"I'm getting married at the Age of Three" and other Tales of Woe

Titles are supposed to give readers some type of hint as to what is coming. If you are scratching your head and wondering what this post is really going to be about, you will need to wait just a bit longer as I have a story to tell you first.

When I moved to Staten Island I was fortunate to have the most wonderful neighbor imaginable. She heard we had moved in and an invitation for a Shabbos meal was immediately forthcoming. She and her husband arranged for my husband to find a carpool, and she took me shopping and introduced me to all the "vital" stores I would need. And yes, her children, older then mine, became my babysitters when needed.

She was not only concerned about me and my family but about everyone and their families. She was a pediatric nurse by profession and all children were precious to her. She and her husband were foster parents for Ohel for long term placements and were also an "emergency" home when a child needed to be placed somewhere immediately.

She got one of those emergency placements one time and asked me if I could do her a favor. She needed to rearrange her work schedule to accommodate taking care of the newborn but she was stuck for coverage for a few hours. Would I babysit the baby? I was scared because the baby was "special needs"--he was born with spina bifida-- and I didn't want to do anything wrong, but my neighbor showed me what to do and I cared for this infant for a few hours.

What an absolutely beautiful baby this was. I spent the few hours holding him and rocking him and singing to him and really didn't want to "give him back" when my neighbor arrived. What I couldn't understand was what circumstances could be so dire that his birth parents would have given him up and put him in foster care. Back then I could not conceive of a parent who would "throw away" a special needs child--we certainly pray for healthy children, but we surely know that Hashem doesn't guarantee that. I was obviously young and naive. My neighbor told me why the child was given up, and the memory of her story has never left me.

The frum parents of this baby had two other young children, two girls, and were hopeful to have many more. They, with advice from their families and their own thinking, had come to the conclusion that "keeping" their child was not going to be good for their other children--"Es vet shatten tzum shidduch"--it would hurt the possibilities for shidduchim for their other children later on if it were known that the children had a brother with a "genetic" disease. I don't say the decision was easy for them, but it was made. They made a bris for this little boy in the hospital, gave him the name Rafael and gave up their parental rights and put him up for adoption.

Now at this point you may be saying to yourself "this craziness was specific to just one family. It's not indicative of anything else." I disagree.

"Es vet shatten tzum shidduch" is a philosophy shared by too many people across Klal Yisroel. Keep a little boy home from "real" school until he is four or maybe even five and better able to cope with the hours? Nope, "shatten tzum shidduch." Choose this yeshiva ketana over that yeshiva ketana? "Shatten tzum shidduch." Seminary or no seminary? "Shatten tzum shidduch." College or no college? "Shatten tzum shidduch." Kipoh or black hat? "Shatten tzum shidduch." Dressing this way or that, saying this or that, doing this or that, thinking this or that--"Shatten tzum shidduch." It's a type of philosophy that says that preparation for marriage and for the "right" shidduchim begins early, really early. and that every single thing you do can affect a shidduch later on. Even the things you don't do or say, but that your family does or says or that your friends do or say can "shatten tzum shidduch."

Parents have become so obsessed with the future shidduchim of their children that some actions border on the irrational, like the family that gave up Rafael. Some people are so concerned about the future that they forget to actual live their present.

Parents would love to safeguard their children; it's in the nature of being a parent. But there are some things that no matter what you do you will not be able to safeguard against. Treating our little children as if they are "in the shidduch parsha" now because you have worries about their future is basically getting them married off at three years of age--the only thing missing is the actual choson or kallah.

If something that you want to do or that you may say will "shat tzum shidduch" ask yourself if you truly want a shidduch where doing that thing could be the key factor in whether the shidduch actually becomes a shidduch.

I'm not sure what the Hebrew word for "obsession" is and if the topic has already been addressed by past gedolim, but I sure wish a present day godol would say something about it, something that makes sense out of the nonsense that is residing in too many people's heads. Fortunately I am already married. Otherwise I am sure that the words I have penned here would be looked at askance by some, and some would mutter "Es veht shatten tzum shidduch." And Heaven help anyone who will take a look at the words I have penned here and mutter that nonsense in reference to my own children.