I know a lot of people poo-poo parenting books, but I find a lot of great inspiration in them. None of them offer perfect formulas for raising children - you have to take them with a grain of salt, but I have found a lot of helpful gems in the books I've read, and as someone who does not consider herself to be a natural at raising children, I appreciate the education.
My most recent parenting book is The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel.
{Via}
This book takes teachings from the Torah and the Talmud and applies them to parenting. Personally, I found it to be so much more than a parenting book. I have always been fond of the Jewish faith. There are so many rituals and symbols in Judaism that I can connect to my own faith as a Mormon.
This book helped put some of my parenting fears to rest as it addressed many aspects of overparenting. It helped me reflect on some of the religious practices I participate in and their purposes. It also inspired me to write a new workshop curriculum. I have an "in" with a family centered conference that's in the works, and I've been trying to decide what I want to present there. I've had some ideas in the back of my mind, and I think I'm ready to bring one of them to fruition.
I had a hard time narrowing down the quotes to share from this book because my copy is highlighted pretty heavily. I decided to go with twelve, and I grouped them by topic.
Family Meals, Eating, & Blessing the Food
"Sanctification*... is the process of acknowledging the holiness in everyday actions and events... One traditional Jewish expression for home is the same as the word for house of worship: mikdash me'at, or 'little holy place.' Our dining table with our children is an altar. It has the potential to be the holiest spot on the planet." p 35
"The Talmud instructs us to find a balance between eating to live and living to eat. We are to elevate the act of eating by being conscious about when, what. where, and why we eat. In other words, we must make our table an altar." p 165
"We need to approach food in a conscious way so we can take full advantage of our human capacity for self-control and enjoyment... Sanctify mealtime. Sitting with other people around a table, as Jewish tradition encourages, assures that we'll spend at least part of our meal conversing instead of consuming. The blessings we say before we eat can also help. These prayers of thanks force us to slow down and reflect on the meal set before us." p 165
"In Judaism, the purpose of eating is partly to fuel ourselves to serve God and partly to force us to enjoy what God has provided. This means that if you eat a chocolate bar or allow your children to have one, you must say a blessing before you eat it to remind yourself to celebrate its worth. If you eat too many candy bars, you can't celebrate, because they are no longer special. If you eat and feel guilty at the same time, you demean the experience of pleasure and misspend the blessing. It's not a celebration anymore." p 166
Gratitude & Recognizing Blessings
"Children are specialists in the holy details... Their gratitude and uninhibited enthusiasm can be contagious, but you have to slow down and make these moments a priority or else you'll both miss out. Formalizing the ritual of blessings so that it becomes a habit is another way to teach children to remember what they've been given.** We tend to want to send God 'wish lists' of the things we want rather than remembering to thank Him for what we already have." p 127-128
"Tikkun olam (healing or repairing the world) conveys the idea that if we are blessed with abundance, it's because God wants us to figure out how to use it to help others." p 129
"In Judaism you are taught to 'be' a blessing. Every day, you mine the details for opportunities to elevate, to sanctify, to make order and find meaning. From your actions, you begin to learn God's wisdom and see the mark of God's touch." p 241
Repentance
"In Juadaism, the word for repentance is techuvah. It means 'return,' both in the sense of returning to your true best self after having strayed off course and the sense of returning to God, to a divine, objective standard of goodness." p203
Honoring the Sabbath Day
"What is forbidden on Shabbat is any act that changes the physical world. When we rest on Shabbat, we stop manipulating nature... and changing the physical. This makes Shabbat a time to focus on the eternal..." From The Art of Jewish Living: The Shabbat Seder by Dr. Ron Wolfson.
"There are peak spiritual moments that happen in a family spontaneously. The prescient, poetic observations our children make, the questions they ask us as they are climbing out of the bath or playing with their toast, cannot be pumped out of them or choreographed. The way time stops when a glistening bull-frog hops onto the driveway or when your child has a long and tender talk with a grandparent ushers in the neshamah yeterah without effort. But the idea of guarding the Sabbath teaches us to increase the odds that we'll find ourselves in these moments, that they will be prolonged rather than fleeting, and that we don't have to leave them entirely to chance." p 214
"[British psychologist D.W.] Winicott believed that we speed up our lives unintentionally in order to escape feeling helpless in the face of overwhelming problems or inner struggles. This may explain why the idea of a whole day of rest is terrifying to so many people. We're not afraid of losing time but of having time to reflect. Without the usual distractions and interference, we may have to confront feelings of disappointment, loneliness, frustration, panic, helplessness, and exhaustion, and our fear that we are not strong enough to make the changes we need to make." p 221
God & Science
"God and science aren't in competition... To teach about science we use the laws of logic and instruments like a microscope. To teach about God we use different laws, like the Ten Commandments, and we use stories instead of instruments to show how the laws work. To test and measure God we use the part of our mind that sees beauty in nature and goodness in people... Science makes God's incredible world credible." p 242-243
*Many of the teachings in this book are based on the three cornerstones of Jewish living: moderation, celebration, and sanctification
**Jewish tradition encourages adults to say 100 blessings of gratitude per day.
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