On Parents, Gratitude, and Children

Every day that I work on this project, my appreciation for my children grows. It’s a wonderful thing, and yet I worried that I was losing sight of an issue I had set out to address: namely, the attitude of the American society today towards family size and children.

So, I decided to get back into the role of a good millennial and ask Google some questions. How many kids should I have? I typed in the search bar. What is the ideal family size? I asked, along with a few other similar questions. Unsurprisingly, I came across hundreds of matching posts, on practically every forum.

In the course of my searching, there was one question that struck me, and though it shouldn’t have surprised me, it did. Why do people want to have kids? someone asked, and he included with his question a laundry list of ‘traditional answers’ that he deemed irrelevant or insufficient. This young person was sincerely wondering why on earth people choose to have kids. At all. And there were over 100 answers posted by people who truly related to his dilemma, further validating his question.

I’m not going to go into the answers I found there; perhaps we’ll get there later. But I’ll tell you this: as a mother of four of the sweetest, most precious human beings to ever live, it was a sad discussion that broke my heart.

How did we get here? How is it that an entire society has come to a place where the most fundamental values are lost to the masses? These aren’t even ideals, nor concepts that require deep understanding and refined emotions. These are the basics of human continuity. A person knows that life is a cycle, and just as his parents brought him into the world and gave him a chance at life, he should do the same for the next generation, if he possibly can. What caused this basic value to fade from our society?

There is a song written by the world-class Yiddish songwriter, Yomtov Ehrlich, a playful version of a famous midrash about the giving of the Torah. An angel comes down the world to offer the gift of the Torah to the nation that would accept it. Each nation asks him what it contains, and to each one he details a different one of the Ten Commandments. It’s a beautiful song – you can listen to it here (sung by Avraham Fried). He travels first to the Russians, the Germans, the French, and the English, each rejecting it on the basis of one particular commandment that doesn’t jive with their lifestyle. Then he arrives in America. The song reads as follows (loosely translated into English):

So the angel flew on speedily
And soon arrived on Delancey St.
And he asked the Americans, quite sincere
“Would you like the Torah here?”

So they say, “Well, I suppose,
What are the terms that you propose?”
Says the angel, “there’s one thing that I expect:
Your parents you must respect!”

So they say, “No, keep it as your own
Here respect to the young is shown
For our parents we have arranged
The holiday Mother’s Day.”

This song was written over half a century ago. Already then, it was clear to the songwriter that Americans had lost their respect for their elders. It’s undeniable. We see it in the way that Americans speak and refer to their elders, all over the media, and in real life, too. Just think – why is “old man” a negative term in our country, something which in other cultures is an honorable title (for instance, zaken in Hebrew, or lehavdil, géros in Greek)?

Perhaps that is where it began.

Why is it so important to respect our parents? Indeed, wouldn’t you think its place in the Ten Commandments would be better filled by a bigger, more general commandment such as “love your fellow as yourself?”

But no. It is one of the Top Ten for good reason.

Respect for our parents really comes as an extension of the respect we have for ourselves. Because if we value our existence, if we realize our worth, we appreciate those who gave birth to us.

Which are the most honored positions in our society? Or, in practical terms, who gets paid the most? For which positions do people spend over a decade of their lives training and competing for?

The doctors, the lawyers, the judges, to name a few – but why?

It is because of the service that they do for people, the institutions they uphold, and because of what they represent.

We value our hospitals because we value our health – so we respect our doctors. We value our constitution because we value our freedom, and the principles that it upholds – so we respect our lawyers and judges.

Shouldn’t it follow that if we value our lives, and the chance that we have to enjoy it – we respect our parents?

Our parents represent the institution of the family. They represent the children, whom they took upon themselves to bring into the world and support through their formative years. And if we remember that children are not just kids but just small people soon to be adults, that each person is a world unto itself – wouldn’t parents be the most important element of society?

What would happen if one day it was decided that doctors don’t deserve the prestige that they receive? It wouldn’t take long for the hospitals to decline in quality, and certainly no one would choose to spend as much as twelve years of their life training to be one.

It seems that is exactly what happened to parenthood in our country. Parents are simply not a respected element of society, and so the young people, who are products of this attitude, are questioning – why be parents at all?

Conclusion

Believe it or not, I’m not here to philosophize.

My reason for writing this post is simply this: In order to clarify the Jewish perspective on children, we need to first define the views of our surrounding culture, and identify whether they are in conflict.

Based on the above, here is what I have concluded:

We do not agree with the American attitude, whether conscious or not, of ingratitude to those whom we owe our lives. We do not agree that a human life is not valuable enough to respect those who brought it into being. We know that only because of our parents can we enjoy our dinner, talk to our friends, dance, sing, laugh, and work.  And we are grateful for the chance that we may have to offer the same opportunities to our children.

American culture has brought us many great things. Unfortunately, their attitude towards children is not one of them.