entitled "Jewish Aspect of Parenting a Young Child".
The speakers were Susan Ravens, registered clinical social worker, Lois
Schenker, mother and educator, and a panel of 3 intermarried couples.
Susan Ravens basically gave a quick talk on how children were raised in
the past (14th century onward) and basic child development. She also did
some wonderful crying baby imitation.
Then Lois Schenker told us all how to "do it Jewish" (raise a Jewish family).
She had three basic guidelines:
1)do it for yourselves, not for the children -- children know a cop-out
when they see one.
2)we all do comfortably what we know how to do well.
3)it doesn't matter which rituals you choose -- it *does* matter
that you choose!
and two other points:
1)create for yourself a friendship group to do it with. She pointed out
that not only is it more fun, but your children see other Jewish
children and families participating, so they don't think it is weird.
2)maintain flexibility for the children's sake. (The more orthodox
among you should probably not read any further). For example, they
observe kashrut, but allow the children to attend birthday parties
and eat the food there (the line is drawn at non-beef hotdogs).
As the children got older, they had Shabbat dinner earlier in the
evening so the children could participate in outside activities.
Stuff like that.
She also mentioned sending the children to a Jewish preschool (Portland has
5), possibly sending them to the Hillel day school, summer day camp at
the JCC, and also a Jewish residential camp. They also do the prayer at
meals, encourage bedtime prayers, create a family Shabbat tradition,
and have Jewish art, books, music, etc visibly present in the house.
Then, after a short break (all us pregnant people headed directly for the
bathroom!), we had a panel discussion with three intermarried couples.
TThere was one Jewish-Hindu couple, and two Jewish-Christian couples. All
three couples were committed to raising a Jewish family, which was really
interesting, because the two Jewish-Christian couples were Jewish men/Christian
women. There was only one question that was asked to start it off, and that
was "How do you celebrate the holidays?". It appeared to be the case that
most of them had Jewish in-laws in town, and celebrated with them. The one
biggie was the Hanukah/Christmas season (except for the Jewish-Hindu couple),
and basically they do "celebrate Christmas" with a tree and presents, although
not with the religious stuff.
Next week we learn about resources available in the community, and they will
also be collecting names for an intermarried support group. Could be
interesting.
Lynne Fitzsimmons
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