Parenting Today
May 12, 2001

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. For the telephone companies, it is the busiest day of the year as children call home to tell mother how much she means to them. My mother, who will be 89 in June, still speaks to me constantly about her mother, who died 51 one years ago. Her mother's love and devotion have never been forgotten.

My sense is that modern mothers are appreciated just as much by their children. Every Shabbat I hear b'nei mitzvah praise their moms for their dedication and caring. Yet there seems to be a nostalgia for the old style mother who spent her time and energy hovering over her sons and daughters, scrubbing her home and mothering her husband as well as her children. But I wonder if the purported differences between mothers then and now are so great. What strikes me about my mother's stories about my grandmother is how similar in many ways she was to mothers today. My grandmother was not just a housewife. My grandmother owned and ran a bakery. Back then as today, one income was not enough. There is another similarity to modern times: while the term "latch key kid" had not yet been coined, I can't imagine that when my mother returned from school, her mother was there. A bakery is the kind of business where to do it right, you have to leave home early in the morning and return late.

From what I have read, my grandmother's role as a significant bread winner was far from unique among Jewish woman of her day. The great Yiddish author, Isaac Bashevis Singer, writes that his grandmother would travel from her shtetl to Warsaw to buy small batches of manufactured goods. She then bartered the goods for produce the peasants brought to the shtetl's central market place. Read any novel about that period and you find working woman depicted in a variety of roles. Some were street peddlers, selling bagels and breads from baskets dangling on their arms. Some sold clothes as either independent or small-scale contractors. Often woman worked with their husbands in "mom and pop stores." And, while we have an image of Tevya the milkman, it was often the women who milked the cows and then drove the buggy loaded with the milk to their customers.

Yet, while the Yiddishe momma of the past, more often than not, was a working mother, nonetheless, her life, in many significant ways, was far less complicated and hectic than that of the today's mom. Mothers in our congregation describe days whose closest analogy would be to running a triathlon except their course, determined by their children's activities, is to Hebrew School, soccer fields, music lessons and enrichment programs.

When I ask parents why they have allowed their lives and their children's lives to become overloaded with activities, they say that they are just trying to give their children as good a shot as they can at a solid future. Parents are insecure about what lies ahead for their children. They know that good grades and good SAT's no longer guarantee getting into the best colleges. With the stakes so high, parents are pressing for school to be more challenging, which in turn has resulted in more homework, more testing and more tutoring. Especially in our area, with its high standard of living, parents are worried that unless their sons and daughters are pushed to succeed in every endeavor, they will miss the top rung and, as adults, sink down into a standard of life that is less than the standard with which they were raised and that they have come to enjoy.

This line of thinking is reinforced by the success of sports stars like Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams. Pushed to achieve by their very involved parents, the message that comes across is that champions are made, they are not born. Child rearing books concur. They tell parents that their child must constantly be stimulated. As a result, parents think they can't let up. Every minute of the youngster's day has to have a purpose. A mother was quoted recently in Newsweek as saying that her one-year-old spends so much time in the minivan she uses to transport her three older children from activity to activity, that when he is not in the van, he is somewhat disoriented.

Often, mothers are also putting in long hours at their job. Corporate culture is demanding. Americans are working harder than anyone else in the world, including the Japanese. I am certain you have seen the mother who is cheering her children on the sports field while conducting business on her mobile phone. We have mothers working late at the office who are correcting their children's homework by fax and e-mail. And even if a she wants to cut back at work, she can't afford to because often it takes two full incomes to pay for summer camp, tennis lessons, tutoring and high taxes.

Reality being what it is, I don't think any of what I have described is going to change. But I do have a partial solution to the modern frenzy. Though it sounds counter intuitive, I think mothers - and fathers too - should add an activity to the week that ironically would make their lives less hectic and more satisfying. The additional piece I urge for their lives is prescribed in this morning's torah reading. It is called Shabbat. Before you summarily dismiss this suggestion, thinking to yourselves, "This is what I would expect to hear it from a rabbi," let me tell you, not just rabbis are advocates of Shabbat observance. Sara Berman is a journalist living in Manhattan. She writes:

Since I was a child, my family's one overriding tradition was a Shabbat dinner together every Friday night. And now, with two children of my own, my husband and I have continued this same tradition. There are religious aspects to these dinners such as candle lighting and kiddush, but, in addition, what makes these dinners so special is that we are all together to share a meal, something that during my childhood and still today, is difficult to find the time for.

Furthermore, Shabbat creates a dependable rhythm in my life that not only reinvigorates my body and mind, but more importantly allows me to live more freely during the other six days of the week. I can expend energy knowing that there will be a time to refuel. I am able to go a day or two without reflection because I know there is an appointed time when I will be able to take it all in. I am able to push harder and longer during the week because of what is waiting for me on the seventh day. While God's commandment to observe the Sabbath appears restrictive, in reality, it is expansive. Shabbat is like the pause between notes that makes the music far sweeter and richer than if played uninterrupted.

Michael Steinhardt, a prominent money manager for over 30 years agrees with Sara Berman. He has written the following:

Having dedicated the majority of my professional career to the investment world, my energy during the work week was focused on making money. Did I know more about a certain stock than the next guy did? Were my positions too small or too big? What about the yen vs. the dollar?

For most of my 30 plus years on Wall Street, I worked long days and long nights and was intensely engaged in the process. But when the sun began to set on Fridays, I could feel the tension begin to melt. I rarely looked forward to any special event or dinner as much as I did to the dependable dinners on Friday nights. As my kids liked to say, there were "no excuses" for missing them. In retrospect, they formed the core of my children's Jewish identity.

I caught up with my family on Friday night. I heard about the bad teachers, the difficult wrestling practices and the upcoming recitals. I had the opportunity to look at each of my children and my wife -- as if it were the very first time.

In my business, it was easy to be consumed by the ups and downs of the market. When I look back on my career, perhaps part of its success can be attributed to my own intensity. But if that intensity hadn't been punctuated by a period of rest and reflection, and if I hadn't been stopped in my tracks each week in a way that forced me to prioritize, I don't think I would have been able to keep working with the same dedication. If the aim of Shabbat is to pause, to focus on your family, to gain a clearer perspective, to feel a separation in time and space from the work week, for me, Shabbat accomplishes its mission.

And so this is the gift I am offering to all mothers for Mother's Day and let me offer it to fathers, too, after all Father's Day is but a month away. The gift is Shabbat. It is a proven antidote to the mad pace of modern life. It allows mothers and fathers to recoup the perspective and energy they need to run the triathlon of the work week. It makes room for the spiritual in lives dominated by the material.

Shabbat works its magic for me and my family. I know it will work for you and yours. Try it. Shabbat Shalom---and to all you moms–Happy Mother's Day.