Last week I posted about a child put in foster care because the parents refused to follow medical avice to fatten him up with junk food. When experts could not get him to gain, they admitted that the parents weren’t the problem.
I have a guest post up about tandem nursing at the Mommy News Blog. Although my daughter is wearing a kippah in the accompanying picture, it’s not meant as any kind of feminist statement. At five years old she no longer wears one. Anyway, now you all know how “radical” I am/was.
The alon Talmei Geulat Am Yisrael always has a column about family life. As usual, this has more to do with psychology than Judaism, but the author of last week’s column, Varda Virzvinski, makes some valuable points. She is a member of the organization of Rabbinic Marriage and Family Counselors in Israel (which I have never heard of).
Over the last few weeks, four toddlers have gotten ill and died suddenly of mysterious causes. Two children remain hospitalized; one is recovering and one is still in intensive care. The Health Ministry debated over whether to announce that they are investigating the deaths as they didn’t want to induce panic. But if word got out about the investigation, the ministry would be accused of withholding information. They are awaiting final lab results but so far there no connection has been found among the children, who came from different parts of the country and had different symptoms. It seems to be a statistical anomaly, and at least one of the children had previous health problems.
Earlier this week an email rumor began circulating claiming that the deaths were related to contaminated Bamba, the heavily marketed children’s snack food. One email forwarded to me this morning was about an uncle working in Superpharm who received a call asking him to take Bamba off the store’s shelves.
Manufacturer Osem’s stock dropped six percent in the stock market as a result of this rumor. My readers know that I am no fan of Bamba. But as a pediatrician friend pointed out, if even one batch of Bamba caused illness Israeli hospitals would be full to capacity with sick children. Negative health effects of Bamba, Bisli, Crembos and other snacks marketed to children are only incremental.
Jameel also wrote about this story.
Read more on Bamba not related to mysterious deaths of toddlers…
On Orthonomics a guest post about Orthodox homeschooling generated the following comment by “l”:
One problem that parents encounter is that in families where there are both older and very young children, the toddlers and infants often require many hours a day of the parents’ care and leave little time left over to work with the older ones.
I think the comment reflects misconceptions both about homeschooling and large families.
Read more on How Do Parents of Large Families Manage? Meet Tal and Talia…
People expect to pray peacefully on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But the shul is overfull and there are distractions. Especially children.
The acceptable level of noise and activity varies according to the community and physical facilities. But one person’s kavanah (concentration during prayer) should not come at the expense of others’. Just because a mother can tune out her children during davening doesn’t mean everyone can.
On Yom Kippur, I mentioned to a friend that her two-year-old had pushed down a child in the aisle. The other child went to his mother to be picked up, without crying, so my friend hadn’t noticed. This happens. But if parents can’t keep an eye on children who wander, the children may be better off at home.
Reports from other communities:
It’s bound to happen at one time or another when you are out with your toddler. Your neighbor asks you the question you were wondering yourself earlier that day, as you tried to talk on the phone while your son climbed the bookcase: “Isn’t he bored at home with you all day? How old is he again? [Insert any answer here.] Shouldn’t he be in a misgeret?”
Read more on Revisiting the Misgeret, or Is Preschool Necessary…
In response to my post on the Modiin Mall story, Frumhouse described how she has handled nursing in public. Therapy Doc left the following comment:
The problem is the cringe factor, and ignoring that is ignoring anything that makes people cringe. If you know you’re making someone cringe, whaddaya do? Make ‘em suffer? Hit ‘em over the head with your ideas? Or move away. You can say that
nobody’s forcing anyone to watch, but face it, the baby’s the draw. Maybe a sign over the breast that says, Look away if this (arrow down) makes you uncomfortable?
My response to TD got too long, so I decided to post it here.
It disturbs me to see nursing associated with “hitting someone over the head” or causing suffering. Breastfeeding is a fundamentally nurturing activity. The comment implies that nursing a baby in public is some kind of political statement. While unfortunately this attitude contains a grain of truth in today’s culture, it’s beside the point.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned as a mother was about relinquishing control.
“Training” my children to do things before they were developmentally ready wasted time and emotional energy. How I regret those power struggles.
Eventually I realized that there were many things I didn’t need to teach my children. I could trust them to meet certain milestones without incentives, threats, or persuasion. These milestones included:
My philosophy is that the more kids you have, the less stuff you need. I avoid toys marketed as “educational” because I figure that as long as something occupies a child’s attention– blocks, a magnet and paper clip, a deck of cards or climbing up and down the steps– the child is developing a skill or learning about the world.
Still, I am materialistic enough to appreciate a new toy now and then. A few weeks ago I agreed to write a product review for Mom Central (they are the ones who sent me Crawling–if you like freebies go over there and sign up). The toy manufacturer, Cranium (pretentious I know), makes educational games and puzzles for the preschool set. I had just about given up on our package (it sat in Israeli customs office for two weeks) when we got the notice from the post office. My little girl was so excited she carried the 3lb box most of the way home. And we weren’t even charged customs tax.
“Let’s Go to the Zoo: Seek and Find Puzzle” turned out to meet my criteria for a good game.
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