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LETTERS, FEEDBACK
In response to the person who responded concerning the
article about gift ideas for married children: They wrote:
"However, please understand that once you start, it is even
more difficult to not buy gifts for them."
I am the sixth of eleven children, my father has recently
retired to go learn in kollel, and so I very much understand
her feelings of fear. But, I have one thing to say!
Chinuch is a lifetime process. If a child feels
jealousy of another child because of what the parents have
given that child, then the raising of their children went
wrong somewhere. The child should have enough sense to
understand that five years ago, the parents only had to fly
in two people for the wedding, but now flying in twenty is
just not feasible. When there was only one married sister,
the parents could afford to come in for the birth of each
grandchild, but maybe now with tens of grandchildren, it is
just not feasible necessarily to come in for each birth, etc,
etc.
If a person is always looking the other way to not offend one
of the children with one extra hug, one extra kiss, one extra
dollar, then in the end, everyone is going to be lacking. If
each child would just look at his/her own plate and recognize
that each person has different needs and wants, and the
parents are trying their hardest to make everyone feel loved,
then everyone would truly be happy.
I would like to demonstrate with the following true story of
how when you try so hard to give equally to everyone, nobody
gets the same. There was a family reunion in the States for
all the extended family. Because of the high expenses of
traveling for both the Israeli counterparts and families from
"out-of-town," the grandparents agreed to pay for everyone to
come in. They feared, though, that if they paid for each
person's flight, then really they wouldn't be distributing
their money evenly. After all, those coming from Israel would
be getting a whole lot more money than those living in the
same city as the reunion. So, what did they do? They gave an
equal amount of money to each grandchild, and an equal amount
of money to each great-grandchild. Did everyone get the same?
Not really. After all, the great-grandchild that didn't have
to pay for a flight got a whole lot more than the great-
grandchild in Israel whose money just paid for his flight
from Israel. At the reunion, people spoke about how the
grandhildren should use this money towards visiting Bubbie
and Zaidie more, etc, but then the Israeli counterparts who
used all their money for their flight, car rental, hotel,
etc, asked, "What money?" So, did they distribute the money
equally? The grandfather announced when distributing the
money how everyone got the same, everyone is equally loved in
their eyes, but did all receive the same?
You be the judge!!
C.T.
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