THANKSGIVING

This year, like every year for the past 5 or so years,  we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my younger daughter-in-law's family.  Everyone brings something.  My job is fruit salad for 25-30 and a quart of apple cider.  With Thanksgiving falling on a Thursday, we follow it up by spending Shabbos with my younger son and his family.

My older son doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.  For him, every day is a day of thanksgiving.  

What do you do for Thanksgiving?  Do your kids come home?  Do you go to them?  Do you go out to a restaurant?

 

Staying Connected

What are parents supposed to do when our children make life-changing decisions?  This blog is a place for sharing our experiences, the good and the bad.  


My husband and I are Conservative Jews.  This has nothing to do with our political leanings.  It means we are middle-of the road Jews who observe certain religious traditions but not quite as many as the Orthodox do.   Though we raised our sons in our Conservative Jewish home, they both decided to become Orthodox.   At that point, I was faced with a choice of going out of my way to stay connected with our sons or letting them go their own way.  

I had always kept a kosher kitchen but not quite kosher enough. Many of my friends told me I was wrong to bring my kitchen up to my sons' standards.  They told me that my sons had to learn to accept me as I am.  Others told me how impressed they are with what I continue to do to keep up the connection.  Besides, as the saying goes, it's a two way street.  My sons continue to make concessions too.  It's not as though they did anything wrong.  All they did was become more interested in our religion. 

When my older son decided to start "dating to find a wife," I started keeping a journal.  As result of that and a lot of writing and rewriting, editing, and  soul-searching, I have completed a memoir The Chameleon in the Closet. 

     I'm not a pushover.  I don't want to give the impression that my life is a breeze or that I understand everything my Orthodox sons do.  If it weren't for my sons, I would know nothing about sheitals, mikvahs, or tznius.  And my education hasn't stopped.

HI THERE

I had a wonderful time at the Detroit Jewish Book Fair and met a lot of people who are in the same situation as I am.  My sons are Orthodox, you see.  That's not the way we raised them to be.  My husband and I are good Conservative Jews.  We are founding members of our synagogue.  We have a kosher home.  We fast on Yom Kippur.  Who knew that there are 613 commandments?  All I knew about were the 10 big ones.