Casualties of Divorce

In stealth, while her soon to be ex-husband was at work, the mother took her four children, and most of the furniture of the house, and moved away to another city.  She registered her children in a new school, told her children that their father was not to be trusted, that they would not see their friends again, and did not allow them to make contact with him once they had resettled.  When the father came home from work, he returned to a quiet empty house, totally bewildered as to what the hell had happened to his life.

Sounds like a soap opera, or an appeal for some foundation, right?  Well, these are my neighbors, and what makes the story even harder is this:  the mother is extremely abusive to her children, and the father has never prevented it, because he has been afraid of his soon to be ex-wife.  Anyone who knows the background of this family would agree that the children would still be better off with the father than the mother.

Before I am accused of slander or gossip, let me say that I have seen this abuse with my own eyes on several occasions, and have been this family's neighbor for over 12 years.  And the walls between apartments are thinner than one would believe.

The two older children have declared that they do not want to live with their mother, and have begged their father to take them away from her.  The only way they speak to their father was by sneaking in a phone call when their mother isn't paying attention.  The two younger children do not know their father's cell phone number, nor have they been able to reach their father in any way, though they too have expressed a desire to live with their father rather than their mother.

In Israeli (Draconian) divorce law, the mother always gets custody, and the father has to work very hard and spend lots of money on lawyers to even get partial custody.  In recent week, there have been several attempts in the Knesset to change that law, to put some of the responsibility of custody decisions on the social workers as well.   An attempt to objectively as possible asses the situation and do what is best for the children.

The amendment to the law was shut down last week, in a disappointing vote.

If I am being truly honest, over the past 12 years I have contemplated many times calling the police and reporting this family, but never did, as I was advised by my Israeli neighbors that it would not help the situation in the end.  Now I am wishing that the father's lawyer would start knocking on doors and asking all of us who live in the building to testify on his behalf,  Because I would.

Parenting 2.0

My daughter is a good kid, and I say that objectively.  She is thoughtful and helpful and compassionate, and usually listens to me and follows instructions.

Hence, those infrequent bursts of defiance, totally normal for her age and bound to increase exponentially during the teenage years, completely surprise me.  Every time.

This morning while I was in the shower, she had apparently gone through my jewelry box, and chosen one of my necklaces to wear to school today.  A real piece of jewelry, not one of her sophisticated looking plastic accessories.

I told her "No," and asked her to return the necklace where she had found it.  She made her pouty face, stomped around for a minute or two and then walked away.  When I started to get dressed, I decided to make sure she had put the jewelry away in its proper place; not so surprisingly, the necklace was nowhere to be seen.

I asked Raphaela where she had put it, or lost it as the case may be, and she shrugged her shoulder (in the way that Israeli children do from age zero) and ignored my question.  I told her to look for it with me, and she refused.

So I told her that I would take one of her favorite toys away until we found the necklace.  "If you cannot take care of nice things, you will lose something you like." I said, firmly.  And showed her that her electronic story board was going deep in the back of a closet, way up high in the kitchen.

"I don't care Mommy," she said, with the pouty defiance face, "I find that toy annoying anyway."

So I went into her room and took her favorite doll and placed it next to the electronic toy, and then I saw panic in her face.

"I love you, Raphaela. I will always love you no matter what you do and how you behave." I explained. "At the same time, I have every right to get angry and punish you if you behave very badly and disrespect me."

"I know Mommy.  Because you're my Mommy." She said quietly.  "Sorry Mommy."

I know that she must learn that her actions have consequences;  and yet, I now will spend the whole morning feeling guilty that I sent her off to school in a less than optimal emotional state.

(That's the pouty face, same as it has been since she was born.  Here she seems to be disturbed that she was removed from the safe haven of the womb...)

The Cookie Fairy

When I picked Raphaela up from school yesterday, she told me excitedly about the greatest mystery and adventure of the day.  Apparently, when she opened her lunch, she found two Oreo cookies that had not been there when I packed the meals in the morning.  She had no idea who snuck them in there, and because she got two of them, she shared one with a friend.

I for one would not mind if the Swiss Chocolate Fairy paid me a visit.

Happy Holidays

Today I started planning our Thanksgiving dinner, and I couldn't be more excited.  Thanksgiving stands as one of my favorite holidays, American, Israeli, Jewish and otherwise.  In my mind it represents all those family gatherings at my grandmother's Z"L, the amazing smell when you walked in the door, the annual fight over which movie to see, the Macy's Day parade and the time spent bonding with cousins.

Living in Israel, we mostly ignore the American and the non-Jewish holidays, New Year's comes and goes without notice, except that I know that I will have to prepare my annual taxes around that time.  This year, however, Raphaela seems to have taken more notice of the global community.

She asked me why we don't celebrate Halloween, and I told her that we have Purim instead; I didn't mention that Halloween commemorates pogroms against Jews.  I remember, growing up in New York as a child how we spent that night:  we locked all the doors and windows, and closed the shades.  When the door bell rang, we ignored it, and the next morning, we hoped that the area where we lived had not been vandalized in any major way.  It was the one night out of the year that our quietly anti-Semitic neighbors had full reign.

It has apparently changed, evidenced by the huge amount of friends on Facebook - those of the Jewish faith and of all levels of religiosity- who posted pictures of their family fully costumed and celebrating Halloween on some level.

As far as Christmas, Raphaela thinks that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are fast friends of Diego and Dora, as they appear on the (Hebrew translated) cartoon to deliver presents and rescue animals.  Every year I go to a Christmas classic music/carols concert at the International YMCA in Jerusalem, but have not taken Raphaela because she cannot stay up that late into the night.  When she gets older, I may give her the option of coming with me instead of staying home with a baby sitter, though I doubt she will know the words to any of the Christmas carols or Handel's Messiah.

(The Tooth Fairy, however, is real.)

Our Chanukah rituals revolve around candle lighting with friends and family, eating doughnuts and taking day trips, rather than the rampant materialism that characterizes the season.  I am grateful to raise my daughter that way.

Ask any parent of children in Israel and they will say that there is far too much vacation from school for Jewish holidays as it is, we don't need to add in the other religions to the mix.

Raphaela is Punny

"Mommy, I can speak English, Hebrew, Sepharadit [Hebrew for Spanish] and Ashkenazit!"

The State of Education

When I attended elementary school in the United States, Teacher was God and the Principal was Uber-God.  The idea of questioning a statement or a decision was out of bounds, we all assumed that our teacher, being a Meta-Human, didn't need to go to the bathroom.

I hated missing a day of school because I thought that every day a crucial piece of information was being transmitted to the class, and I don't remember taking more that two or three sick days.  Leaving for family vacation a day or two early before Winter Break? Never.  It would go on your "permanent record."

Flash forward to the 21rst century, in Jerusalem, Israel.  Every week Raphaela's first grade teacher chooses four girls to be her assistants, and at the end of the week these four girls host a festive breakfast.  My daughter was chosen this week, and when she told me, she expressed excitement mixed with concern.

"Mommy, is something wrong with my teacher? Isn't she supposed to know how to do everything? Why does she need six year old assistants?"

Holding back a smirk, I explained that it is most important in life to learn how to ask for help, even if you can do everything by yourself.  I also stressed that now that she is in first grade, a big girl, it is so great that she and her friends are old enough to take responsibility for some part of the class room experience.

And yet, every time I see the Principal of Raphaela's school, I say good morning and smile.  Because I haven't let go of all the awe and picture of infallibility of educators, and a little kissing up doesn't hurt anyone.

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Raphaela has a school-sponsored activity in Art on Wednesdays.  She generally loves doing projects of all kinds, and there is a fair amount of these displayed on a shelf in our kitchen.

Last week, Raphaela told me that the noise level and the smell of the glue bothered her, and that she was having a hard time enjoying the art lesson.  We came to an agreement that she would try to adapt, and I gave her a few suggestions to get through the hour.

"But I want to learn drawing from a real artist, like you Mommy."

Get Your Hot Dogs Here!

For several years now, if you ask Raphaela for the list of her favorite foods, hot dogs and olives appear first and foremost.  I have often given her the speech about hot dogs, how there are higher quality meats out there, and I have failed to get through;  we instituted a rule in the house that she is not allowed to have them more than twice a week.

Now that I have to pack lunches every day of the week for school, hot dogs make my life a little easier. Once a week, I put them in a heat-able container, and I know she will eat food that day.  Since she is not a sandwich person, I have to get creative with my menus.

This afternoon, when I picked up Raphaela from school, she told me that when she took out her lunch today, she was barraged by commentary from her class mates.

"One of my friends told me that hot dogs aren't healthy, because they are made out of melted chicken feathers.  Then another friend said that hot dogs are made out of pig meat, and that isn't Kosher!  I looked hard and I didn't see any feathers."

I couldn't help but laugh, because in one lunch the girls in her class had managed to turn her against her favorite food. I explained that hot dogs every once in a while will not hurt her, and that at the very least her hot dogs are kosher, so one can hope that they don't contain too much questionable material.

"From now on my favorite foods are pizza and chicken fingers."