A Shadow of Mommy

My ideals stem from the values I had seen in my parents’ home and (hopefully!) grew up with, but which today is very often looked upon as simplistic and naive. Whereas in the past, “simplicity” was the accepted norm and everyone was like that, today you’re sometimes “swimming against the tide” if you do want to live a simple life. Today’s generation is street-wise; everyone feels they need to be sharp and look out for themselves or they will be exploited.

Unfortunately that’s the way of life in the outside world so we feel we have to protect ourselves and be the same. In the outside world people have become very selfish and think only of themselves; it’s an egotistic “me” generation out there. And once a person has absorbed that selfish mindset it’s a very short step to exploiting others in order to get what one wants. Without even the seven mitzvos of b’nei no’ach, there is nothing to stop a person from “looking after no.1” in whichever way he sees fit.

The only antidote to this is for our homes to be run in exactly the opposite way; Instead of thinking that that’s the correct way to behave, you should understand that it is absolutely wrong and against the Torah. Of course you must protect yourself when dealing with the outside world but that should not be the “real” you; it should be a “skin” you put on when you go out amongst the wide world.

When you role model the qualities and ideals you want your children to have you are already educating them. And let me tell you that it’s never too early to start. Ideally the chinuch of your children should start from the day they are born. Children are very impressionable and absorb everything right from the start of their lives. We know that children respond to a smile already at the age of a few weeks; from this we can see that even at that early age children are aware of their surroundings and are already picking up cues and responding to them.

Because children already absorb impressions at a very young age it is important that their surroundings reflect the way you want them to grow up; this includes refined speech and the tsni’us – modesty – in the home.

I was careful to have only Jewish tapes and CD’s, and “clean” pictures and books in our home, and no outside newspapers, magazines or a television were ever allowed into our home.

As I needed a computer for work I had the modem removed before I even brought it into the house so that there was absolutely no chance that anyone could access the outside world; for me the computer has always been a “glorified typewriter”.

When I want to send a document I print it and fax it. The convenience of just pressing a button to send something through the computer is not worth the terrible danger of being able to access the outside world and all its filth.

I also never allowed any games to be played on the computer either. All those games are not at all as “innocent” as they seem. Even the “clean” ones are still educating our children to outside values that are absolutely anti-ethical to yiddishkeit. For instance, is it a Jewish value that it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot and kill in order to win a game? Even if it’s the “good” guy who’s killing the “bad” guys – murder – because that’s what it really is, is absolutely forbidden by the Torah (we’re not discussing self-defense when someone wants to kill you here). By playing these games your children are losing their sensitivity to Jewish hashkafa; in their place they are absorbing foreign values and behavior.

I was careful with all these things because my aim was to have a “clean” home where our children would only absorb the purity and beauty of yiddishkeit, and not have it diluted or blunted by foreign influences, G-d forbid. (Obviously, once you leave the home you’re not in control of what is going on outside but at this stage we’re only discussing the home environment).

Every child is born with a selfish nature and negative tendencies; (we very often see that a small child’s instinctive reaction is to hit and bite other children when it wants something, rather than to try and get it by peaceful means). If left to develop freely the bad middos together with bad habits will blossom and develop until they are firmly entrenched in the child’s nature. It is then hard work to overturn and redirect those entrenched negative character traits and habits.

But if you start teaching a child the right way in life as soon as it starts interacting (and long before it even understands what it’s all about) you are stopping the development of bad middot, and instead developing the good side of the child. For that reason it is very important to train children in the correct way of doing things right from the very beginning of their lives; by doing so you have already set them on the road to piety and decency.

If you start working with your children at a young age it will also be much easier for you to teach them whatever you want them to learn because at this age they will unquestioningly accept whatever you say or do; you won’t have to argue or explain why you want things done your way.

A child, from birth up to the age of five has no critical faculties or ability to think for itself; it is a “shadow of”, and “inter-twined” with its mother. As it grows older the child is slowly “separating” from its mother until by about the age of five it has developed into an independent person with a mind of its own and the ability to think for itself.

Because a child up to the age of five has no mind of its own yet, whatever you teach it will be totally and unquestioningly accepted by the child and will be internalized without any opposition. At this young age the child has no critical faculties to help it “decide” whether outside stimuli should be accepted or not, so that anything the child learns penetrates very deeply into the child and becomes part of its nature.

You can obviously teach a child later on as well, but once the child can think for itself it will not accept anything you say or do uncritically but will “weigh it up” in its childish mind and decide if it’s correct or not, and if it wants to do or act the way you want it to. It will take far more persuasion and work than it would have done at a younger age, and that’s apart from having to undo any negative habits that have already been picked up.