No Babies: until I'm good and ready. And any rabbi who disagrees can stick it where the sun don't shineThere has been a lot of talk recently about women in the Jewish community feeling bullied into having kids. Here at Jewcy Izzy noted that a lot of the desperation and frustration that comes out of JDate is a result of communal expectations that good Jewish girls will have lots of kids to help populate Israel and stick it to Hitler. Much as I love Israel and hate Hitler, those are not good enough reasons for me to want to bear children. If I have kids, it should be because I feel able and ready to take care of someone else, provide for them, and love them unconditionally. And anyway, it’s not like women make babies all on our own—there are men involved, and it’s ridiculous that they don’t seem to be getting the same pressure as women.

Some of the best analysis of the push towards baby-making in observant Jewish communities is over at JSpot, where Hannah Farber has a post titled “I’m Going to Count to Three, and Then All Rabbis Need To Get Out Of My Uterus.” She writes:

I say: if the rabbis are so committed to making this a communal issue, the rabbis should raise the children. In fact, given their comfortable salaries and high communal status, they have no excuse: they should be adopting and converting children by the dozen. Given the impressive recent developments in medicine that prolong human life, I wouldn’t excuse any rabbi under sixty from performing this mitzvah. Wouldn’t that make a fine statement of commitment to the Jewish future?

And even when men are included in the directives for having kids, I’m still offended when a bunch of rabbis want to tell me how many times I have to grow a person and then push that person out of my vagina.  Did you know the Conservative Movement’s law committee (the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards) recently published a position paper that says any couple capable of raising more than two children, should do so, and Conservative rabbis should all be pushing this on their congregants? The extra children should be called “Mitzvah children” because they’ll ensure a Jewish community well into the future.

Rabbi Jason Miller notes on his blog that he’s heard Rabbi Elliot Dorff tell young people they should get married and start having kids in their early twenties, and they should have more than two kids. (I’ve heard Dorff say we should have a minimum of four kids, so I guess he was being a softy when he spoke to Jason’s class.) All of this when day schools are rising well above $15,000 a year for tuition, not to mention the inevitable college costs, and all of the other expenses of being an observant Jew. And what about those of who hadn’t found our soulmates in our early twenties? In the past year I’ve dated an obnoxious Israeli guy, an incredibly self-righteous administrative assistant at a Jewish political organization, a boring hedge fund manager, and a med student who didn’t have time for me. Should I have just picked one to marry so as not to waste any valuable time on my biological clock? Something tells me that would not have been a good plan.

I love babies, and I bet I’ll have one someday. But if my rabbi mentioned to me that it was high time I got hitched and knocked up, I’m pretty sure I’d stop going to shul.

To Breed or Not to Breed: is that the question?For a long time now, people have been insisting that I should have babies, and lots of them, and soon. It started around 9th grade when my best friend, a sweet, ingenuous, halachically-oriented, culturally traditional (does that paint a clear enough picture, for you?) gal who we'll call "Yael" disagreed when I told her that I "wasn't sure I wanted to have children."

"Oh, Helly," she scoffed, writing me off with a laugh and a condescending smile. "Of course you'll have babies. You'll have cute Helly-babies."

Sure, we were all of fourteen years old, still in our freshman year of high school--still virgins--but the conversation stuck with me. Here was someone--my best friend, no less--"disagreeing" with my most serious, emotionally-charged thoughts. She wasn't even willing (or maybe more to the point, able) to engage in a discussion about it. It was a wake-up call as intense and enduringly problematic as my first period, two years earlier. We were not going to have the conversation about whether or not I was going to have "Helly-babies," because there was no conversation to be had.

As I got older, the emphatic insistence that I should and would procreate came from other directions. I'm not so vain as to think that it's my babies in particular for whom people have this rapacious appetite. People are just baby crazy. Instinct is a bitch. This knowledge doesn't change the fact that certain relatives and friends of my mother are ravenous. And now that I've been in a serious, Jdate-procured relationship for the past year and a half, and I'm pushing 30, the pressure is on.

The problem, of course, is that even though I'm sixteen years removed from my 9th grade self, I still have the same reservations about procreating. Even worse: I know more, now, than I did then. I know that our world faces a number of serious issues related to population, for example:

It took all of human history until 1830 for world population to reach one billion. The second billion was achieved in 100 years, the third billion in 30 years, the fourth billion in 15 years, and the fifth billion in only 12 years. In 2005, world population exceeded 6.5 billion people, growing by nearly 80 million per year with virtually all of the growth taking place in the poorest countries in the world, where population already strains economies, environments and social services.

Rapid population growth causes or exacerbates poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, economic stagnation, resource depletion, disease and illiteracy – a surefire formula for global insecurity.

I know about the understaffed orphanages and "dying rooms" of China, the problem of female infanticide there and in India, the innumerable unwanted girls that are born in both countries each year. Knowing about the poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, economic stagnation, resource depletion, disease and illiteracy that exist in our world due to overpopulation, and knowing how many unwanted, abandoned babies need and deserve homes around the world, how on Earth can I rationalize honoring the Torah's first stated commandment to humankind?

"Be fruitful and multiply," we're instructed in Genesis 1.28. My translation actually reads "be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it." Well, I think it's safe to say that we've completed that task. So, now what? Aren't there enough people (over 6.6 billion, thank you very much) on the planet already? Isn't it wrong to bring a child into a world plunging headfirst into impoverishment and destruction? What boggles my mind most of all is how still, to this day, my concerns are laughed off, unheard, unanswered. People are still rooting for the "Helly-babies." Why? Is it ignorance? Denial?

In their 2004 book, One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future Paul and Anne Ehrlich write:

Americans, probably the chief contributors to the population-consumption problem, broadly defined, seem mostly oblivious to the potentially massive threat posed by increasing numbers of people. Many Americans apparently have been lulled by contrary claims into believing that the population explosion is over, or that further growth doesn't matter. You would never know by reading the newspapers or watching television today that the numbers of people will greatly affect our own and our children's futures.

The affluent not only have a duty to learn the basics of how the world works; they also bear a responsibility to help their destitute cousins share in the rewards of modern life. The rich are primarily the ones who have the resources and opportunities to get the job done. To us, that implies a necessary, substantial change in the behavior of the citizens of industrialized nations, not just in how much we consume and how much assistance we give the needy but also how many children we have.

What's a 30 year old, Jewish gal to do? For me, the jury is still out, but here's what the Ehrlichs seem to be prescribing: Educating ourselves and each other, Supporting family planning campaigns in the poorest, least developed nations, Supporting the education of women in those countries (educating women and giving them job opportunities has been associated with sharply declining birthrates, and female literacy particularly has been negatively correlated with family size), Consuming less, Giving more, and Limiting the number of children we have. It sounds like an honorable plan steeped in Tikkun Olam, but it won't be easy to live up to.

No kid-ding.

Laurel and Lewis: Huzzah!I just wanted to let everyone know that former Hacker of the Faith and blogger extraordinaire Laurel Snyder gave birth to a healthy baby boy last Thursday. Lewis Abraham Snyder Poma, 7 lbs, 7 oz. 20.5 inches long. He was two weeks early, but Laurel and Lewis and the whole family are doing great.

He is incredibly cute. And he can probably already write sonnets and play guitar.
Welcome to the world, Lewis! Come on out and play! And a huge mazel tov to Laurel, Chris and Mose. Yay!

Too Cute: No really, some of this crap I can do without!It would seem that there are a number of Jewish traditions that accompany pregnancy and childbirth. Traditions that begin long before you have to throw a bris or a naming ceremony. But the only one I'd ever heard of, until now, was the tradition of doing nothing... 

Which is to say, the tradition of NOT preparing for your baby. NOT telling people you're pregnant until they can see fit or themselves, NOT revealing he names you're considering, NOT throwing a shower, NOT getting the baby's room ready.

Evidently, this is a custom particular to the Ashkenazic tradition, a minhag that seeks to avoid attracting the attention of evil spirits. And while I don't fear evil spirits so much, I do fear miscarriage. 

Been there, done that.

Let me tell you, there are few things more horrible than having to call everyone you know to report the unblessing of the blessed news. I can't even imagine having to get rid of unworn baby clothes, or having to paint over the rubber ducky mural in the nursury/study. I'd never want to fight with the good people at Babies-R-Us about returning a crib I'd already taken out of the box and set up.

I think that this particular Jewish tradition makes a huge deal of sense. I think it's instinctive, psychologically sound, practical--like a lot of Jewish cultural traditions, I think it's rooted in the emotional truths that underly superstition, and not just superstition.

So when I had my son, (though I did clean and repaint the room we planned to use for him, and empty it of the random piles of crap scattered around) I insisted that we didn't want gifts until he arrived. When I left for the hospital, I owned no baby clothes, no bottles.

Which was fine. I'm glad I did it.

But now I'm 6 months pregnant again, and big as a house, and a friend asked me if I wanted a shower this time. And I found myself feeling like Yeah! It's my turn!

Because I've bought a lot of expensive presents over the last few years for other people. I've blown up balloons, made sherbet-punch, played dumb games, and felt a little sad that it was never my turn.

But I still don't want to prepare for the baby. I don't want lots of tiny booties and hats that might never get worn. So what to do?

What to do?

What to do!

I told my friend I wanted a shower, but not baby presents. I told her I'd like an un-shower. Or that I'd like a mom-shower, and not a baby-shower. I told her that the invitations should say that I'd prefer gifts after the baby arrives, but that nothing would make me happier than an afternoon with my friends. Because although I don't want to fill a room with toys, I do want to sit in the middle of a bevy of ladies, and giggle and eat brownies and be the center of attention. For one afternoon, before the baby arrives and HE gets to be the center of attention forever.

It might sound selfish, but I want a shower that's about ME, not the baby.

I thought about asking for my gifts to be all things my older son could use, if something awful happend. Pictures books, or kiddie-music, or something like that.

I thought about asking for donations to a Jewish children's organization.

I also thought about (and this just seemed way to tacky) asking for presents for ME! Bath salts and books and music and so on. Things to make me feel special, as I head into this next hard (and wonderful) stretch.

But in the end, I figure the message here isn't about telling people how to spend money. A shower doesn't have to be about gifts. It just has to make mom feel like she has a community ready to support her, as she heads to the hospital, and her life changes forever.

Now if only that same mom could have a glass of wine at her un-shower! Sigh....

I can personally attest to the fact that few things require more faith than parenting.  So it’s good  that someone is finally starting to catch on to the fact that young parents are ripe for “outreach”.  Maybe now that there’s a story about it in the Forward, something will get done.  Maybe even in the neighborhoods where young Jewish parents live (which is often FAR from the JCC or a synagogue).

In fact, this is an issue I’ve been fussing and fuming about since I became a mother a year ago…  in truth because I just really need some good non-Jesus-filled subsidized daycare.  The Jewish community seems unable to catch on to the value of thefabulous  mother’s morning out programs  that churches run.

Leaving me to choose between cheap convenient reliable daycare (and a lot of Jesus-loves-me), or my religion.

But it’s not JUST cheap daycare I want. Truly.  It’s also that suddenly, as a mom, I want to know other Jewish families. I want my son to light candles and hunt afikomen with other Jewish kids. It feels crucial, although I’ve been too lazy to create that community for myself. I want it  for my kids.  I may have been a really bad Jew in college, and I may have intermarried, but having a baby changes you. 

So here’s a challenge to the Jewish community… to venture out of the safety of the Northern suburbs in every major city, and  into the (horrors!) City itself.  Try your “outreach” on some people who could really use it.

I’m ready for it, and I bet the Jewish friends I don’t know yet are too. 

And I’m curious to hear from other young unaffiliated Jews with kids. Have you joined a synagogue?  Would you for good cheap daycare?