לקריאת המאמר בעברית במגזין גלויה | Originally published in Hebrew in Gluya
The moment your children announce, “We’re engaged!” is a very exciting one. You may have already sensed that this moment was approaching, perhaps it was even hinted at with subtle or overt clues, or you might have been completely surprised. Nowadays, it is customary for the couple to decide on their compatibility and readiness for engagement and marriage, and this area is no longer given to the parents’ decision as it was in the past.
Generally, the parents are involved in the preliminary processes and witness the couple’s growth during the stages of acquaintance and getting to know each other. Already at this stage, parents must find the balance between their own perspective and that of their son or daughter, between their opinions and prayers and accepting reality and recognizing the good within it.
What to Say After “Mazal Tov”?
When the children announce their decision, their words are final: We are getting married. If your growing acquaintance with the couple leads you to believe it is a successful match, the moment of the announcement surely brings great excitement and joy. On the other hand, if you are concerned about your child’s decision, you will probably worry about their future. As someone who understand the complexity of life, you will likely experience both joy and concern. You may have questions.
In childhood, parents indeed have more influence and control over their children’s consumption of information, but parental involvement is also important during the teenage and adult years. The teenage girl, the soldier, or the college student also need private conversations and an accompanying, compassionate, and loving gaze. Despite the current generation’s desire for greater independence, they also seek approval from their parents, look for a sense of acceptance, and wish to continue the connection.
Your children even while they are adults, greatly need their parents when it comes to building their relationships and deciding to enter into a marriage. The parents can transfer their knowledge and experience, which are based on a clear-sighted perspective, regarding the search for a partner, meeting new people and weaving connections, sharing one’s life with another, and the world of emotion and desire. However, these issues tend to be silenced, and conversations on these topics between parents and their children ten to be charged and awkward. It may be challenging to delve into the most profound and sensitive topics or to bring them up in conversation at all, and thus you may find yourselves communicating only around “technical” subjects, such as help paying for the wedding or general support for their life together. Both parties may find it comfortable to speak only through these tangible and technical needs, but the effort to find an opening for a deeper encounter and dialogue is worthwhile and necessary.
The engagement period may make your relationship with your child more tense. His or her focus on their chosen life partner, preparations for the wedding, and the life changes they are about to face may lead to physical and mental strain, require a lot of energy, and cause concerns about the spirit and substance of the marital relationship to be pushed aside. Precisely because of all this, you, as parents, need to confront and cope with these challenges as educational figures who serve as role models and a source of knowledge, practical tools, and warmth. Your presence is essential even when you disagree about the emerging life paths.After guiding hundreds of couples before their marriage in the past decade, I can say that one of the things they need most from you is something they will never dare to explicitly ask for: a candid conversation. You, too, will probably not initiate this conversation, but with your children’s engagement, their need for open conversation with you intensifies: A conversation in which you are present as parents who seek to foster closeness and warmth on the one hand, and into which you pour your knowledge and insights on the other, even if your children do not completely accept your suggestions.
Speaking Candidly Before the Wedding
Your children have learned a great deal about the world from observing it, from reading, from watching various media, and from conversations with their friends. They collected information—directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, which has made a deep impression on them. They learned about sex, romance, relationships, money, partnership, and their bodies from many sources. Some are positive, and some are not; some convey the values you wish to impart to them, while others tell a different story. In our times, the world is more accessible and expansive, yet also cruder, containing numerous public tangible representations of what was once concealed or more discreet. However, alongside this exposure (and perhaps precisely because of it), a silence has formed around these topics in the domestic sphere.
Just after the wedding, much of this theoretical knowledge will become tangible. Your children will run a household; they will touch each other, and they will argue with each other. As their parents, you want to provide them with the best tools for life in the real world. These tools include your experience, your successes, and your failures.
The messages your children received from you were both direct and indirect. They saw you in your daily life—for better or for worse. Yes, this means that they saw not only closeness, but they likely observed you, to some extent, when you were arguing with each other. Did they also witness the apology and the reconciliation? Have they heard from you about the insights you derived from both good things and challenges? Have you expressed to them your frustration from your failures, even as you pray for a different outcome? Or was there mostly silence regarding all of this?
They have heard from you both positive and negative comments about their bodies and yours, observed your marital communication, seen how you handle money at home, the division of roles among family members, your attitude toward Halakha, and your level of adherence to the laws of separation. Your children absorbed what they saw and experienced in their upbringing, and therefore, they learned from you, without a doubt. However, these experiences are often embedded so deeply that it is difficult to distill and articulate them. The image your children perceive is often incomplete, and they may be mistaken in some of their interpretations of your actions. After all, they didn’t really see everything because you didn’t show them everything, and they didn’t hear everything because you didn’t tell them everything. Sometimes, there are significant gaps between the way you conduct yourselves and the way you would like your children to conduct themselves as mature adults, as heads of families establishing a Jewish home.
Jewish law developed during a period when there was a different kind of discourse, more open and present within the family and community. Precisely because of those concerns and the distance and silence that entered our domestic space, the engagement with the most fundamental aspects of marital life and the Jewish law related to them has been outsourced from the family to an external authority – the kallah teacher. The major shortcoming in the role of the kallah or couple’s teacher lies in the fact that she (and I, as a kallah teacher myself) fulfills a role that was traditionally carried out within the family by a mother, sister, or grandmother from the close environment of the marrying couple.
Let’s put things clearly: In today’s society, and specifically in the religious community, there are norms of silence and embarrassment between parents and children regarding marital life, with all it includes: intimate relations, family planning, childbirth, financial management, marital and emotional communication, and the laws of family purity. As mentioned, your children absorb numerous messages and a wealth of knowledge regardless. You have an obligation, and your children have a need, for your active involvement in their lives, both in their childhood and as they mature. You bear parental responsibility even when it is embarrassing or when it requires confronting flawed norms of discourse. This is especially true with the announcement of an engagement when your children are on the brink of beginning their married life and stand at a sensitive and critical moment in their lives. A candid conversation before the wedding and during the stages of shaping and building their relationship is of indescribable value for their personal lives, your relationship as parents and children, and the desired and expected future that you and they seek for themselves.
The fear of a candid conversation between parents and children is mutual. Brides and grooms will not seek knowledge from their parents, and the parents, for their part, will not volunteer it. The embarrassment, the feeling that “it will be okay,” and the prevailing norm of “we don’t talk about this” all prevent the conversation. Many brides and grooms will not ask because they fear their parents’ judgment of their lifestyle or because they do not know how to discuss topics within the family that have been silenced all their lives.
Breaking the Silence: How to Speak with Our Children?
First, you must want to have this conversation. The desire does not in any way eliminate the embarrassment that likely exists, but you can shake off the embarrassment and view the situation as a positive opportunity to bond and bridge gaps. By their nature, bridging gaps requires effort, but it is an effort we must choose out of a desire to be active and involved parents for our children’s benefit.
If you say, “She won’t listen to me,” or “He will be angry with me for interfering,” you may be right. But there must be ways to reach out to your children and talk to them, even if doing so requires overcoming obstacles and resistance. Even after defining the desire and the goal, it is important to consider carefully the different perspectives of your son or daughter to determine the best way to approach them.
Open communication, in the for of a candid conversation, is the parental action required of you now. Dare to initiate the conversation. Be the ones who begin the conversation about matters as they truly are. Do not succumb to the voices of embarrassment or the familiar constructs that have prevented you from discussing these important topics until now.
The setting of the conversation is significant for a sense of comfort and openness. It is important to act with an understanding of your specific child, along with his or her past familial and personal experiences. Note that especially during the engagement period, when your children are involved with the upcoming wedding, their relationship, and other life tasks, they may be stressed and tense. Try to invite them to a conversation in as calm and serene an environment as possible, with no time constraints. A good option is to invite your son or daughter to a café and enjoy the neutrality that public places offer. However, remember that you do not control this public space, the people sitting at the tables next to you, or the passersby who approach to say hello. You might consider inviting your child for a hike, or simply for a walk around the city, to enjoy a more secluded environment away from the public eye.
Those who find face-to-face conversation challenging can write a letter and deliver it physically or via email. However, remember that this alternative does not allow for intonation or the various emotional nuances that get lost in writing, which may significantly affect how the message resonates with your child. Therefore, in writing, it is crucial to be doubly careful with phrasing and sensitivity.
What If They Are Making a Mistake?
If you think your children have not chosen their partners wisely, this conversation is all the more necessary. Please note: This is truly a matter of life and death, and one must not approach such a conversation with judgment toward the chosen partner. Your child has chosen to bind his or her life with another person and will often tend to cling to their choice, as the verse states, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Therefore, if you wish to share your concerns about your child’s choice of partner, it is important to do so from the perspective of providing him or her with tools, of his or her consideration of values, emphases, or appropriate behavior within a marital framework. Share your experiences and mistakes, be open, and be willing to receive criticism from them in a balanced, moderate, and emotionally regulated manner.
Remember at all times that even if you believe their choice is not right for them, you must not resort to distancing your child from the support their family provides or to severing the connection with them. This is the moment to uplift the child, to enrich them by providing the best tools you can offer. They will need the best tools available.
This is only the beginning of the journey
The parental role does not end when the children get married. In fact, the conversation that takes place before the wedding can cause matters that have until now flowed beneath the surface to be brought to light and addressed. Sometimes, the parents’ role becomes even more important when the children leave the family nest. Your child’s physical “departure” does not mean that they are leaving your sphere of influence or that they no longer need your support.
I have frequently witnessed the beneficial impact of the right conversation. With the proper preparation and an open approach to your children, a form of Tikkun Olam (or “corrective experience”) is created in the children’s perception of their parents. Single children often see and perceive only one side of their parents. They can testify to their parents’ success or failure, yet they are unable to judge the “behind the scenes” of their parents’ relationship or their parenting. Sometimes, that very conversation leads to a renewed reflection and a sense of completion after a certain period of marriage. Children who are now beginning to understand the complexities of married life often find within themselves a reconciliation with their childhood and their relationships with their parents. This process can sometimes even instigate a new and healthy dialogue between the parent and child, helping the child to see the parent as a source of authority, experience, and renewed knowledge.
Translated by Joshua Amaru
