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Rabbi Shmuley: Father of nine on only child 'narcissism'
By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Not sure whether Americans are becoming more materialistic and self-absorbed? Look no further than Time Magazine's recent carnival of narcissism and celebration of selfishness.
In a bizarre cover story entitled, "The Only Child: Debunking the Myths," Lauren Sandler writes in personal terms of her and her husband's decision to have only one child. G-d bless them. It's a free country. Have however many children you wish or don't wish. But Sandler is an evangelist with thinly disguised contempt for parents silly enough to ruin their finances - not to mention their lives - by being burdened by more than one offspring. Her twisted argument is that the purpose of having children is not a love of kids, or an appreciation for the beauty of life, but parental happiness. Too many kids involves a life of drudgery and expense that extinguishes parental joy. Kids get in the way of their parents tennis lessons and weekends in Paris.
Sandler notes: 'We're pushing toilet training just to drop the cost of diapers -- about $100 a month -- from our monthly budget.' Whoa. If you're writing Time magazine cover stories, and your husband is also a professional with a separate income, you have only one child, and you can't even afford diapers, then what are you blowing your money on?
Sandler then gets to the meat of her disturbing line of reasoning. "As parents, we tend to ask ourselves two questions when we talk with our partners about having more children. First, will it make our kid happier? And then, will it make us happier?" Really, I never had such a ridiculous conversation with my wife. Our decision to have nine children revolved around a simple love of kids. We love their cuteness, their playfulness, their gentleness, their innocence. Sandler's conversations sounds more like two people buying a pet. "Perhaps the parakeet droppings will be too much for us to cope with and we ought to buy a plastic Chihuahua instead?"
If you're having children for your own happiness, you will be a lifelong burden to them as parents. Rather, the happiness that our children bring to us is the natural and organic by-product of being a parent rather than the reason to become one.
But all this is just the appetizer for the main course of contempt Sandler will serve up for parents primitive enough to have more than one child. "University of Pennsylvania demography professor Samuel Preston," she relates, "...told me the discovery that surprised him most was that parents felt so madly in love with their first child, they wanted a second. That's an unusual finding." To Sandler is it odd to find parents who actually enjoy raising their children.
But let's not stop her when she's on a roll. "Parents who intend to have only one say they can manage the drudgery with an eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. Beth Nixon, a Pennsylvania artist and mother of a 1-year-old, says she finds reassurance every day in the fact that "it's not going to be an endless chain of need which is going to be fulfilled for years and years." One can picture Sandler finding interviewees in "Narcissists Anonymous" for her piece. Let's hope Ms. Nixon's daughter never reads her mother's loving comments.
But lest you conclude that to Sandler parenting is nothing but monotonous labor with few rewards, she shares how becoming a parent provided a golden epiphany. "I used to suspect that mothers who talked about their children with such unbridled wonder didn't have much else going on in their lives. Then I had my daughter -- and now I gush like the rest of them." Oh, to be so enlightened, to come around to the idea, Lauren, that women who raise their children are not losers and airheads who get knocked up to fill the void in their lives. Lauren, you rock!
But lest we get too carried away with the pleasures of children, Sandler reminds us that "social scientists have surmised since the 1970s that singletons offer the rich experience of parenting without the consuming efforts that multiple children add: all the wonder and giggles and shampoo Mohawks but with leftover energy for sex, conversation, reading and so on."
Are these the new standards for a Time magazine cover story?
For the record, I am a father of nine children. They are the best thing, aside from my wife, that ever happened to me. With them I have RV'd around all of North America. I have taken them to countless lectures, debates, museums, and of course, synagogues. At our weekly Friday night Shabbat dinner we host people from every culture, religion, and nationality and have incredible giggles and conversations. The more children we have had the more blessing has come into our lives. And yes, parents with large families have active and fulfilling sex lives, as I discovered from interviewing hundreds for my best-sellers Kosher Sex, Kosher Adultery, and the Kosher Sutra. Where do you find the time for everything? With a large family you learn to economize both your resources and your time. Your heart expands and you develop healthier priorities. The older children help with the younger children and the family becomes a loving unit.
Sandler drones on about the high cost of ballet and piano lessons and how impossible it would be to afford it with a large family. But do children really need this robotic overprogramming more than nurturing relationships?
In her effort to prove how successful only children are, Sandler gushes over Franklin Roosevelt, Elvis Presley, and Lance Armstrong, which is curious because all three are famous for professional achievement and personal failure. Roosevelt forever lost the affection of his wife Eleanor when he had an affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer. Elvis famously could not sustain an intimate relationship and tragically died of a drug overdose, and Lance Armstrong seems challenged in the sphere of personal relationships as well. None of which means that this has anything to do with their having been only children, and indeed I know only children who are as well-adjusted, giving, and happy as any other children. It is to suggest that narcissists like Sandler have warped values where success is measured by money, fame, and power rather than loving relationships.
Want to know why Islam is taking over Europe and why Latinos are becoming such a political force in the United States? It's because they love children and they are exploding demographically. In the summer of 2008 The New York Times Magazine published a cover story entitled 'Disappearing Europe' that explained that countries like France, Norway, and Russia had hit 'lowest low fertility,' having so few babies that they cannot replenish their numbers even in two generations. In the 1960's, as Time itself notes, Europe constituted 20 percent of the world's population. Today the number has fallen to under 10, despite massive efforts to boost births. How ironic that as the West has become richer and more capable of affording children it has lost its appetite for kids, believing instead that real happiness lies in a BMW or a Prada handbag.
In that sense, perhaps the most striking statement in Sandler's cover story is this: "I, for one, was happy without siblings. A few ex-boyfriends aside, people seem to think I turned out just fine." With values like these, I truly wonder.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach hosts 'The Shmuley Show' on WABC 770 AM in NYC and is founder of This World: The Values Network. He is the author, most recently, of "Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley and on his website: www.shmuley.com.
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach |
July 26, 2010; 4:12 PM ET
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Posted by: PaulinMaryland | July 29, 2010 1:18 PM
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Some Muslims in the Middle East "love children" enough to sacrifice them as human suicide bombs. Parents of any other faith would find such an act unthinkable.
Posted by: PaulinMaryland | July 29, 2010 1:14 PM
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Whether or not you love children, having nine of them is irresponsible and selfish in itself. You're taking more than your share of the planet's resources.
Posted by: Lutoslawski | July 28, 2010 12:46 PM
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I have one child - after she was born, I didn't want another. When she was a toddler, I started getting the question "So when are you gong to have another one?" and got astonished stares when I responded, "Never. I don't want any more."
I got the usual crap: "She'll be lonely without a sibling." She had plenty of other kids to play with at pre-school and in the neighborhood.
"She needs the close bond that sblings have." I love my sister dearly, but the only thing we have in common is the gene pool. I was a tom-boy, she couldn't stand to get dirty. I played cops and robbers, she played with Barbie dolls. As we got older, our tastes diverged even more. Shared DNA is not a guarantee that you will have a bosom buddy.
"She won't know how to bond with people." What am I, chopped liver? My daughter grew into one of the kidest, most compassionate people I've ever had the privilege to know.
Posted by: lepidopteryx | July 28, 2010 11:46 AM
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After looking at the Time article, I do feel the author seems a bit self-centered and emotionally shallow. I think the idea that you have children to make yourself happy is ridiculous, because it is not a child's responsibility to make a parent happy -- and if you are not prepared for the pain as well as joy a child could bring to your life, you do not have the emotional maturity to be a parent.
That being said, I agree that there is something unfair about the Rabbi's comments. He is commenting on the viewpoint of someone from a different segment of society -- a secular, upper-middle class white person. He is not so much criticizing her, but really attacking the larger society within which his somewhat insular community lives. It seems he sees a lot of problems with this society -- selfish, materialistic, lacking spirituality, lacking family cohesion. It is fine for any person to look upon a different social group and see problems with it, but you shouldn't hold up your own social group as an example of something superior. That is just arrogant.
As a liberal minded conservative jew, I live in a community surrounded by orthodox jews, and it would not be difficult to pass judgment based on the difference of their lifestyle from mine. When I see a woman in her early 20's with 3 or 4 children already, I wonder if that is really a choice made from her heart or just going along with what her community expects. But I keep my mouth shut, because it is actually not fair for me to assume I know better about how someone "should" live their life.
Posted by: Nomlu | July 27, 2010 11:04 AM
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I agree vehemently with Batsheva - as a Jew, this piece is not one I'd hope to see from a rabbi, a man of G-d. You had nine children because you wanted nine; how is it ANY different for someone to have one child because they simply want one? Your nine children make you happy; their one makes them the same. And to judge parents for their "end of the tunnel" sentiments? I don't yet have children, but I feel confident that this is a normal way for overwrought parents to feel - parents are people, too! Stress can get to anyone - yes, even those with only one child, though you, juggling nine, might look down on them for their inability to do it as well as you seem to think you do.
I am an only child with a single mother. Now, as an adult, I thank God my mother had difficulty conceiving; had she been left with more than one child when my father passed away, we may not have made it through.
G-d gives us what we can handle. Kudos to you for your gaggle of children, but perhaps take a look at the book & find it within your rabbinical self to be a bit more understanding - and, for G-d's sake, compassionate.
Posted by: Kate_B | July 27, 2010 9:40 AM
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My husband and I are observant Jews who love children, and we both had hoped we would be blessed with several. To our dismay we were only able to have one. When I read the Time cover story, I was greatly relieved. It dispelled many of my fears about raising an only child (our daughter is 7, and it appears that I can't have any more--for the record, we practice taharat ha mishpachah and have also never used any form of contraceptive). While there were points in her article that I was also uncomfortable with, on the whole, it made me feel better, which I believe was the author's ultimate goal. To so harshly condemn a person you do not know based on unfair assumptions about her intent--calling her narcissistic and saying that she has warped values, not to mention all the venomous sarcasm--is beneath you. I would go so far as to call some of your comments lashon hara, and I believe you owe Ms. Sandler an apology that should be as public as your condemnation of her was.
Posted by: batsheva | July 27, 2010 12:29 AM
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You love children so much that you want nine? Adopt; take a child born into misery and give him a stable home.