Last week, one of my teenagers went with a yeshivah friend to visit another yeshivah friend who was diagnosed with the machalah hayeduah a few months ago.

The ill friend is a boy we've known since he was young because he was a classmate of my son's since then, then they ended up in yeshivah together after graduating 8th grade.

The boy is a very good-natured & cheerful kid and the news was devastating. We've all been davening for him regularly, but still. 

Anyway, to understand the upcoming story, it's important to know that this teenage son of mine received a rabbinical exemption from fasting on all fast days except Yom Kippur (and on Tisha B'Av, he needs to last as long as he can, but he's ultimately allowed to eat).

Why?

Because fasting really knocks him out.

Anyway, the day he went to visit his sick friend at the hospital, my son hadn't eaten much dinner the night before and ate only a bowl of cornflakes and milk that morning. After the mid-morning visit, he planned to head back to yeshivah for a hot, filling lunch.

Only he didn't count on the fact that in addition to hitting low blood sugar by the time he arrived at the hospital, his ill friend was in pretty bad-looking shape. The ill boy just didn't look like himself at all; my son claimed that even the shape of his head was different.

Also, the ill boy was just after a treatment and still drugged.

In the middle of the visit, my son realized he wasn't feeling well, and excused himself to get a drink of water.

But then he suddenly passed out, hitting his forehead on the metal corner of the bed on his way down.

He revived soon enough and was transported to the emergency room, upon which I received a phone call from the nurse there, who pleasantly told me that I needed to come right away.

At first, I had no idea who she was and where she was calling from or about. (My son went straight from yeshivah to the hospital and I'd no idea he'd done so, plus the nurse wasn't clear; she didn't even say where she was calling from at first.)

After asking her several questions, I finally realized what had happened. I told her I would come, then I called my husband to figure out logistics. Getting to that hospital takes an hour on 2 buses or 25 minutes in an expensive taxi.

That wouldn't be so bad except that my 4.5-year-old was due home in another couple of hours, and someone needed to be there for him. He has always resisted playing at anyone's home without me, so asking a neighbor to take him in wasn't an option.

Then my teenage son called me and said he was totally fine and didn't need for anyone to come.

And he did sound fine.

Then my husband decided to go to the hospital anyway while I stayed to receive our youngest.

Yet during that time, things took a turn for the worse, and my son vomited, which is a possible sign of skull damage after a head injury.

Or dehydration.

So they hooked him up to a water IV and hydrated him.

His co-visitor from yeshivah stayed with him until my husband arrived, and let our son use his cell phone to keep in contact with us.

Now my son sounded really weak.

Meanwhile, I thought the whole thing was playing out with a lot of strangeness.

Then my husband arrived at the hospital.

By the afternoon, my son still hadn't eaten and I felt that his weakness was due to lack of calories. He was well-hydrated now, but what about food?

I asked if they could give him a food-IV like they do to unconscious people, but the nurse told my husband that's impossible.

I felt helpless being far away when I thought I could easily remedy things with some juice and soup.

Then they wanted to keep my son for observation, so they hospitalized him for the night.

This was really getting out of hand.

Also, it was Thursday night and there was a hint that he might need to stay there for Shabbos, for which I'd want to be with him, which would mean that our youngest would stay with my husband, and we'd need to figure out logistics for the kids who would be home for Shabbat, plus preparing for Shabbat.

The whole time I was thinking, He just needs to eat! He's been in a partial fast for hours – he just needs to eat!

Yet when he did eat a little bit, he vomited.

And because of the IV, we knew it could no longer be dehydration.

So we were all concerned about the slight possibility of a head injury.

So we were all davening a lot (including his siblings) and I took on a couple of kabbalot.

Two more friends from yeshivah came to visit the ill boy, and that boy's mother kindly directed them to visit my son too.

The ill boy's married pregnant sister called me to tell me that she had been in the room at the time, tried to catch my son as he dropped, but didn't succeed.

I told her that for the sake of her pregnancy, I'm glad she didn't catch him. He's pretty heavy.

She expressed concern for my son's condition on behalf of their family. I was so touched by their concern when they were going through something so much worse.

​What good, caring people they are. They're a good example for me to follow.

By this time, darkness had fallen and my oldest son (age 22) came home from work, and expressed willingness to be the one to spend the night with our teenage son. He ate, collected his things, rushed off to the hospital to relieve my husband.

(He also missed the wedding of good friend to do this chessed.)

Being the much-adored older brother to this teenage son, the teenage son started looking better the minute his much-adored older brother appeared.

My husband and I both felt secure with our oldest son there as he is a pretty competent with the ability to totally focus on the needs of another when necessary, and who is also good at keeping his head in even very stressful situations.

Sure enough, his younger brother woke him up at 4 in the morning to eat. So the older brother bought him tuna & crackers, which the younger ate without vomiting. Then they took a walk around together and the older sent us a text saying that his brother had eaten and was fine, so we would see these happy tidings when we woke up.

Very responsible & thoughtful of him.

Because it takes forever to get approved to leave a hospital, they were only able to leave a couple of hours before Shabbat.

And they both came home in an excellent mood.

Clearly, such a chain of odd & unexpected events indicates atonements for sins, which is quite common leading up to Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur.

​But what were some lessons to be gleaned?

These:

• Awareness of how exhausting and nerve-wracking it is to deal with a hospitalized child. His sick friend is one of 10 children. All the logistics we needed to work out this one time for something minor with our son is unfortunately part & parcel of their DAILY life dealing with a severely ill child. And the end is not yet in sight (may he be cured quickly and completely). This situation definitely increased my compassion & empathy for those who suffer.

 

• Increased tefillah by all of us is both possible and helpful, baruch Hashem.

 

• This particular son REALLY needs to make sure he eats properly and in a timely fashion, especially before doing something emotionally stressful.

 

• The kabbalot I took on for that time period were things I'd been pushing off as "too hard," but now they suddenly seem doable (because I did them). Increased spiritual momentum has been discovered, which I've been able to further utilize.

 

• Increased gratitude toward Hashem for whapping us in the face with what life could be like otherwise and what life IS like for other people, may Hashem grant everyone a speedy & complete refuah.

 

• Appreciation for how selfless it's possible to be in a really awful situation, as shown by the seriously ill boy's family and their concern for our son when their son/brother is so much worse off. Mi k'amcha Yisrael? Such special people. I really hope Hashem answers their tefillot l'tovah.

 

• We really need to increase our davening for the seriously ill boy.

And that was part our Elul saga thus far.

When I took my son to his first of day school this year, we were caught up in the rush of hundreds of other parents out on the same mission.

And ditto when I came to pick him up and take him home.

Although his first year (which was last year) at this school (where all his brothers also attended) went wonderfully, this time was different. The beginning of this school year was another step that filled me with new nerves.

Last year, the school's gan happened to be in its own building with its own yard, far away from the super-complex of the school, which hosts all the other grades, up to eighth grade.

This year, my son learns in the multi-level building itself.

Of course, there are safety precautions. The 4-6-year-olds sit in classrooms in their own hallway, and there is an assistant in addition to the teacher. They enjoy recess at a separate time, only going out when the older children are back in class and the yard is empty.

I'm also happy that my son's class merited to have the best teacher for that grade, and after seeing for myself what an ideal teacher he is, I'm even happier.

But I'm still ruminating over the what-ifs and concerns.

It was sitting on the bus stop on the way to pick him up from his first day of school that I woke up to the ruach around me.

Other mothers were picking up their children after sending them to cheder for the first time. They were all so excited.

The same kind of call kept ringing out: "Who is your son learning by this year? Oh, Rabbi Rubenstein? That's wonderful!"

There was a cheerful bustle to it all — at the bus stop, on the bus, weaving my way through the throngs of parents and children — that I couldn't quite place.

At first, I thought these mothers were expressing joyous relief that summer vacation was finally over.

But that wasn't it.

When parents express joy and thankfulness that their child has gotten married, it's not because "Oh, we finally got this kid out of the house! Less mess and more room!"

Not at all.

It's a joy and thankfulness of sending them off to really live their life now, to get down to the nitty-gritty of a Torah journey. It's relief at seeing their child finally find their zivug.

And that's when I realized what this cheerful bustle was: These mothers were rejoicing at sending their sons to learn Torah.

This first day in cheder was the first step in their journey to become ehrliche Yidden and fulfill their destinies as bnei Yaakov Avinu.

I don't know why this never hit me before.

After all, this certainly isn't my first child.

How many first days of school have I experienced without ever really seeing the celebration going on around me?

Maybe I was too caught up in all the hectic details and anxieties to notice.

But this new awareness also re-awakened my appreciation for Yerushalmi mothers, who for all their savvy intelligence, still possess a certain temimut in certain areas because they simply don't know to feel any other way.

And bringing their sons to cheder for the first time is one of those areas.

Baruch Hashem, I was able to be affected now by the general ruach.

Yes, I know things aren't going to be perfect and that school always provides challenges for both parents and children.

But I thought that maybe I could just enjoy the bare-bones fact of it: My son had learned Alef-Bet last year and was going to be learning to read Hebrew this year.

And that's the base for a life of Torah-learning.

And he'll be learning all sorts of halachot and stories from the Torah and Midrash — all geared for his age and level of understanding, and all necessary to nourish his neshamah and form the man he'll eventually become, and hopefully create a wonderful Olam Haba for himself, he should live in good health until 120 (and I also wish that also for you and your children).

So I decided to focus on this idea too and let myself get briefly immersed in all the joyous bustle around me. I also decided, despite the distractions & challenges that are sure to pop up along the way, to try my best to carry it with me throughout the rest of his school years.

Because at the core, that's really what it's all about.

In Parshas Va’eschanan – Sanctuary of the Jewish Home, Rav Miller discusses a question I think many of us have wondered about: Why was Moshe Rabbeinu so resistant against going on to the Next World?

After all, Moshe Rabbeinu was the epitome of emuna.

He knew Hashem was guiding everything in the Universe.

He knew that death is nothing to fear.

He knew he had a wonderful Paradise beyond comprehension waiting for him.

Also, Moshe Rabbeinu achieved more than any other human being ever had.

So why didn't he go peacefully?

Why did he daven 515 tefillot and with such intensity, he shook up the Universe?

The short answer is that Moshe Rabbeinu loved us very much and also wanted to perfect himself even more.

​The long answer is in the dvar Torah itself.

At this point Rav Miller emphasizes each home is basically an empire in which each father is a king and each mother is a queen.

And he delves into all the responsibility that entails, which is admittedly a bit intimidating.

He paints the great example of Rav Channa's house of chessed, as described in the Gemara. It sounds very difficult to dedicate the entire home to chessed in the way Rav Channa did, but Rav Miller explains that Rav Channa and his wife did it in a way that made each other and their children happy.

And that's definitely food for thought.

Yet Rav Miller acknowledges that the vast majority of us can't be like Rav Channa.

So what can we do?

We can take steps to fill our home with kedushah, with mitzvot...with Hashem.​

And we do this one step at a time, elevating the routine mitzvot:

Developing a real love and appreciation for mitzvot is the way to transform your home.

When you feel that way inside, you project it out to your family.

​Here are some ways of looking at yourselves:

The Rav Miller offers many ideas for raising your children with kedushah, even when surrounded by modern secular values.

That's very worth reading.

​He concludes that section with this advice:

Rav Miller offers a great many wonderful ideas for using meal times as pleasant chinuch for the children, a time to inculcate authentic Torah values into the family and the home.

He calls it a form of "meal planning," which means you need to have an idea of what you want to mention before you sit down to eat with everyone. (But he recommends against telling the kids that you planned the topic; let them think it's inspired.)​

Incredibly, our homes that were dedicated to kedushah will rise again with Techiyat Hametim (Resurrection of the Dead)!

(Rav Miller derives this from the Gemara.)

The holy homes of our holy Sages, which are in ruins now, will also rise again!

The strongest & tallest & most beautiful edifices of today will fall at some point.

Yet the humble abode of the Chafetz Chaim, of all the holy people, will rise again.

It's a whole other way of looking at the world.

And these are important questions we need to answer ourselves:

A friend of mine from years back (let’s call her Esty) suffered a severe lack of shalom bayit.

In her eyes, her husband was demanding and self-centered.

​Early on, she felt her husband had only ever seen marriage as the way to get a kosher girlfriend and a built-in servant (in complete opposition to actual halacha and Torah hashkafah, BTW).
 
And no...this adviser, that rebbetzin, this shalom bayit expert, that therapist, his rav—no one was ever able to help (which is unfortunately very typical—why? Because such a severe nisayon is fine-tuned from Hashem and demands more of a spiritual response than a derech-hateva response).
 
And throughout it all, whether it was friends or advisers or books & articles, Esty felt like her shalom bayit problems showed her to be co-dependent.

Or perhaps blameworthy?

Or pathetic & stupid? After all, why did she marry such person in the first place? (Apparently, even her subconscious hates her.)

And why didn’t she just get divorced? (This from her friends.)

​On the other hand, if she was a "better" wife, maybe her husband wouldn’t be so critical and angry all the time. (She tried, but never managed to find that elusive "better" that would magically transform her husband.)
 
Esty felt there were so many ways to see herself in this situation--and they were all bad.

When Esty held herself back from responding in kind, when she remained totally silent and felt dead inside, it didn’t help at all. Her husband's tongue could ride on his temper-fueled steam for a very long time.

​Yet when she could no longer take it (like after 2 weeks of remaining silent and feeling dead in the face of his verbal battery) and fought back, it also didn’t curb his behavior at all. (Even though standing up to bullies is apparently the key to dealing with them.)
 
Conflicting self-condemnations shot back & forth in Esty’s head all the time.
 
But when a completely assimilated friend ended up visiting her area, Esty felt that Esty was her friend’s only chance to experience Shabbos. Esty also wanted to spend time with this assimilated Jew who’d been a close friend in high school.
 
So Esty invited her friend for Shabbat and hoped her husband would be too embarrassed to act the way he usually did.

​But much to her chagrin, Esty's husband wasn’t too embarrassed to act the way he usually did.

​(He never was, Esty eventually realized. She always hoped anew and was always shattered anew until she limited the time she spent with her husband around other people; family outings, hosting guests, etc., became a thing of the past.)
 
Being a gregarious guy, Esty’s husband was friendly & jovial toward Esty & her friend—until Esty (or their toddler) did something that happened to bother her husband (the toddler’s eye infection with a pussy eye was one of an infinite number of things that bothered her husband)--at which he point he would explode at Esty (because, of course, everything was always her fault).
 
Esty noticed and appreciated how his bursts of temper tended to be much shorter around other people, but she still found his outbursts profoundly humiliating & distressing.
 
Ultimately, Esty felt she couldn’t make excuses to her friend for most of her husband’s bursts of temper without coming off like a pathetic doormat or a sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome, but she did explain that her husband got really stressed out by seeing all that puss in their toddler’s eye and it frightened him, which is why he exploded.

​Esty also mentioned that her husband apologized—although he didn’t really apologize, but said that had he known the eye infection wasn’t as serious as it looked, he wouldn’t have gotten so upset.
 
But Esty wanted her husband (and herself) to look a bit better in her friend’s eyes, so Esty stretched the truth a bit.
 
Upon hearing he’d apologized (even though he actually hadn’t), Esty’s friend gave a firm nod and said, “GOOD.”

At the end of the visit, Esty—still self-conscious about her husband’s behavior and how it reflected on her & on frum people in general, especially since her friend knew Esty had met her husband on shidduchim, which is allegedly a great way to avoid such problematic people—casually said, “I wonder how it looked to you that my husband and I have issues and don’t always get along so well.”
 
Esty's friend looked Esty straight in the eye for a long moment.
 
Esty’s friend was a committed feminist and vegan who worked her biceps into little feminine muscles and refused to shave her legs (yes, I met her too).

Esty’s friend was a very successful professional on her way to a doctorate.

Esty’s friend also lost her non-Jewish father at the age of 2 to her non-Jewish father’s receptionist and suffered her mother’s remarriage to a man who molested her when she was 6.

Esty’s friend’s new step-mother (yes, the oh-so alluring receptionist) ended being an extremely temperamental nutcase, but her father didn’t feel like going through the whole divorce procedure again, especially when he had a new child born from this second wife. (Instead, he waited until that child went to college, and then he divorced his psycho former receptionist.)

He later confided how much he wished he’d never divorced Esty's friend's mother. In hindsight, he felt his first wife was actually much better than the nutty, temperamental receptionist he’d run off with and that it had all been a big mistake—for which Esty’s friend paid the highest price.
 
Still looking Esty right in the eye, Esty’s friend said, “I think it’s good that you guys are committed to the struggle, especially when you have a kid together.”
 
“Really?” said Esty, shocked. “You don’t think he’s bad…or that I’m a doormat or co-dependent or…something?”
 
Her friend mulled it over for a moment, then said, “I don’t like it when he talks to you like that, of course. But I admire the fact that you guys are willing to stick it out. Most people aren’t. Anyway, most of the couples I know getting divorced don’t even know why they’re getting divorced. I don’t think they even fight. They just sort of drift into divorce. And even though they have kids and everyone knows how hard divorce is on the kids, they’re not willing to struggle through it. Yeah, sometimes divorce is necessary and better for the kids too. But a lot of times, it would be better if the parents would just stick it out. It’s like the kids aren’t even worth the struggle to keep the marriage together.”
 
“Even if the parents are fighting?” said Esty. “Even if they’re not getting along so well?”
 
Her friend paused, then said, “I know it sounds bad to say it, but yeah. Not always. It depends. Maybe if they don’t have kids, it’s okay. But if they have kids already, then yeah—even if they’re fighting and there’s problems and stuff. It depends how bad it is, of course. But in general, I think it's better to try and stick it out for the kids. But I don’t feel like I can ever say this to anyone.”

Then Esty’s friend mentioned that many people claim to be getting divorced “for the children,” even though Esty’s friend felt that clearly wasn’t the case.
 
“Wow,” said Esty. “I really thought you would lose respect for me when you saw how my husband treats me.”
 
“I don’t like how he treats you all the time. It really bothered me to hear him get angry with you about things that aren’t even your fault. And it seems like he gets angry about things that aren’t very important. But mostly he was fine with you and your daughter—at least from what I saw. But I still respect you the same—even more, because you’re willing to hold on to your commitment.”

​She gave Esty another penetrating look. “I mean, marriage is supposed to be for life, right?”
 
Esty was floored.

​Esty really thought her assertive, “progressive,” independent, successful friend would feel so much more negatively about what Esty was sure must have seemed like a demeaning & misogynist marriage.

Esty shared this story years ago, when it first happened, and I never forgot it because it demonstrates the sharply different angles from which the same situation can be seen.
 
Note: It doesn’t justify in any way the behavior of Esty’s husband nor does it minimize the very real anguish Esty suffered from constant criticism and the unpreventable angry outbursts.
 
And frankly, I think we’ve all seen situations in which divorce is clearly the best option for both the parents and the children.
 
However, what her assimilated friend’s perspective gave Esty was a little bit of relief from the feeling that people were looking at Esty and assuming she was a co-dependent or pathetic or disrespectable or, even worse, as bad as her husband made her out to be & at fault for his poor behavior.
 
And it gave Esty some relief from the conflicting self-condemnations constantly racing around in her head.
 
And maybe it was also possible for Esty to see herself how her friend saw her:
​
Committed, willing to struggle, and--most important of all (to Esty’s friend)--willing to put her child’s needs before her own.

Having said all that, were there things Esty could do to help herself more?

Sure. Spiritual efforts, like:

• being careful not to talk about her situation unless her speech followed the laws of lashon hara l'to'elet (including to sympathetic friends like me ;-)
• davening
• pouring her heart out to Hashem as she would her Best Friend
• doing a cheshbon hanefesh (because Chazal stated that ANY kind of suffering should inspire us to examine our deeds)
• seeing it as a way to spiritual growth.

But again, there are no guarantees.

A person can make efforts to sweeten din. But ultimately, Hashem decides whether it's in the person's best interests for the nisayon to be softened or even eliminated completely...or not. 

You know...most of us are just regular, flawed people who sometimes find ourselves in excruciating situations that demand middot far, far beyond where our middot currently lie.

It's important to see the good in ourselves and to see something positive in the way we're struggling, even if we are also fumbling around and sometimes submitting to bad middot.

Unfortunately, both modern and early (Freud, etc.) Western psychology have produced lots of negative labels for strugglers and all sorts of flaws. 

Frum people who are not emuna-oriented can even distort or misapply passages in Tanach & Gemara & Chazal to further slap negative labels on strugglers. 

But you can see yourself with great hope and faith, despite your flaws and struggles.

After all, that's how HASHEM sees you.

One morning, my husband and I woke up to the sound of our bedroom door being thrust open and bouncing off the wall.

After that enthusiastic lead-in, our 2-year-old toddled in, hugging his blankie and sporting a grin that clearly announced: Is there anything more thrilling than seeing ME first thing in the morning?

Many very young children never entertain the possibility that their parents prefer to sleep rather than play with them. And they wake you up with the utter confidence that you are so thrilled to see them, you WANT to wake up—just for them.

My face was scrunched into my own blanket, but the space left for breathing allowed me to see how his little face lit up in delight when he saw me.

My mommy is playing peek-a-boo with me!

Cheerfully obliging his perception of my covered face, he toddled over and tugged the blanket partially off my face. 

"You look like a face!" he announced cheerfully.

Truth be told, with his own cute little face inches from mine, it was quite an adorable and charming sight to see upon waking up.

​But I still wanted to sleep.

Then his face lit up even more as he examined me closer and said, "You look like a bulldozer!"

​"You didn't tell me that on shidduchim, darling," my husband mumbled.

Oh dear. I guess I need to switch night creams.

(Just kidding.)

This particular child had and still has a real fondness for construction vehicles. So he projects this fondness onto anything he likes.

In his 2-year-old mind, the world is a much nicer place when everything looks like a bulldozer. Or a dump truck. Or a giant crane. Or a digger. Or a cement mixer. Or a steam roller.

In fact, an especially exciting moment for him came whenever he found a construction vehicle that was both a bulldozer from the front and a digger from the back. 

And this is a very common trait in young children: They get massively excited or fascinated by the very things we adults no longer notice (or even find annoying).

And this is something very precious that young children bring to their families, that enthusiasm over mundane objects and experiences.

Not long after he first started enthusing over construction vehicles, we (his older siblings, his father, and I) instinctively started seeking out such monsters whenever we were out with him.

And because his excitement was so charming and contagious, we started getting excited whenever we saw a construction vehicle we knew he would like.

In fact, each of us mentioned that when outside alone and, say, a monster dump truck would come lumbering down the street, our heart would give a leap and we instinctively turned to point it out to him, feeling a bit deflated that he wasn't there to share the experience.

And this is very common for parents and older siblings.

​If it's not with construction vehicles, then it's with something else that the small child gets all excited about.

Even now at age 4, when I take this child to gan on the bus in the morning, he is so excited.

He loves sitting next to the big low window on the bus (as opposed to the higher & smaller window of a car) and he gazes out, his little backpacked body all a-quiver in anticipation of seeing a bulldozer or a steam roller during the 4-minute ride.

I find buses a bit stressful, but I must admit that an enthusiasm for bus rides and catching sight of construction vehicles is a great way to start your day.

​And like I said, his enthusiasm is contagious. I often find myself in a better mood sitting next to him as he wriggles in delight upon spotting his heart's desire chugging away in the dust, rocks, and heat.

And this kind of dynamic is a very big gift that small children grant their families.

Hashem wants us to be excited about the life He has given us. 

He wants us to appreciate all the things we take for granted (or even find annoying; construction vehicles are quite noisy), especially if they are extremely helpful things—like construction vehicles.

This can get lost amid all the toil of raising young children.

​Obviously, a kid pulling on you or calling you to see a mundane thing that child finds thrilling, or to be woken up by winsome 2-year-old narcissism too early in the morning—this can all be understandably exasperating.

You don't always manage the patience for it.

Sleep is a basic need.

​And there are also things that really do demand your attention that just need to get done already, without distractions from even the most adorable and enthusiastic preschoolers.

And that's normal.

But whenever possible, it's good to let ourselves be touched by the zest for mundane living that small children bring to our lives.

A huge blindspot today is language.

Foul words have entered everyday vocabulary, with today's grandmothers using the very words (or worse) for which she originally washed out her own child's mouth with soap as a mother only 3 decades ago.

This can be true in parts of modern frum society too sometimes.

Foul English words have also entered Israeli Hebrew as slang (because they don't know what they're actually saying & because cussing in a foreign language doesn't have the same jolt). Even some frum Israelis end up using this vulgar English as slang within their modern Hebrew.

However, Judaism insists not only on non-vulgar language, but on refined language in general.

When asked about lashon nekiyah - clean language or a clean tongue - Rav Avigdor Miller mentioned the words mothers traditionally forbade their children.

Then he goes a step deeper and discusses refined language in general - "mindful speech," if you will.

For example, he explains, in Slabodka where he learned, they never said the word shlecht, which is Yiddish for "bad."

And that's worth chewing over.

Related link:
Try This: No Swearing for One Week

UPDATE:
​Either Weebly or my filter is not letting me comment on my own post (on other posts -- yes; on this one -- no), so I can't respond in the comment section. But all the comments so far are very inspiring and written from the heart (and much appreciated!).

This wasn't in the post, but based on the comments, I feel it's important to add that while getting pregnant later in life is often more difficult (as mentioned in the post), it's far from impossible. Two commenters had children from age 37 and onward. I've personally known women who got pregnant for the first time at age 39 and another at age 45 shortly after her first marriage -- no fertility treatments or even herbs, and no long wait!

So if this is your situation, please don't despair! And I wish all of you much bracha and hatzlacha.

​(And thank you to all the commenters for sharing their stories & giving chizuk.)

Growing up in secular America, I always saw marriage & family portrayed as the end of one’s life.
 
My orthodontist cheerfully informed me that she waited until around age 37 to start a family. "I wanted to wait until I wouldn't feel resentful about not being able to go out to dinner," she said with a warm smile.

As if your own child isn't worth missing a couple of hours in a restaurant in the evening.

As if you can never go out to dinner again...

I secretly wanted marriage and children instead of a career (though I wanted to be a novelist on the side too), but couldn’t admit this—not even to myself.  
 
You were supposed to push off marriage and children for as long as possible. Education, career, travel, living one’s dreams, sowing wild oats, and all that took precedence.
 
Marriage and children came only when you had lived your life and were either finished with everything else or were just sick of it.
 
Sadly, this has led a great many women into the dilemma of being at the height of her career just as her biological clock starts running out of time. Now she’s supposed to find a husband--or if she already has a husband, start trying to get pregnant and then deal with pregnancy and juggle a baby when her career is going full-force.
 
Furthermore, many women discover that it’s not as easy to get pregnant at 38 as it would have been at 22.
 
And while frum women continue to have children throughout their fertile years, a non-Jewish journalist pointed out that for other Western women who anyway only plan on 1-3 children, it makes more sense to build your family when you’re on the upside of fertility, when you’re young and can deal with sleepless nights (she makes the point that college students often throw themselves into all-nighters: study sessions, parties, discussions & heart-to-heart talks, etc), and are still at the beginning of their career.

Yes, building a career (if a woman wants) goes more slowly with young children, but it’s better to do things that way and hit your momentum when they are relatively self-sufficient teenagers rather than hit your momentum—and then need to slow down or stop to deal with birth, recovery, and a child who will be very dependent on you for the next few years. 

​ When I had my first child at the age of 24, one of my initial feelings—in addition to (and actually because of) new-baby ecstasy—was betrayal.

Not only did I realize I’d been lied to my whole life, but that I’d been lied to very badly.

​And I felt so betrayed.
 
Having a baby was one of the best things to ever happen to me.
 
I felt so lucky and grateful. I felt like my baby was a treasure and that I somehow merited the great fortune of this special treasure being given to me.

Also, I felt a love that I’d never felt before.
 
But before I continue, it bears noting that every situation is different. Some people get the baby blues after birth, some people face emergencies, tragedies, or colicky babies, and some people don’t feel joy but feel heavy (albeit not unpleasant) responsibility instead. Varying amounts of anxiety are often part of the post-partum recovery too.
 
And that’s all in the realm of normal and nothing to feel guilty or defective about. If you do feel tremendous joy after birth, it’s a big chessed from Hashem and something for which to be grateful.
 
And I also faced difficulties. Just as 2 examples: The healing episiotomy hurt and was a nuisance to care for. The nursing went pretty badly and was excruciatingly painful for an entire month (despite following all the expert nursing advice), and it continued to be an unexpectedly stress-filled hassle until I got pregnant with the next child around 8 or 9 months later. Phew!

​And despite the ups and downs of parenthood, the times when I wanted to run away, and the times when I feel like a big failure as a mother, I always feel like me kids are the best thing I’ve ever done in life. (And I didn’t even do it—it was Hashem! But still.)
 
But I was deeply in love with the baby himself. And that kind of love is a very pure love to experience because it’s so strong, intense, joyful—and selfless. A baby only takes and can’t give anything back (except smiles—but only after a few weeks). So you’re just rejoicing in the free gift of his very existence—pretty heady stuff.
 
And I had no idea I would feel that way until I did.

​And I was just like, “Why, oh why did everyone always make this out to be so awful? Why is it considered so miserable and limiting that it needs to be pushed off until you’ve fully ‘lived life’ first?”

Why is the emphasis always on the hardships of motherhood and not the fulfillment or the rewards?
 
I felt like I’d only started living life with his birth! I realized that I didn’t have a life before I had my kids.
 
And I felt regret that I hadn’t gotten married and pregnant right out of high school instead of wasting my time. (It would’ve been kinder for my husband too, instead of him suffering through shidduchim until I finally got my act together.)
 
Yet when I told someone, “If only I’d known how great this would be, I’d have done this much earlier!”, she laughed and said, “But were you ready before now?”
 
“Well, no,” I said.
 
“That’s what everyone says,” she told me. “They all wish they’d done this earlier, but admit they weren’t ready before.”
 
She’s right—but she’s also wrong.
 
Her comment got me thinking…why wasn’t I ready until I married at 23?
 
Well, I needed to become frum first and to get myself solidly into the Torah life. But other than that?
 
An informal survey showed me that I wasn’t alone in feeling that any major inner growth came because of marriage and children, and not a result of work prior to marriage and children.

Many women feel that the experience of dealing with marriage and children increased their emotional maturity—maturity and inner growth that couldn’t come any other way.
 
Needless to say, marriage and children don’t guarantee peak emotional maturity. There are many immature and irresponsible parents walking around. Furthermore, some people are so dysfunctional, they really shouldn’t get married or have children yet because they simply will not be able to rise to the occasion.
 
The point is that whatever level of emotional maturity you found yourself on before you married and procreated, that level rises after marriage and procreation. Usually. Most people are better people after marriage and children—even if they feel like they’re not.

This is because even during parenthood’s most stressful, miserable, and despairing times, you’re still doing something meaningful.

You’re rectifying profound soul issues and changing the world.

You can’t say that about partying, making money, climbing the corporate ladder, performing, falling into yet another meaningless relationship with no future, drinking, touring Paris, or lying on the beach with the latest bestseller.

​Also, mothers manage to nurture other facets of their personalities. Just in the frum community, there’s a wealth of shiurim and classes for dance, drama, art, music, sewing, fruit-carving, cake-decorating, pastry-making, healthy meals, and much more. (The variety depends where you live.)

Taking courses either online or a couple of times a week at available hours gives mothers degrees and skills for paying jobs.
 
It’s more of a juggle when you have kids, but it’s definitely doable—at least to a certain extent. And many if not most mothers participate in activities outside the domestic sphere, so it's obviously a realistic thing.

​The other big lie—and it’s a lie by omission—is that you can't push things off until later in life.

When is that option ever offered?

You CAN push things off until later in life. And it’s okay to do that.
 
Just like secular society encourages people to push off marriage and children until later in life, you can do that with other things too.

​For example, I know so many women who made a career change, starting in their late forties. Their kids were older or out of the house and they started taking courses toward a new degree. Then they phased out their old career to start the new one around fifty.
 
What’s wrong with that?
 
NOTHING.
 
As a personal example, there are certain activities and classes I’d like to indulge in, but I don’t have the time or extra money right now. And that’s perfectly fine! I’m not tortured by their absence right now and it gives me something to look forward to in my fifties and sixties. Why not?
 
What is the big pressure to do everything (except child-bearing) before you’re 40?
 
It’s not a coincidence that youth-and-hedonism-worshiping Hollywood pushes this whole deception. Those degenerates portray the world as they honestly see it.
 
But it’s a big tragedy that so many people fall into it.

Related posts:
Breaking Out of the Big Lie about Motherhood

Several years ago, Hamodia printed a column in which Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller contrasted 2 different mother-daughter relationships.

​In one scenario, the mother allowed her teenage daughter to pour out her heart and thoughts with no restraint. The daughter discussed her perceptions of other people using their names and any other identifying information without a second thought. Both the mother and the daughter viewed their relationship as “close” and one of sharing.
 
Yet Rebbetzin Heller noted that a relationship based on lashon hara doesn’t possess genuine intimacy.
 
In contrast, she described a relationship in which the mother and daughter felt close to each other, but the mother allowed the daughter to discuss others only when necessary and without names or any other identifying details (unless there was a to’elet—a beneficial purpose—in revealing these details).
 
This revolutionary (for me at that time) idea struck me because I hadn’t considered that placing boundaries on a child’s conversation could still facilitate a close relationship with that child. My own children were still young at that time and Hashem led me to read this column before I needed to—which was great preparation for my future relationship with them.

​Even now, it’s surprising how much a child can confide without telling me anything more identifying than “a classmate of mine” or “a kid in the neighborhood.”

​Yes, sometimes names and identifying details need to be revealed, but not usually. And even when the child can’t avoid telling you who’s bothering them, the other laws of lashon hara l’to’elet need to be observed.
 
There are no hard-and-fast rules about this. Age, for example, can be a deciding factor. Child-parent discussions involving lashon hara l’to’elet occur at the parents’ discretion and since it’s impossible to be perfect about this, you just give it your best shot based on whatever knowledge you have of the situation and the halacha.
 
But I’d grown up with the modern child psychology that children need all their feelings validated and that any lashon hara they spoke was automatically l’to’elet because a child “needs” that outlet in the parent.
 
However, one thing that Judaism (and Rebbetzin Heller’s column) emphasizes is how the home is really training ground to bring out your child’s soul-potential.

Our job as parents is to train the child to be the best he or she can be and consequently earn the best Olam Haba possible.

The only way to do this is to do the following:

1. First, as parents, work on our own middot.
2. Secondly, to train our children to adhere to halacha.

 
And while I knew that “being friends” with one’s child is not good for them, I had a harder time breaking away from the idea that children need to be happy and a parent needs to build a child’s self-esteem. It didn’t help that many very well-meaning chinuch “experts” opined that a happy child-parent relationship was necessary to prevent children from going off the derech. The child needed to feel loved and also love the parents.
 
It sounds so nice and logical. What could be the problem with it?

As one rebbetzin explained to me in my early years of motherhood, a parent cannot focus on making a child happy.

​A parent must focus on doing what’s best for the child, regardless of how hard that is for the parent or how much the child dislikes it. Determining parental success or failure by how the child feels about the parent creates a recipe for disaster.
(You can see more details about that exchange in Allowing Others Their Own Life Journey.)

Also, what I didn't realize back then was that self-esteem cannot be given, it can only be earned by a person through making moral choices and taking the higher road (even if it's only a tad higher than the road everyone else is taking).

In other words, parents can teach their children how to earn & cultivate their own self-esteem, but parents cannot give their children self-esteem.

And yeah, I'm still cleaning up the mess from having gone with the child psychology of the 80s & 90s.

(Fortunately, Hashem helps.)
 
Furthermore, it's not hard to notice that many children with seemingly close & friendly relationships with their parents grew distant or even angry at their parents later while many strictly raised children ended up becoming close and appreciative of their parents later.
 
Yes, parents whose strictness is based on being control-freaks or who are too lazy to say yes when saying no is easier have given firm boundaries & high expectations a bad reputation. But those parents aren’t doing what’s best for the child; they are simply indulging their own bad middot and ignoring their children’s feelings for their own convenience while pretending they are being responsible parents.

Here are some helpful halachic Q&A regarding lashon hara between parents and children:
​hamodia.com/columns/mishmeres-hasholom-ask-rav-151/
https://hamodia.com/columns/mishmeres-hasholom-ask-rav-140/​
​https://hamodia.com/columns/mishmeres-hasholom-ask-rav-137/
https://hamodia.com/columns/mishmeres-hasholom-ask-rav-136/

Here's a gem from Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshat Vayetzei:

In the frum world, people like to romanticize the Yiddishe mama who enjoyed nothing more than tending to her mikdash me'at, her home and family.

And this was true about some women, but for others it was a mix of ups and downs with regard to how they felt.

Since time immemorial, women based their identity on their roles as mothers and wives. (Case in point: In the not-so-distant past, American wives registered themselves as Mrs. Wayne Johnson, and so on.)

Marriage and parenthood were important goals in both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds for both men and women.

In the Jewish world, unmarried women and childless women were pitied (as were unmarried men and childless men, for that matter) and they themselves experienced deep anguish from their lack of spouse or lack of children. Anything that interfered with an upcoming wedding (such as a missing dowry, etc) caused a crisis. Jews invested copious prayers and blessings from tzaddikim to change an unmarried or childless state.

Yet things changed in the last couple of generations. 

And no matter how hard they've tried, many frum Jewish women end up feeling frustrated at not being able to recapture and fulfill the romanticized image erected on the pedestal of pa'am (the olden golden days of yore).

When frum women turn for guidance, they're often told "things have changed" and "today's women just can't be satisfied being housewives."

And with that, women are encouraged toward careers and all sorts of pastimes (there's a chug for every inclination!), all the while being reminded to "put family first."

Yet this never made sense to me.

If a women's innate nature has always found joy and satisfaction in being elbow-deep in scrubbing soiled cloth diapers against a washboard or cooking over coals or dealing with all her family in a home of just one or two rooms and finding fulfillment in dealing with toddlers all day, then why can't we recapture that?

After all, it's innate NATURE. 

Could it be that innate nature changed so much?

But after talking to people who actually lived in such times, reading memoirs and autobiographical anecdotes, and looking into Chazal, I realized that nature hasn't changed.

Focus has changed. Values have changed.

​But maternal nature actually hasn't.

Whenever given the choice and the financial capability, women almost always chose to delegate their responsibilities to hired help.

True, sometimes a woman performed a chore herself IF she felt the hired help wouldn't do it properly. But barring that, women delegated their responsibilities to others.

​Wealthy women even delegated feeding to wet nurses.

So if the above are true (and they are), then what of the airbrushed picture of the frum Jewish housewife living in poverty, her heart brimming with joy in her duties?

First of all, if you grew up as 1 of 8 kids in a hut in 19th-Century Poland, then that was normal life for you. In fact, your initial years of marriage (with just you, hubby, and the first couple of babies) may even have felt like a break after having grown up crammed with so many other people in such a small space and all the work that entailed.

You may have sometimes dreamed of a nicer home with servants, but that wasn't so realistic, so you just made do with what you had -- which is exactly what you were used to anyway AND exactly how everyone around you lived.

So you did what you were raised to do and what everyone around you did, and you tried to do it with a good attitude.

Although not everyone managed to keep a smile on their face.

​In her autobiography, Gutta: Memoirs of a Vanished World, Gutta recalls sympathetically the impoverished Jewish woman who lived in cramped airless conditions with little light and extracted little with which to nurture their children.

In fact, a major part of Gutta's work as a Beis Yaakov teacher was to provide her more impoverished students with the nurturing, affection, and attention they lacked at home.

Another autobiography hinted at how a constant state of hunger challenged the middot of an otherwise loving mother, noting that when the family's economic standing improved, the mother was much calmer and more pleasant.

But either way, this is radically different than today's world.

In Western society today, people don't necessarily grow up with children around them. Four children is already considered a big family by many people today. Some girls babysit, but a lot don't. 

I didn't say that people don't grow up with babies or small children at all, but it's certainly not how it used to be.

Today, you don't spend your life with there always being a baby or toddler around. And even if your immediate family didn't have a baby or toddler around, your extended family members and your older married siblings did.

Particularly coming from the secular world, many new mothers need to be taught numerous tasks that you see preteen girls performing for their younger siblings in the frum world.

Another difference is attitude. 

Many women feel that the chores, the cooking, and the demands of their children are demeaning somehow.

​Yes, women of yore also felt exhausted and frustrated by it all. They may have wished they could afford a cook, a nanny, and a housekeeper. But they didn't feel like they should be doing something "better." Particularly for frum women, what was better or more important than your home and family?

If you've grown up with just one or two siblings (and each of you in your own room, naturally), and everyone occupied in various ways with toys and gadgets and videos, and without any cultural emphasis or appreciation of housework and child care, then entering into marriage and motherhood presents quite a challenge.

It's nothing you're used to.

Adding to that is that American society is not a child-oriented society. For all its safety regulations for children and promotion of the health and happiness of children, it's really not child-oriented. I only noticed this once I'd entered the frum community in America and then when I came to Israel, which is a very child-oriented society. After seeing this difference, I realized that America really isn't into children and doesn't really know how to relate to them or to mothers. Of course, there are some exceptions, but in general, America is not child-oriented. (Also in contrast to American society, I think Russians are child-oriented, culturally speaking. Maybe in a different way than Israelis are child-oriented, but Russians still have more of a child-orientation than most Americans.)

Anyway, I'm not even sure "child-oriented" is the exact term to describe what I mean, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

Of particular concern are today's teens who spend so much time on their phones in their rooms. Studies show that today's teens are less likely to go out to even traditional fun events for teens, like shopping, getting a drivers license, partying, and more. Because of diminished physical interaction, homicide is down among teens -- but suicide is up.

After spending a good chunk of your life on your phone in virtual relationships, how will it feel to get up at night for a child or to read books together or deal with potty-training and spoon-feeding or driving to pick up groceries, buy baby clothes, or take a child to the park? How will it feel to have to coordinate life with a spouse?

Because of this drastic change in cultural norms, many women find housework and motherhood overwhelming.

​They simply aren't used to it.

It doesn't feel right.

​On the contrary, it may even feel all wrong.

Surprising truth: There have always been working women, including working mothers.

No, not in droves as they do today. And not with the variety of employment opportunities women enjoy today. (Men, for that matter, also enjoy a far wider variety of employment opportunities than ever before.)

But there have ALWAYS been women who earned money and engaged in work outside their family responsibilities.​

In Caddie Woodlawn, Caddie's mother raised turkeys to sell every November, usually making a nice profit from that.

Almanzo Wilder's mother turned a nice profit by selling her butter.

As a married woman herself, Laura Ingalls Wilder attempted to supplement the family income by selling her own butter and eggs. Later, she wrote articles for a local farm publication and then her bestselling books.

Women worked as nurses, midwives, seamstresses, laundresses, helped their husband run the family store, taught school (as long as they weren't married), babysat, helped their husband with his business (sometimes as a full and very successful partner, including successfully taking over the business if the husband died or was incapacitated), and more.

In addition, working women are mentioned in Chazal.

In the famous section of Mishlei, Eishet Chayil (A Woman of Valor), Shlomo Hamelech describes a woman who makes a sheet and sells it in Mishlei 31:29.

Metzudat David explains it to mean a woman who makes sheets for her own needs, then sells the surplus.

​Ralbag describes a woman who made sheet, which she then passes on to a merchant to sell on her behalf in order for her to acquire capital buy "all that her soul desires."

Malbim explains that she wove both a sheet and a belt, which she then sold to a merchant. Then she distributed her earnings to the poor, creating for herself spiritual garments to don when she eventually leaves her physical garments, enabling her to indeed be "clothed in oz and hadar and laugh on her last day." (Nice peirush, eh?)

The Ben Ish Chai also recommends that women who earn their own money use it to ease the financial burden of her husband (by buying her own cosmetics and personal needs) and distribute money to the poor.

Prior to that verse, 31:16 describes a woman who examines a field and purchases it. Metzudat David, Ibn Ezra, Ralbag, and Malbim all explain this to mean an intelligent business woman, and interpret the following verses as proof of her financial acumen and success (i.e., the yield of the field is good, and which enables her to acquire a vineyard, etc.), which allows her to ease things for her husband and provide for the poor of her community.

​Both the Malbim in 31:18 explains that she works for her actual needs, without making a career out of it. Malbim says: "Gam lo tiyached mischara rak b'avor ha'arev v'hamo'eel l'tzorech atzmah" -- She won't make the business something special and stand-out (tiyached is like meyuchad), just what is pleasant and useful for her specific needs.

Metzudat David 31:19 explains that even as she puts her mind to business, mikol makom lo zazah mimalechet nashim -- nonetheless, she doesn't move on from women's work; she still tends to her domestic duties.

Interestingly, the Sages advise/assume that a married woman's earnings go toward her own needs (so that she can ease her husband's burden) and toward tzedakah & gemilut chasedim.

This apparently is their ideal for the working wife & mother of valor.

In Colonial America, Massachusetts midwife Martha Ballard kept a diary during the years 1785-1812.

Martha only started midwifery after her own childbearing years were long past and she could rely on her young adult daughters to run the home while she was at a delivery. After those daughters married, Martha relied on hired help, which was not nearly as reliable as her daughters.

Based on what she describes in her diary, Martha prefers gardening and delivering babies to housework.

This is clearly not an influence from the feminist movement or modern mores, but an innate personal preference.

​In fact, many modern women can relate to her description upon returning home in 1796 from her 612th delivery:

"Up in arms" paints an image of a house weaponized against its owner. One pictures Martha arriving at home only to encounter unfolded laundry aiming a shot gun or dust bunnies armed with tomahawks. 

Two years later, she again wrote of coming home at 10 a.m.:

Yet another time, she was called for a delivery in the middle of butchering a calf. She came back a day later to find the kitchen still a bloody mess with the calf head lying where she left it. Neither her husband nor her 2 sons still living at home had tended to things in her working absence.

Due to the strenuous journeys Martha sometimes needed to make to arrive at a delivery on time, she noted that she arrived at work "almost fatigued to death."

The above are probably familiar sentiments for some working wives or mothers.

Yet while Martha found domestic duties a burden, she still felt they were important.

Another example:
​One of my relatives, born in the South at the beginning of America's Civil War, wrote a long poem in 1934 about her struggle to face the daily question of "What's for dinner?"

Here are 3 excerpts from that poem (the original contains a stanza for each day of the week):

​She preceded feminism and even WWII's Rosie the Riveter. So she wasn't affected by feminist thought or attitudes. Like a lot of us, she finds dinner a challenge, made even more challenging by the more labor-intensive preparation necessary before modern appliances became common.

However, she didn't find it demeaning or unfair. She just didn't feel up to all the time, especially as she aged -- and especially on days packed with other labor-intensive demands, like laundry day.

​So the modern working woman who doesn't feel like putting together dinner after a hard day's work isn't so different than this old-time Southern woman who also didn't feel like putting together dinner after a hard day's work.

What's the point of reading all this?

Well, I feel like women today can end up feeling second-rate.

Why?

Not because of the new and worse value system or emphasis or focus.

Focus and values CAN be changed. It takes some work, depending on your personality and background influences, but they can be changed.

But many frum women feel second-rate because of their actual feelings.

There's a fairy tale that women performed all their domestic duties with a song in their heart and a dance in their step, with Jewish women practically swooning from the uplifting holiness of working in their mikdash me'at.

Yes, women experienced fulfillment.

Yes, there were aspects they enjoyed.

And yes, their domestic responsibilities were important to them.

But again, that doesn't mean that they never felt overwhelmed, exhausted, fed up, or frustrated similar to how you feel sometimes.

They did!

And whenever possible, they usually hired someone else to fulfill these duties.

(Although it's important to note that even when a mother hired a nanny or a wet-nurse, the mother was around. She was able to oversee both her child and her child's caretaker. Passing one's very young child into another's care - especially into a group situation - AND being far from them is a modern construct.)

You're not second-rate or "not good enough" because you struggle to feel the holiness of mopping your floors or because you're desperate to hire someone else to clean the bathrooms or because you send your 2-year-old out to gan.

You're not second-rate or "not good enough" because you prefer reading a book to making dinner.

You're not second-rate or "not good enough" because you feel the need for a paying job in addition to your domestic responsibilities. ("Zamama sadeh v'tikachehu..." 31:18)

Like I said, FEELINGS haven't changed much over time.

I think that because women are taught that their feelings make them second-rate, it's part of why it is so hard for some women to invest in their families and homes.

They think that "things have changed" and are impossible to resolve. 

So why even bother trying?

Therefore, this post is here to VALIDATE your feelings.

​You're actually not so different than the women of yore.

​Nor are you hopeless.

​Don't despair.

So to sum up:

• A woman's main focus was on her home. THAT'S what's changed.
• But women's feelings toward domestic responsibilities haven't changed so much.
• Whenever possible, women generally tried to delegate ALL her domestic responsibilities to others.
• A frum women prized both her housework and a good attitude...
• ...but depending on her situation, she didn't always succeed in doing so.
• Many women weren't content with housework and childcare alone; they needed more.
• You're not second-rate or not good enough if you don't enjoy housework or childcare.
• Girls raised to value domestic responsibilities find them easier to bear as women.
• Societal mores create difficult struggles and despair for women today.
• It's okay and even natural if you don't find housework & childcare so enthralling.
• Don't despair of yourself. You're not nearly as bad/hopeless/meh as you may have been led to believe.

Finally, there is a world of difference between feeling like you want servants or nannies because you're tired, overwhelmed, and don't enjoy the work...and feeling like you want servants or nannies because the job just "isn't for you" or it's beneath you and you should be doing something "better" and "more important."

Do you see the difference?

Modern feminism inserted the "more important" bug into women's brains.

THAT'S the attitude that's changed.