Dear Friends,
I am so grateful to update you that The Gift of Children will be on store shelves (and Amazon) in a matter of weeks, with Hashem’s help. I know many of you are waiting to get your copy, so hang in there, and I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it’s out!
Meanwhile… quite some time has passed since the beginning of this journey, and my mind is whirring once again. This time, the theme is slightly different, but in some ways it is very much the same.
My children have grown a lot in the past six years, and the struggle has shifted. Starting a family is one thing, raising babies is another, but raising adolescents and soon to be young adults is quite something else.
But first, let me catch you up, as there’s some news I haven’t yet shared here on the blog.
We Moved!
Just about two years ago, we heard that a small village in upstate New York was looking for new Shluchim. To make a long story short, we picked up our family and moved out of Brooklyn, and Ellenville has been our home ever since. I wrote about the decision to make this move and its ramifications in the Embrace magazine, a publication by and for graduates of Bais Rivkah, my alma mater. My article is on page 52 of the magazine here.
I encourage you to read the full article, but in case you’d like the short version, here goes.
An Awakening
Besides the obvious differences of moving from the city to the country, we realized that the biggest change to our family would be in the chinuch of our children. Out of the city, we would no longer have the convenience of sending our children to a local chassidishe Lubavitch school, which we had always relied on to give our children a proper chinuch. Now, our options would be to homeschool, or to commute to a frum (non-Chabad) school or a Jewish day school some distance away. Whichever way we went, the bottom line was similar – no longer could we simply rely on a school that completely shared our values, but we would have to step up and do much of the educating ourselves.
This woke us up to a reality that we should have seen earlier: in fact, the chinuch of our children had always been our responsibility. Yes, the school may be there to teach reading, chumash, halacha, and the like, but we were the only ones who could properly guide our children in the way that we wanted them to be raised.
We knew it was going to be a challenge, but we were there for it. Taking the lead in our children’s education sparked a new passion in me and I began to research whatever I could on the topic. I began to reevaluate so many things that had always seemed givens, and I realized I had so many questions that I needed answered.
It’s almost two years later, and now, with some real-life experience to back me up, I’m starting to find some footing. I’m itching to pull it together into something cohesive, and so I figured I’ll get back to blogging and see where it takes me.
And so, here I am. It’s going to be another amazing journey, and I invite you to come along.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback, and together we will create something amazing.
<3 Chaya