Playing the Game of Who, When and Where

As families, we all tend to go through stages. In the beginning of our married lives we still go home to our parents for yom tov and for that occasional Shabbos. Then we hit the stage when going away is more difficult than just staying home. Packing up a large family and traveling what can be long distances becomes a real undertaking. And as our siblings also have large families, all of us descending upon our parents becomes a logistical impossibility--there just isn't room for everyone in Babi and Zaydie's house all at the same time. Babi and Zaydie become the visitors, not the visited.

And then comes another stage. This is the one where you, yourself, have married children. And then the fun begins. Let's say you have 3 children. That also means you have three sets of muchatonim. Much as you might want your children at home for every yom tov you now have to share them with the muchatonim. But let's say that the muchatonim also have 3 children each. Three sets of your muchatonim have 9 sets of their own muchatonim. Now make that 5 children that you have and that your muchatonim also have. That makes 25 sets of muchatonim in the mix. Who goes where and when becomes a logistical exercise worthy of a 5-star general. Logic says that your five married children--that's 10 adults--who also have children--let's say they only have 2 each right now--are going to be 20 people that you need to house and feed. Now add in your parents.

Most people simply do not have the size of house that will accommodate this size of a group. You can't exactly separate the males and females and set your rooms up dormitory style when you are talking about married couples. And there are also the schedules of the muchatonim with their other married children that have to be taken into consideration.

If everyone all lives in the same area, within walking distance of each other, then sleeping is not the issue. Only meals need to be divided up among the various interested parties. But how many of us live this way? I informally polled my friends to see how many had their married children, all of them, in walking distance. The answer was none of them did. Here and there there was a child in the neighborhood, but many were spread out across the city, across the country and across the globe.

Before our children get married we like to dream that everything will always stay the same way it is now, and even marriage won't change things. Our kids, all of them, will always be at our table for yom tov. It's true that yom tov should be about families coming together to celebrate. But how they come together, and when, and where is not always as simple as we dreamed it would be. Perhaps there would be fewer hurt feelings and less resentment if we looked at the mathematics of who spends yom tov by whom. Or maybe we need to look at the physics of yom tov--the principle that one object cannot occupy two different spaces at the same time. Yom tov is sometimes about sharing.