In many families today, the children have pretty much everything they want. They have the phone they want. They have the toys and games they want. They have the friends they want. They go to the camp they want. They get the snacks they want. They get the clothes and shoes they want. Even after they get married, they come over whenever they want and help themselves to whatever they want.
They also know that they can always rely on us, their parents, whenever they need help.
I grew up in Deal, NJ, and rarely left the town, and so I never learned my way around Brooklyn. When I was first married, and my wife and I would drive to and from Brooklyn, whenever we got lost or took a wrong turn I instinctively said, “Let’s call your mother,” or “Let’s call your father,” or “Let’s call my mother or father.” Armed with a cell phone, my instinct was to get help from our parents.
If a teenage kid is out with friends and finds himself stuck somewhere, he or she can pull out a phone and call Mom or Dad, or call an Uber driver and get home for a few dollars. When we were growing up, this is not how it worked. If we got stuck, we had to go around finding a ride, or just walk home. If it was cold or raining, we walked in the cold or rain. We managed. We didn’t have everything taken care of for us.
When a kid today has some problem in school, he tells the parent and the parent calls the teacher. If that doesn’t work, the parent calls the principal. If that doesn’t work, the parents contact their friend or relative on the school’s board. The kid knows that his parents have his back. Whether it’s a difficult teacher or a mean classmate, he has his parents to help him out. This is not how it was back in our day. If we had a problem in school, it was OUR problem, not our parents’ problem. We needed to find a way to deal with it ourselves.
On the one hand, this is a very good thing. It is important for children to feel their parents’ unconditional love and devotion to their wellbeing. Feeling they can always rely on their parents gives them a sense of comfort and security, as well as trust in their parents’ authority. But there’s also a serious drawback to our children’s having it all.
When Miracles are Taken for Granted
In Parashat Devarim, Moshe Rabbenu begins the long series of speeches which he delivered to Beneh Yisrael right before his passing. He sharply criticizes the people for some of the grave mistakes which they made in the desert, paying particular attention to חטא המרגלים, the sin of the spies. When the people heard the spies’ description of the large, powerful armies that they would need to confront in Eretz Yisrael, they were frightened, and they decided they did not want to proceed into the land. They were already on the border of Eretz Yisrael, poised to enter, but they decided they couldn’t do it, that the armies of the nations in the land were too powerful for them to overcome. Instead, they wanted to return to Egypt.
There is one fairly obvious difficulty with this story which has not received much attention. And that is, how exactly did the people expect to make it back to Egypt? They had been traveling for well over a year through the arid, uninhabitable desert, sustained miraculously by food that fell each morning from the heavens and a traveling well that provided water from a rock. They were protected by miraculous clouds that encircled them on all sides. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that these supernatural provisions were being supplied by Hashem. And, it was clear that they could not possibly survive the conditions in the desert without these extraordinary means of sustenance and protection. So how did they expect to journey back to Egypt? If they decided to betray Hashem and not go into Eretz Yisrael as He wanted them to do, then clearly He would not continue sustaining them. So how could they possibly make it back to Egypt?
The answer is that the people already saw that Hashem continued sustaining them even when they rebelled against Him. Over a year earlier, Beneh Yisrael committed one of the worst sins in our nation’s history – worshipping a golden calf – but the proverbial faucet was not turned off. The people made the calf and went to sleep that night planning a grand celebration of their idol the next day – and when they woke up, there was manna outside the camp like every other day. The miraculous well continued providing water, and the clouds continued to protect them on all sides. Hashem did not abandon His people even at the moment of their greatest betrayal.
The result was that the people took these miracles for granted. They thought it was just automatic that their basic needs were cared for despite living in a desert. And this is why they assumed they could reach Egypt. They had grown accustomed to their miraculous existence to the point where they did not even think twice about it. There was never a question in their mind that manna would fall each morning from the heavens, that a rock would provide copious amounts of water, and that special clouds would surround them to give them protection. It didn’t matter that they betrayed Hashem. They were so used to these miracles that they just assumed they would always happen.
This is the problem with our children growing up having everything. They grow accustomed to receiving everything without having to earn it, and so they enter adulthood expecting it to always be there. They are used to their parents providing everything for them and solving all their problems for them – just like Beneh Yisrael became used to Hashem providing everything them and solving all their problems for them, without having to do anything to deserve all of this.
The Shock of Reality
This is a serious concern, because sooner or later, reality is going to hit. And as all adults know, the reality of life is that we cannot expect to get everything we want. The reality of life is that we need to struggle. The reality of life is that we get knocked down and need to pick ourselves back up. The reality of life is that we get hurt and we need to ignore the pain and keep on going. The reality of life is that we fail and then we need to learn from our failures and try again.
Let’s face it: life is tough. It’s really, really tough. It’s tough to stay healthy. It’s tough to find a suitable marriage partner, and once we do, it’s tough creating and maintaining a happy marriage. It’s tough raising kids, in general, and today’s circumstances make raising good kids especially difficult. It’s tough making a living. It’s tough keeping in touch with friends. Fulfilling the mitzvot is tough.
Growing up receiving everything they want without having to earn it does not prepare kids for real life. It only makes the shock of real life all that much harder. It will make it much harder for them when they are turned down for a shidduch, when they are turned down for a job, when they are fired, when they lose a customer, when they need to skimp to pay their bills, when their own children have problems, and as they go through all the many other kinds of hardships that life is going to throw their way.
We cannot predict the future, and so we have no idea what our children’s lives will look like in ten, 20 or 30 years from now. But we can rest assured that they will face challenges – lots of them. And they will need strength of character to handle those challenges. They will need to be resolute in the face of humiliation, failure and hardship. They will need to pick themselves up after they fall or get knocked to the ground.
This is the problem with kids having everything they want without having to earn it. If they get used to life being a picnic, they will be shocked when it isn’t – and as we all know only too well, life is not always a picnic.
What, then, is the solution? How do we prepare our children for life’s challenges? How do we give them a happy, enjoyable childhood and the security of knowing that we are always there for them, while also ensuring that they develop the strength and skills to handle adversity and hardship?
The Forgotten Two-Letter Word
The first step is to bring back a very important word from the not-so-ancient past, from the years when we grew up, when parents weren’t afraid to use it: NO.
There is nothing wrong with telling our kids “no,” and we don’t always have to explain why we are saying “no.” Too many parents today are afraid of what refusing their kids’ requests might do to their relationship, or afraid of the kids’ emotional breakdown, especially when other parents are saying “yes” to the same request. It is well within a parent’s authority to forbid a child from going to certain places and staying out beyond certain hours. Even when older kids ask for something, parents are entitled to say “no.” Hearing this word, and learning how to deal with the disappointment and frustration of having their wishes denied, will serve the children very well later in life.
Important disclaimer: I, like most parents, am not always successful in this area. I know as well as any other parent that it is really, really, hard.
Once during a family get-together my niece was arguing with her mother, my sister-in-law, who told her she couldn’t have something. Finally, the girl walked away. My seven-year-old cousin then went over to her and said, “Do you really want it? I’ll tell you how to get it. Just cry, and you’ll see she’ll let you have it.”
Apparently, crying worked for my daughter many times…
It’s not easy, but we need to say “no” and keep our answer “no” despite the child’s protestations and complaints. We do our children no favors by leading them to believe that they can having everything they want, that they can manipulate their parents into giving in. In the real world, they won’t get everything they want even if they cry, beg, scream, threaten and try to manipulate. And the earlier in life they learn this, the better off they’ll be.
Let Them Fail
This, too, is a tough one, but it’s so important. Sometimes, we need to let our children make mistakes so they can go through the immensely valuable experience of failure and persistence.
This, too, can be learned from the story of the spies. Moshe Rabbenu recalls how it was the people’s idea to send spies into Eretz Yisrael who would then report back to the nation. Rashi comments that Hashem knew full well what would happen – that the spies would return with a discouraging report and would dissuade the people from proceeding to the land. But He nevertheless let them send the spies anyway. He allowed it to happen. Educationally, it was important for Beneh Yisrael to make this mistake and then go through the long, difficult process of recovering from the mistake.
And this is something that every parent must know. Parents should not intervene to stop their child every time they think he is making a mistake. Sometimes, it is better to allow the child to make the mistake, or try something that does not work. This experience will prepare them for real life, which is all about learning from our mistakes and failures along the path to success.
Make Your Bed
Before telling of the sin of the spies, Moshe recalls the time when, after Beneh Yisrael had spent over a year encamped at Mount Sinai, Hashem said to him, רב לכם שבת בהר הזה – “You have stayed too long at this mountain.” Hashem then commanded, קומו סעו לכם – “Arise and travel.”
At Mount Sinai, where Beneh Yisrael received the Torah and built the Mishkan, their lives were stable and comfortable in every which way – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Hashem decided that it was time for these pristine conditions to end. Life should not always be completely comfortable and easy. The people needed to pack their things and travel, to start working hard and getting ready to meet the challenges that lay ahead.
Admiral William McRaven served for 37 as a Naval SEAL, taking part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the mission to capture Osama bin Laden. The Admiral later achieved national renown for a commencement speech he delivered at the University of Texas graduation in 2014 – a speech which was viewed by millions on YouTube. In this speech, Admiral McRaven conveyed ten lessons for life which he learned during his six months of basic SEAL training, a period which he described as “six months of long torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable,” and “six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL.” The first lesson he learned during this training period was, of all things…to make your bed every morning.
He said:
Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack — that's Navy talk for bed.
It was a simple task — mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.
If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
Once we have one small success in our pockets – even if it’s just making our bed – we feel encouraged. One small success empowers us to strive for another small success, and then another. And so even if we are struggling and things aren’t going right, we don’t lose our composure and we don’t lose hope in ourselves.
If a child grows up without having to do anything on his own, without having to accomplish or achieve anything, he will feel helpless and dependent, and see himself as hopelessly incapable. It is vitally important that we give our children responsibilities, that we assign them things they need to do. Even if there is a housekeeper, children should be told to make their beds, straighten up, and bring in their dishes to the kitchen. This will give them at least a glimpse of what real life is about – self-sufficiency, personal responsibility, resilience and hard work.
I once came up with an idea for my family that sparked a good deal of discussion and disagreement. Fed up with the clothing expenses before the holidays, I proposed that each child would be given a set amount – let’s say, for argument’s sake, $500 – with which to buy new clothes and shoes before the holidays. Not surprisingly, the kids were less than enthusiastic about the plan. My twelve-year-old was especially vehement in opposing the idea, shouting, “Come on, you mean I’m going to have to check the price on everything I want to buy?!”
My response, of course, was an emphatic, “EXACTLY!!”
This was precisely the point – to give my children a taste of what the real world is like. In the real world, we don’t march into a store and buy whatever we please without thinking about the price. In the real world, we need to carefully budget and we need to exercise fiscal restraint and responsibility. If we train our children already at a young age to exercise this kind of responsibility, they will be far better off as they enter adulthood and begin experiencing the harsh, difficult realities of life.
Giving Our Children Happiness
One of the sensitive conversations that have come up in our community in recent years, particularly during the summer months, is the issue of “Shabbat parties.” This is a subject which is causing a great deal of anguish for a lot of parents, who very much want their children to grow to become Shabbat observant, but do not want them to feel socially ostracized by refusing to participate in these inappropriate events. I’ve received many phone calls from concerned parents who shared with me the stories of their children’s struggles in this regard.
I bring up this delicate subject as just one small example of the challenges that our children face or will invariably face as they grow older. Today’s youths face temptations that we never experienced. In our rapidly-changing world, new challenges are constantly presenting themselves which we never imagined. This is true in regard to finances, as well. Somebody sent me an article predicting that in just twenty years, some 80 percent of the jobs that people fill today will be obsolete. The article’s author noted as an example the case of Kodak, which in 1998 had 170,000 employees and sold 85 percent of the photo paper in the world. But within just several years, as the digital revolution unfolded, the company went bankrupt. This will happen to numerous other industries in the coming years as technology continues to revolutionize the economy. We don’t know what exactly the world will look like, but we know that it will be rough. We know that our children will need to work hard, and we know that they are going to hit serious setbacks from which they will need to recover. The time to prepare them for this inevitable reality is now.
Our goal to give our children happiness, not to make them happy. These are two very different things. We make somebody happy by doing something that automatically evokes feelings of happiness. In the case of children, this means allowing them all the treats and comforts they want without demanding anything from them. But to give them happiness, we need to equip them with the tools they will need in order to lead happy lives. And by giving them everything and expecting nothing, we do just the opposite – we set them up for disappointment and dysfunction.
If we want to give our children the great gift of happiness, we need to prepare them for the realities that lie ahead. To do that, we need to maintain a balance between giving them happiness in the present and assuring their ability to achieve happiness in the future. If we can do this, then we are giving our children exactly what they need.