More on Gedolim Cards: The socialists among us

Many seem to feel that the manufacturer of the "Gedolim Cards" should not view his enterprise as a business, but rather as a chessed project. Apparently, the manufacturer should dedicate his time to producing the cards for little or more profit so that we can all benefit from the education they may potentially provide. This letter grandmother writes:

"If these stickers are truly a vehicle for our children to educate themselves and have fun at the same time, then the business-minded individuals who are selling these stickers should make each sticker more readily available." And, "If these stickers were meant to educate our children, then perhaps the individuals who thought of the idea would come up with a better plan. It is blatantly apparent that these stickers are systematically released and certain gedolim are a rare find. After a reasonable amount of time and for an appropriate price why not sell the set and then release a new series? Or, simply play fair and release enough of each sticker to keep the children interested and, most importantly, not consistently asking their parents - or grandparents for that matter - for money to support the pockets of others."

Michelle of My Humble Jewish Opinion also seems to feel the same way and writes

"I would think the goal of [collecting gedolim cards] is to have the kids focus on people that truly contribute to society and Torah, and once they have the cards, they can learn more about them, and consider them role models. But this twist in the system is typical of the Jewish money-hungry mind. He makes the parents spend a lot of money buying packages of cards."

Michelle continues:

"He's abusing the fact that the Yeshivish community is more willing to spend money on Jewish themed products. So these mothers are shelling out the big bucks...and it's completely against what it stand for itself. These Gedolim are for simple lives, involved in Torah-not immersed in materialism and all that. I just don't get it."

Many of the commentators of My Humble Jewish Opinion agree and call the manufacturer a "bastard" or "greedy."

A few things:

1. The manufacturer of the cards is "business-minded", which is exactly why he chose a successful business model that has proven successful since the advent of the first baseball card. If it wasn't for the profit-motive, he wouldn't be pursuing this idea.

2. The manufacturer has as much of a right to make money as any of us. He has bills to pay and kids to raise. The fact that he came up with an idea should be to his credit, although if I was a gadol, I would not want my picture on a card.

3. There is no exploitation going on. The business model is well-known and any kid can explain it to you.

4. If a child is "making" his parents buy him cards, then it is clear who is in charge (not the parents). These parents (and grandparents) should set some limits before they get run over by all of the demands their children will "force" upon them as they get older.

5. And, most importantly, you do NOT need to buy your children Gedolim Cards or any other item their heart desires. It is quite all right to say no to your child. And, if you see the value of them owning these cards, than tell your cleaning lady (in our house, that would be me) to take a day off and let the kids scrub the floors and the toilets to earn some extra money.

Every time I see people whine and complain about the Gedolim Cards, it becomes quite quite clear to me that we, as a group, are a weak set of parents and grandparents. I'm glad my parents had no problem saying no to many of my requests (Cabbage Patch Kids, Teddy Rumpskin, a Nintendo). They were not weak and I was the beneficiary.

The Parenting Crisis III
Bribing vs. Motivating

A commenter name "Black Hatter" comments on my post about Gedolim Cards titled The Parenting Crisis II illustrates just how deep the "Parenting Crisis" is. Incidently, I coined this phrase all by myself because I do believe that parenting is in crisis mode today.

Black Hatter writes:
One more point. Gedolim cards have became
our parenting tool."If you go to sleep on time, you'll get a pack"If you don't
clean up, your NOT getting cards""stop fighting or your not getting cards."

I (SephardiLady) respond:
It is very dangerous territory to enter
where you parent by bribing to get good behavior, rather than rewarding good
behavior.What a parent should be doing is motivating. And, the examples you gave
are clearly not motivating. Motivation can include a reward, but what you listed
is not that. After a little back and forth,

Black Hatter asks:
do
you have at home 4 rowdy boys + 1 girl who tries to keep up with them, all under
the age of 9????????

I answer:
I don't think the number of children
that I have under the age of 9 is relevant. Parenting is about the long term and
whether you have 1 child under 9 or 6 children under 9 the goal is the same.

Black Hatter comes back to describe the scene in his home:
The scene
at my house this morning:
My youngest is crying because he wants a bottle.
My daughter is fighting with my 2nd boy because he took her doll away.
My middle one is jumping up and down screeching on top of his lungs.
My
oldest can't find his shoe and their bus is coming in 15 minutes....

Hey
boys - c'mon quiet down, OK OK I'll buy you each a pack of cards if you make it
on the school bus..Deafening silence. And they were at the bus stop 5 minutes
early.But it isn't "relevant". Right?

I once again will reiterate that the number of children is not relevant to this discussion. There are households with only one child that have more issues than 10 children can provide. What is relevant is a discussion of parenting methods and the pitfalls of some of them.

I'm sure we can all agree that when our children leave our homes that they are disciplined, mature, responsible, self-motivated, forward-thinking, respectable, and able to keep their emotions under control . Achieving all of this and more is no small feat. Parenting is probably the hardest job you will ever have. On top of siyata dishmaya, it requires consistency, structure, and a the self-discpiline on the parents' part to seek future results rather than immediate gratification. The opposition (i.e. your children) is cunning, persistant, and self-centered.

When a parent bribes a child to do a certain action (in this case get ready for school and get on the bus on time), he is basically playing into his children's vice characteristics. He is providing immediate gratification and stripping his children from experiencing the consequences of their actions (in this case missing the bus). As the children grow older, it is quite likely that their demands for what should be expected behavior (getting on the bus with backpack and lunch in hand) will continue to increase, knowing few boundaries.

What a parent really needs to do is motivate his* children to fulfill their responsibilites all by themselves. Motivation can include material rewards, but motivation is different than bribery in that motivation is forward-thinking and ingrains good habits. Bribery promotes immediate gratification, while doing nothing to ingrain good habits for the next day.

Another parenting issue is having low expectations and rewarding accomplishments that are just too small to reward with more than a compliment. Just recently I witnessed one of these parenting blunders. The parent promised the child a new toy for something that at his age he should be expected to do and do consistently. Maybe someday I will put our the question to my readers what chores they did at what ages. Today I see parents working themselves to the bone while the kids sit back and relax. Judging by some of the letters from parents of adult children to known frum columnists, the sitting back and relaxing extends well into adulthood and it is just unexceptable. But, children are not born complete. They are only raw materials and a parent must help shape them within the confines of their personality to become a mentsch.

I am certainly not a perfect parent, but I think the more that we all talk about parenting the more self-aware we will become of our own actions and the strong messages they send. While we all hopefully realize that sitting a child in front of a video so that we can get X, Y, or Z done, is lazy parenting, we often don't realize that fulfilling our children's demands and playing into their hands (you all know who is in charge, right?) is also a form of lazy parenting, parenting in the here and now.

That said, may I suggest a better way to approach the morning madhouse. Sit down and lay down the law. All children of elementary school age are responsible for getting their backpacks and lunches ready the night before school. When they wake up they are responsible for getting dressed, making their beds, eating breakfast, brushing their teeth, and getting to the bus stop with lunches and backpacks in hand. This behavior is expected and will be rewarded at the end of the week either through a small prize or a points systems that leads to an agreed upon, reasonable, and desired reward.

Now what happens if your children miss the bus? I'd be interested to hear some reasonable consequences. But, if it happened to my elementary school age son, they would have to pay me (or a cab) for their own ride to school. Obviously each child must have some of his own cash to be able to pay up, but if you choose not to provide your children with their own cash, I would suggest adding extra chores. Usually when something hits you in the pocketbook, it doesn't happen again. When I was young I broke something in my parents home and spent much of my summer working to pay back my parents. The lesson was learned well.

That's it for now. I look forward to seeing all of your comments after the weekend. Shabbat Shalom! Good Shabbos!

*I use the masculine form for simplicity.

More Blog Fodder from the Yated
A Preview of Upcoming Posts

Loyal readers, this week's Yated is providing way too much blog fodder. Last week the Yated provided us with the Parenting Crisis I and the Parenting Crisis II. Commenter "Black Hatter" has provided us with the promised third Parenting Crisis Series which deals with parents bribing their children to benefit themselves rather motivating their children and letting them suffer some consequences.

It is hard enough to find time to compose the 3rd installment of the "Parenting Crisis" when along comes the Yated to provide me with the following up and coming posts:

• The Parenting Crisis IV: Chas V'Shalom you actually involve yourself with your children and their chinuch (which could be more crassly be known as don't breed 'em if you can't raise 'em)
• Not another Crisis!: Cleaning lady issues (that I've never had to deal with)
• More on Gedolim Cards: The socialists among us
• A Beam of Light in the Yated: Old fashioned common sense from Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg

Without people who think like the letter writers above, one wonders if there would be anything to blog about?

We are headed out for the weekend and time will only tell if another post will materialize before Shabbat. For now I big my readers a Shabbat Shalom and a Good Shabbos.

The "Parenting Crisis" II:
More Comments on the "Gedolim Card Crisis"

Like I said here, there is no Gedolim Card Crisis, but we certainly are experiencing a "Parenting Crisis." Here is yet another jem from the latest Yated from a letter entitled "A Fad Gone Bad." If the cries for help continue for one week longer, I may need to submit my own letter to the editor to shake things up.

Marking makes it impossible to fill a gedolim picture album before you have an over abundance of doubles and triples of the more common cards. It is almost like a feeling of being overcharged and money being extorted. Most parents are not willing to go along with the expenses.

Children's appetitles for more and more pictures have by far exceeded the expectations. Boys have gotten so involved that they keep asking their parents for more and more money. Parents have been complaining, asking where the limit is.

So I re-iterate my previous message to parents. The limit is where you set it. There is no need to "go along with the expenses." You are the parents. You are in charge. You control the purse strings. All you have to do is say no! You may have to say no over and over again (as my parents did when I asked for my driver's permit for two straight long, long years).

But, there is no need to complain. There is no need to feel overwhelmed. There is no need to feel despair. And, for crying out loud, there is no need to label this as a "crisis." If you are in control (which you are), there is no crisis.

Give the word no a try, and maybe by the time your sons (and daughters) get married you will be well-practiced and can save yourself $10,000 or $20,000 on the chatunah and all of the "required" expenses that seem to accompany such affairs.

The "Parenting Crisis":
Parents, you are allowed to say no to your children

Cries for help are littering the pages of the latest Letters to the Editor section of the Yated. The pressing issue: Gedolim Cards. Apparanetly Gedolim Card collections are the newest "crisis" and since I will be covering many a "crisis" on my blog, I figured I would take a look at one particular letter that caught my eye. The letter reads as follows:

Dear Editor,

I am writing in resonse to the reader who wrote about the gedolim card crisis. Finally, someone has brought attention to this!

I hear so much about it from many people - but nobody is doing anything about it. My son started out buying one pack a week and trading his doubles. It came to a point where he had very few cards, so he started buying more and more hoping that he would be one of those lucky few to finish his book. Currently he needs one more card. He started going from store to store, trying his luck, thinking that maybe this store has the lucky card.

Unfortunately, he still doesn't have that card - and he has given ! Do you know how much money I have spent to get this last card?! Many of his friends have said that they are also giving up. It costs a fortune for the parents, and many children spend their own personal money on wasted cards.

Perhaps the tzibbur can do something about this problem.

Thank you Yated for your wonderful newspaper and for giving me the opportunity to voice my opinion.

Fortunately, my readers, I can assure you that there is no "Gedolim Card Crisis," although it is quite from the many letters (this just being one of them) that we have a "Parenting Crisis" on our hands. In contrast to the "Parenting Crisis" this crisis is something that you, the parents of b'nei and b'not Torah, can do something about single-handedly. The entire tzibur need not be involved to solve this crisis. A simple word from you to your child will do. And, fortunately, that word only has two letters. The word, NO! No, my dear son, you cannot spend your money or our money on these cards. No, my dear son, you cannot go from store to store searching for the last card you need.

While I am positive that these Gedolim Cards were introduced to some of our schools with the nobelest intentions, it comes as no surprise that the fad has spun out of control. Nearly every child on this universe has a proclivity for collecting, and boys are probably worse than girls, especially since their collections tend to be more trendy (anyone else out there remember Garbage Pail Kids?) and more corporate. In addition boys tend to be more competitive than girls and their collections often become a status symbol, as opposed to a manifestation of a unique interest. These collections should have never been introduced into Yeshivot, but once they were introduced and parents started noticing their chilren engaging in unhealthy competition, parents should have just put a stop to their own children participating and made it clear to them that their interest had spun too far out of control and was no longer healthy. There is no reason to take to the pages of the Yated asking others to find a solution when the solution is you!

Now, back to the letter. It seems that they mother herself has become so emotionally attached to her son's collection that she laments the fact that her son has given up only one card short of completing his collection. This mothers should be happy that her son has lost interest and has realized that he is only GAMBLING away his money in an effort to get the last card. I certainly would rather my son learn not to chase pipe dreams at a young age, than to find himself 35 years old gambling his money away in a casino or a "get rich quick" scam.