This Birthday My Mortality Clock is Ticking Extra Loud
Too early that March morning, my mother came into our bedroom and told us, “You don’t have a Nana anymore.” My sister and I sat up in bed, sleepy-eyed, and shocked into silence. We knew Nana had been...
View ArticleWhy I Don’t Believe in Family Secrets
Secrets are not good for a healthy family life. Discretion is. But secrets are not. I was already in my 30s when one of my closest friends, the daughter of my mother’s best friend, told me that my...
View ArticleYes, You Can Be Orthodox & Be Friends With Gay People
When my generation, the Baby Boomers, was fighting for civil rights, for “women’s liberation” and to end the war in Viet Nam, it would have occurred to almost no one that the next frontier would be...
View ArticleDon’t Feel Bad About Not Missing Your Kids
OK, so maybe I’m not such a good mother. I didn’t cry or sadly wave goodbye as my kids boarded the bus to camp. I can’t even truthfully say I missed them all that much. It was four weeks until...
View ArticleYes, You Can Be Too Close to Your Mom
I have worked with retired “senior” adults for many years. The other day a woman I had never met came in sobbing about the loss of her mother over a year ago. This was not the first time I have been...
View ArticleI Didn’t Want to Spoil My Kids, So I Gave Them All Credit Cards
I refused to raise spoiled, entitled kids. So for their 15th birthdays, I gave each of them a credit card. They got to charge their expenses, and I paid for it. I am a careful shopper and look for...
View ArticleI Never Got My Baby #5, But I Did Get This
I miscarried my first pregnancy. In those days, the 1970s, nobody talked about miscarriage, so I grieved in silence. Only my husband and my mother knew. In those days, doctors told you to wait a few...
View ArticleI’ll Take All The Time With My Grandkids I Can Get
“Yikes!” I thought when I read Shyrla’s Pakua’s recent Kveller post on grandparenting. I was seriously shocked by the tone and content. My experience as a grandmother, and grandchild, is so very...
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Bubbe’s Top 10 Books for Jewish Kids
There has been a lot on Kveller about books for Jewish children but I have not seen any mention of my own favorites. So, after decades of reading to my children and grandchildren, here are my own top...
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How Should a Grandparent Spend Her Money?
We married young, had children young, and by the time I was 31, we had two children in yeshiva day school. My husband worked long, hard hours and I was a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, the right...
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Where Are Today’s Heroes?
Today, there are no heroes. We had Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, and Willis Reed. My grandchildren have A-Rod, Ryan Braun, and Lance Armstrong. We had Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK. Today, we have...
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Rosh Hashanah Resolution: Accepting My Aging Body
To gear up for the High Holidays this year, we’re asking our writers and readers for their Rosh Hashanah Resolution. Here’s one from Kveller writer Renee Septimus. Now that I am not such a “young”...
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Little Known Jewish Prayers, Written By and For Women
Giving birth was the most spiritual experience I ever had. It was as if my body, mind and soul–my very being–was on high alert. I felt a new closeness to the man with whom I had fallen in love years...
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14 Things You Should Know Before Getting Married
My husband and I just celebrated a milestone anniversary–our 40th. We married when we were 21 and 22, respectively, after meeting five years before in summer camp. In my senior year of high school,...
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The Special Tradition My Poppa Started That I Continue With My Own Grandchildren
One recent erev Shabbos (the night before Shabbat, Friday night) was special. My oldest granddaughter turned 3 and we had the opportunity to continue a family tradition through another generation. On...
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Taking My Grandson to Meet a Real-Life Superhero
When I was a kid, we were told to look up to police officers, respect them, consider them our friends and protectors and, if we were ever lost, to find one. Still, I think many of us were actually...
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How Traumatized Are Kids By Gruesome Bible Stories and Fairy Tales?
On a Shabbos morning some months ago, my husband, fatigued by minor surgery he had the day before, left the service in the main sanctuary of the synagogue and went into the small, empty chapel...
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Drag Your Kids To Summer Camp
I recently read a New York Times article about one woman’s unfavorable experiences in summer camp and laughed out loud. Like the author, I was not much of a joiner and hated sports. I also disliked...
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I Used to Put My Kid on a Leash And I Don’t Regret It
“Police Probe After Woman Is Pictured Taking Grandson On ‘Dog-Like’ Walk With Arm Leash,” said the headline on Yahoo News. The picture was not, thankfully, of me. Because yes, I used to put my kid on a...
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As a Grandmother, I Can Say Parents These Days Have It Much Harder
I call it my “lost decade,” from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, when my four children were born and I have no recollection or understanding of any cultural reference from that time. Except shoulder...
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