DIALOGUE
 |
I-You vs. I-Thou Relationships | |
| Amy Sohn and Shmuley Boteach on the duties of modern parenting | ||
 by Amy Sohn, Shmuley Boteach, April 6, 2007
11 comments
|
||
TAGS:
From this Dialogue
To: Shmuley Boteach
From: Amy Sohn
Subject: I-You vs. I-Thou Relationships
Hi Shmuley,
I think you are wrong about today’s parents. A lot of parents want desperately to be good husbands, wives, and moms and dads, but have trouble giving their families the time and attention they need because they are so stressed about work. I live in a neighborhood with a fair number of self-employed or freelancer parents and I see them in the playground during the week, happy to be playing with their kids and to have the leisure to spend a few days a week with them. They – we – are lucky, because when you are self-employed you can make your own schedule, as I am sure you know. Most of the country does not have this luxury.
American businesses can treat their workers better, by giving more personal time, more paternity leave,
Ten Pages of "I and Thou," Stat!: American families need more Buber extended maternity leave (some months without pay if need be), on-site day care, and flexible hours. Today’s parents do want to spend time with their kids and spouses – but are hampered by unfair policies at work, creating a massive time crunch that leaves them unhappy at home and never fully present. This leaves them in an I-You relationship with their kids and spouse instead of I-Thou. In order to make the realization that your family requires as much care and attention as your job, you have to have the leisure to be able to reflect on things like that, to spend an hour or more a week talking to a therapist or a friend, to lie on the bed from time to time and ruminate on your quality of life. The families you visit on your show and the families on the nanny makeover shows obviously do not have that leisure time, which is why they need help to see what’s wrong.
You are right that women are more likely to be overworked than men, and in need of attention and focus from their husbands so that they can maintain a sense of their erotic and personal selves. But as someone who makes a living listening to the pulse of the American family, you should also know that in some families the dynamic is different. My husband cooks dinner 360 nights out of the year, twice a night, once for our toddler and once for the two of us. He cleans the apartment every week while I take our daughter out. He cares for her alone at least a day or two a week as well as many nights, when I, afraid that my life is over, must go out to hear live music, see a play or have drinks with a girlfriend.
Many men chip in with housework and childcare – look at any of the daddy blogs out there on the Internet – and feel pulled in two directions between work and home, just as women do. I always enjoy your soundbites like, “The history of relationships is that the female need for attention is rarely matched by the male attention span,” but these out-of-date stereotypes of American men as clueless Neanderthals hurt men and set us all back.
I know many men who
Can We Talk?: The overworked woman needs attention from hubby seek out sex from their wives because they, the men, crave intimacy, and aren’t getting it. Men want closeness too. Men like slow sex even if they’re not always capable of having it, and men want to be held, complimented, and listened to. Men crave attention too – and even if they don’t need to be complimented on their physique on a daily basis (and some do!), they need to be appreciated for other things, like supporting their family, or cleaning up once in a while, or going out and taking the children. We all need more attention and more love. The challenge for today’s couples lies in figuring out how to love your partner the way your partner needs to be loved.
With regard to teen sexuality, I guess my feelings are complicated. Some teens are ready. Some aren’t. I don’t think you can say categorically that any teen sex is bad but yes, a lot of teens find themselves in situations for which they are not ready, even if they think they are. So yes, I am heartened that some teens are holding off because they want to meet the right person. If a girl’s first time is going to leave her bloody and terrified, better it be with someone who cares enough about her to hold her when it’s over, and who maybe, just maybe, can give her an orgasm, if not the first time then maybe by the fiftieth.
Lastly, Shmuley, there are days I wish I could go on your show. Unfortunately Charles is far too private. But when it’s six o’clock at night and my toddler is throwing a tantrum as I try to wash her hands for dinner, the TV is blaring Cops in the living room because my grandson-of-a-cop husband finds it soothing, and I have three deadlines to meet that night in order to make enough money to feed three mouths, I feel in desperate need of some shalom in the home.
L’hitraot,
Amy
Previous Entries:
Would You Alienate the Only Source of Your Love?
 |
Amy Sohn is the author of the novels Run Catch Kiss and My Old Man (Simon More... |
 |
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, is the host of the national TV show Shalom in the Home airing Sunday night at 7 pm on TLC (The Learning Channel), and international best-selling author of 17 books. His latest work, Shalom in the Home: Smart Advice for a Peaceful Life More... |
11 comments | leave a comment
In the final day of their dialogue, Paul Gottfried and Jonathan...
Things are bad now. They stand to get worse.
What the pin-up ‘victim’ of global warming can teach us about...
How the probable next Israeli prime minister is like the NBA hero...
A Jewcy Catholic comes to grips with Pope Benedict's startling...
| Dev Blog | Privacy | Submissions | Contact | |  | | Comment Policy | About Us | FAQ | Masthead |
| Hosting provided by Tilted Planet | ||
Monica Osborne
I-It, right?
Enjoyed your article . . . but I wonder -- do you not mean an I-It vs. an I-Thou relationship? Technically (in Buberian terms anyway), I-You and I-Thou are the same thing. It's an I-It relationship that we want to avoid because it pulls out of that ethical relationship with the Other.
Monica Osborne
I-It, right?
Oops -- I meant to say, "it pulls US out of that ethical . . . " in my last comment.
Joey Kurtzman
you/thou
You/Thou was like formal/intimate pronouns of Romance languages, i.e. usted/tu in Spanish. I think. Or maybe you was objective and thou was subjective. I'm tired.
Anonymous
Umm, no.
Actually, in English, it was "you" as the plural/formal and "ye" as the singular. "Thee" was a printer's ligature for "ye" (sort of like how the initial "s" looks like an "f" in early writing. "Thou" never actually existed.
Monica Osborne
Thou
Well, "thou" does exist in a lot of literary works, and it is a central term for Buber. I think Joey's somewhat right, in that, for the purposes of this discussion, "thou" is just a more formal usage of "you." They mean the same thing. If you have ever looked at a King James Version of a bible it's all over the place, with "thous" changed to "yous" in updated versions.
Joey Kurtzman
Umm, yes.
"'Thou' never actually existed" is quite a singular statement, considering the massive evidence to the contrary. Singular/plural isn't related at all.
Anonymous
Buber Didn't Write in English
Actually, since Buber wrote in German, this entire discussion is an issue of translation, not of the content of Buber's theory. Buber himself did not distinguish (because German has no distinction) between a formal 2nd person singular pronoun and an informal one. It's up to translators, and to readers, to interpret that fact. Isn't it more productive to think about our relationship with God and with the worldly Other as an intimate one? The main point is, though, that the subject of this article should have been "I-It vs. I-You (or Thou)" if we were going to stick to Buber.
François Blumen...
Copyright OED
Regarding the non-existence of 'thou':
"thou 1 |ðaʊ|pronoun [ second person singular ]archaic or dialect form of you , as the singular subject of a verb: : thou art fair, o my beloved. Compare with thee .ORIGIN Old English thu, of Germanic origin; related to German du, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin tu.USAGE In modern English, the personal pronoun you (together with the possessives your and yours) covers a number of uses: it is both singular and plural, both objective and subjective, and both formal and familiar. This has not always been the case. In Old English and Middle English, some of these different functions of you were supplied by different words. Thus, thou was at one time the singular subjective case (: thou art a beast), while thee was the singular objective case ( | he cares not for thee ). (...)"
BeccaB
Linguistic confusion a-go-go
OK, folks.
Yes, I agree that Amy probably meant to stick to the established Buberian distinction between "I-It" (Ich-Es) and "I-Thou" (or "I-You" in more contemporary English, translating in either case Ich-Du).
Yes, there are differences between "thou" (which certainly DID exist: Anon up there's got the whole ligature thing backwards) and "you" in English usage -- but in this case they're not ones that are relevant to Buber, because here we're using either "thou" (the older form) or "you" (our modern form) to translate his 2nd-person-singular pronoun "du" (which is linguistically cognate with "thou," and not with "you,") -- which IS informal or intimate/familial in German usage: there IS another term used to address a second person formally (Sie).[details here for those who want to avoid gaffes in addressing Germans] But--and this may be worth noting too--God is addressed with "du" (in prayer, etc.)
Here's the story:
German and English are both Germanic languages (surprise!). Back in the day, earlier forms of these languages made similar distinctions between singular and plural, and between levels of formality, when dealing with the 2nd-person pronouns. Then a bunch of the forms we used to use in English stopped being used, and things got tricky, because we now use the single word "you" where German might use du, Sie, or ihr.
(Ya wanna see a nice chart of how different languages handle these T-V distinctions, look here.)
Second Person personal pronouns:
informal OR intimate; singular
modern English: you
older (and some regional) English: thou
German: du
[Yiddish: du]
formal, singular
modern English: you
older (and some regional) English: ye, you
German: Sie
[Yiddish: ir]
informal OR intimate; plural
modern English: you
older (and some regional) English: ye, you
German: ihr
[Yiddish: ir]
formal, plural
modern English: you
older (and some regional) English: ye, you
German: Sie
[Yiddish: ir]
Wikipedia takes the anti-Thou side in our present discourse re: translating Buber's Ich-Du, in favor of contemporary You:
"More recently, the philosopher Martin Buber has been translated into English as using the words I and Thou to describe our ideal familiar relationship with the Deity. Most languages which maintain both a formal and familiar second person pronoun address God with the familiar pronoun, since its usage derives from older times when the distinction between the pronouns was in number only, not in degree of familiarity. Because in current English usage, thou is perceived as more reserved and formal than you, the translation does not convey the intended meaning well."
How did we end up here? Who knows:
It seems, though, that scholars cannot agree on *when* and *why* thee/thou/thy
disappeared, or started disappearing, from English ... and many have speculated why it is that modern
English is seemingly (actually?) the only Indo-European language
without the so-called 'Tu'-'Vous' (t/v) distinction. No explanations
were offered for its widespread existence in the present-day
(informal) speech of Northern England. (source)
Kit
governing ourselves
The reshuffling of wealth to enable adults to NOT make good choices in their private lives will do nothing for children but leave them with the crushing debt and dismal job prospects of today's French youth - inheriting a collapsing system that promised the same pie in the sky you wish our nation would embrace.
Having a second child for peer pressure ? Dual incomes with all the right addresses and toys ? These are not the actions of responsible adults .
Responsible adults give up some of those toys if the price keeps them from parenting. Responsible adults have children because *they* want children and only after they have planned and can afford to raise them *in the way THAT family believes they should*.
Our choice was to live in a rural area , and keep one parent at home throughout the early years. We gave up the bells and whistles - no new cars, no cable tv or Dish network - our vacations are to relatives' homes and we're happy with a lifestyle that we manage on one income.
That's NOT for everyone. But it IS the responsibility of every adult from fry cook to brain surgeon to plan ahead for their own wants - including whether to have children, how many, to stay home or not, and how to raise them.
The government you seem to think owes parents more is each one of us - and no one deserves to pick my pocket so Ms 75k can stay home and not give up any of her toys.
Anonymous
Thanks BeccaB, you brought
Thanks BeccaB, you brought back memories of college German. The du/sie distinction is about the only thing I remember after 20 years....
This discussion is also a good reminder to all of us to be careful when we are reading in translation. There is a lot of misinformation out there beased on faulty translations of hebrew into english (often through other languages first)
Post new comment