While we were in the art room at school today, my daughter asked me something in Hebrew in words I didn’t understand. “Say yes, mama!” She said. “Please say yes.”

“Baby, I can’t say yes, because I don’t understand what you want. For all I know you just asked me if you can get a tramp stamp, or move to Amsterdam.”

It’s like this, sometimes. She’ll say something that means something to her–I can see it in the way she clenches her jaw, and she flexes her fingers while she waits for her words to sink through the synapses of my American brain. Still, she wants an answer–even if it isn’t the answer she wants to hear–and when I look at her baffled, she sucks in her breath, and says, “You don’t listen to me.”   Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: bilingual, Hebrew, Israel, Language

Bonjour, Geneva.

Traveling overseas is intimidating. And I say this as someone whose last several international destinations have included Ghana, India, and South Africa.

I hadn’t ventured abroad since early 2010, for a fairly obvious and adorable reason. But my husband recently learned that he needed to spend nine days in Geneva for work. I didn’t like the idea of our being separated (with a toddler, four hands beat two), and Lila and I had no pressing engagements, so I suggested a family adventure. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Language, Travel, traveling with kids, Vacation

My son at the Kremlin.

Reading Debbie Kolben’s Forward article “Why My Daughter Isn’t Bilingual–Yet,” I thought to myself: What am amazing coincidence! I too screwed up the bilingual thing! Only Debbie screwed it up once, and I managed to screw it up three times–in three completely different ways!

The basic situation is this: I was born in the former USSR and moved to the US with my parents as a child. Although English came easily for me (the fact that I now write for a living is hopefully evidence of that), I continued speaking Russian to my parents at home, periodically switching into English for complex or uniquely specialized topics. While my Russian wasn’t quite stuck at the level of the 7-year-old I’d once been, I was, at best, in possession of the vocabulary of a pre-teen. (That didn’t stop me from doubling as a translator when I worked as a producer for ABC Sports’ figure skating coverage. My conversations with Olympic champions were never particularly deep. To catch me in action, go to about 8:00 minutes at this YouTube clip.)

I have a brother and a cousin who were born in the US and yet still speak fluent Russian to their parents. I figured, if they could pull off this bilingual thing, so could I.

Ha. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: bilingual, Language, Russian

So what’s with the F-bomb?

It’s all over the place–the streets, the bus, the subway, people yelling into their cell phones, TV, even Kveller!

Whether used in all its 4-letter glory or coyly with asterisks or as the “F-bomb,” you just can’t escape it. Channeling the ghost of Lenny Bruce–is it just a word? What is a “dirty word,” anyway? Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Language, offensive, swear words

I'm sorry, Mom, but I strongly dislike broccoli.

We don’t say the H-word in our house.

I am going to start with the disclaimer that I absolutely love Mayim. Like, I fantasize about sitting next to her at La Leche League and nonchalantly asking her to be my new best friend. I was a fan of Big Bang Theory long before I was a writer for Kveller, and the professional and theological perspectives that Mayim has shared through this blog have made me view the show (and many aspects of my family and faith journey) in a more critical way.

For example, when the BBT girls were trying on bridesmaids dresses, I immediately noticed that they all included long-sleeved dust jackets, something far from “runway current,” and I wondered if it was done in part to satisfy Mayim’s standards of tznius. That got me wondering if a Rabbi would agree to marry Howard and Bernedette because she is a shiksa. Or perhaps she will go through the conversion process and Amy will accompany her to the mikveh and live out her life-long dream of watching women bathe naked. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: hate, Language, Mayim Bialik

My daughters are little aliens. At least they sound like it. My girls are at the stage where the words coming out of their still-forming mouths are caught somewhere between babytalk and the childish idiolects of kindergarten. They don’t talk like I do; indeed they don’t talk like anyone does. Yet.

But school peers will soon shape their helium-pronouncements into whatever is normal for their age and location — a location thousands of miles from where I was born and grew up. And, even though we live in the same country as their mother did, we are a thousand miles from her childhood, too. My daughters are going to grow up foreigners.

But, though it feels strange and dislocating, that’s normal. The ease of international mobility for my class and generation means that, where previously people have moved away from the vicissitudes of poverty, persecution and violence, my friends and family can move to the promises of opportunity, liberty and love. Where freedom allowed my parents to move around the country, the rootless global upper-middle-class move around the globe.

New York, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, San Francisco and LA are just a few of the places that my friends from Leeds, Manchester, London, Hamburg Connecticut, and Utrecht have ended up. Each family has its own smattering of languages, accents and national loyalties. At least I can comfort myself that though my girls will end up saying “zeebra” not “zebra” they’ll at least have the same mother-tongue as me. But parents and children are separated by a generational gulf so, no matter what words they use, my daughters will always be a little bit alien.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: baby talk, Dads, Language, talking

“Imaaaaa!!!!”

Trapped between dreams and waking life, I am (just barely) aware enough to know that it is an obscenely early hour. I fumble for the small clock by the bed.

3:47 am.

The dregs just before dawn.

“Imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

By now, I know the difference between a cry for help and a cry for…”

“Ima! Rotsaaaa Cheerios.”

She wants Cheerios. At 3:47 am.  After all, she’s 2 years old.

I can picture her sitting up in bed, her curls pillow-matted into a Rastafarian wig. She’s probably clutching her Princess Tiana doll and sucking her thumb.

And I feel an icy trickle of resentment as I rub my eyes.

It isn’t because I’ve been shaken awake at an unholy hour. For Cheerios.

It isn’t because my husband snores serenely beside me in our bed while our daughter whines from her bedroom.

It’s the word: Ima. And the fact that my daughter’s default language is Hebrew.

When my daughter was born, my husband and I made a commitment to raise her in a bilingual household: Aba spoke Hebrew, and Mama spoke English. And since we were living in Los Angeles, I was smug about the whole thing because my daughter’s fluency in English was a given. The Hebrew was just a perk – a way showing off in front of other LA mamas.

And as my daughter grew older, she seemed to understand both languages equally well, although when it came to speaking, she favored English.  So, I felt I could afford to be a little charitable, and when we were out in public, I would toss around a little Hebrew for funsies: It was like our secret language, and she didn’t judge my linguistic missteps.  After all, she’s 2 years old.

By the time we landed in Israel four months ago, she spoke fluent gibberish. Half English, Half Hebrew, mishmoshing her words into a language that her Aba and I could understand.

“I want to play al ha deshe” (I want to play on the lawn.)

“Ani loveshet princess dress.” (I am wearing the princess dress.)

But after a winter spent in Israeli preschool, her Hebrew blossomed. And her English? Not so much.

“Keep speaking English to her!” My husband says.

And I do. But she resolutely answers in Hebrew.

And while at first, I was able to keep up, her Hebrew proficiency has surpassed me and she is using words that I don’t know.

“What does that mean,” I’ll ask her when she tosses out a word I’ve never heard.  And, offering me a frightening glimpse into her teenage years, she’ll roll her eyes and sigh.

Sometimes she’ll translate. Sometimes she won’t.

But I want her to speak English. I want that cultural connection with my daughter forever and ever. Especially in those irrational hours before dawn. I don’t want to feel like I need to carry a pocket dictionary when talking with my daughter, or worse, ask my mother-in-law to translate.

“Imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” she screams again, and I think of our neighbors. I take a deep breath, mentally steeling myself for the barefoot walk across the chilly floors.

(But I’m not Ima. I’m Mama. And I want to scream at her through the dense darkness “Call me Mama!” But I don’t. )

I wait. Praying she’ll go back to sleep. But knowing she probably won’t.

So I get out of bed. After all, I’m the Mama.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Hebrew, Language

Mika with a bowl of grapes. Her, ahem, vast vocabulary is mostly limited to food items.

For a long time now there’s been a belief that babies and toddlers understand a lot more than they let on. The author of What Babies Say Before They Can Talk believes that part of our job as parents is to translate our child’s words. When they say “no,” for example, they are expressing “distress-to-anguish.” Similarly,  ”gimme, gimme” means “interest-to-excitement.” The author, Dr. Paul C. Holinger, who also blogs for Psychology Today,  gives the following advice for dealing with toddlers: “figure out and name the feelings behind her words.”

This all makes me wonder if my 15-month-old daughter and I are functioning on a lesser emotional level than other mothers and daughters. When Mika is saying “Kra-kra” I usually know what she means: she wants a damn cracker. And preferably the orange kind shaped like a bunny. And when she says “Ei! Ei!” she wants a scrambled egg and as best I can tell is using the German word to express it.  Her use of words is mostly limited to nouns in the food family. Hmmm….I wonder whose daughter she is?

The main exception to the food rule is for the word “baby.” She likes to point out other babies everywhere she goes. And then the other night, she learned how to use it best. She woke up at what can only be described as an ungodly hour. First, she cried. I ignored it. Then she called for mama. Still, I ignored it.  And when all else failed, she simply cried, “baby!”

And in I went running.

No translation needed.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: food, Language

Have you ever tasted soap? I have. And right now, I feel kind of like a teenager who’s had her mouth washed out with soap. Not so pleasant.

Let me explain. On Thursday afternoon, I got an email telling me that one of my idols had been hospitalized. Debbie Friedman, as you can tell from my previous post, is really the reason that I find myself here today working for Kveller. Her music inspired me and helped me connect to Judaism, so much so that I made being a “professional Jew” my career.

I wrote something about Debbie on Friday, talking about my thoughts and prayers for her health as we went into Shabbat. By Sunday morning we learned that she had passed away. I found myself surprisingly paralyzed by this, and I sat at my computer, watching tribute videos, online memorial services, and later the online stream of Debbie’s funeral. Since then, the only songs in my head have been Debbie’s. I’ve been wanting to respond to emails using lyrics from her songs (which often is far from appropriate!) I think what I’m looking for is an outlet for my grief—and the level of grief has surprised me.

Then today I read a post by another blogger on Kveller, who explained that there was a part of my original post that upset her. I used the word “hate”. The context was that some people love Debbie, some hate her, and others don’t know who she is. But then the rest of my piece went on to illustrate that I am undoubtedly a lover of Debbie’s music, her teachings, and her personal impact on Judaism. This other blogger said that to her, hate is a four-letter word that really should never be used. She likened it to the s-word. And when her 5-year-old son used that word many years ago, she washed his mouth out with soap.

After reading her post, I felt like that’s what she’d done to me. And I’m 31. It was as if my beautiful post, which I wrote to honor Debbie, had been turned inside out.

So, okay. I admit it. Hate was too strong a word to use here. I even think that it’s valid to count it as a four-letter word. And maybe I’ll take this teachable moment (thanks Renee) and actually try to cut it from my vocabulary. But I don’t want anyone to think that I would ever use that word in terms of my feelings about Debbie. Let’s make it perfectly clear (in case I haven’t already, three times over): I love Debbie Friedman, and will always count her and her music among the factors that put me on this career and life path.

Thank you Debbie. I didn’t expect for you to provide me with another teachable moment so soon—but it seems the power of your music is just what I thought—amazing.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Language

Recently, a blogger on this site, referring to Debbie Friedman (or, to what would have been more accurate, to her body of work) gave three options including “I love her” and “I hate her.” I was distressed by the use of the word “hate,” especially because by the time I read the post, Debbie had died. And she had been a close friend.

“Hate” was a four-letter word in my house when I raised my kids. It was, well, hateful. I could imagine nothing in my children’s world to which it could be applied. Certainly there was no one to whom it could be applied.

When one of my sons was five, he came home from day camp and used the “s” word. I took him over to the kitchen sink and told him that it was a terrible word and I had to wash his mouth out with soap. I had no intention of actually doing it but my kids knew I meant what I said.  (This is the one exception I can think of in many years of child-rearing when I didn’t.) He got hysterical- crying, apologizing and promising to never say it again. I put down the dish detergent. I don’t think he used that word for the next twenty years. It’s possible he still doesn’t. He certainly doesn’t in front of me. On the other hand, once my kids were out, I admit to using it all the time. Looking back, I do think I overreacted, but it sounded so horrifying coming out of a little kid’s mouth.

The whole four-letter word thing is difficult. I kind of agree with George Carlin and Lenny Bruce. What makes them “bad words?” Yet we generally refrain from using them in “polite company.” But we do still use them.

The “f” word is inescapable.  You hear it on the subway, on the streets, in the office. It has lost its power to shock.

However, “hate” is still verboten, still a taboo in my house. It shouldn’t apply to much other than to genocide and Hitler. One can “dislike” something, even “dislike strongly” but- “hate”? What? Who? Why? The very word seems to make the world a darker place.

It is important to distinguish, and teach, right from wrong and good from bad. It is essential to describe and explain hateful practices and even people. But it is important that the word “hate” not lose its punch and that it retain the power to shock. To maintain that, it must be used rarely and judiciously.

To the “f” word, the “s” word and the five other words that can’t be said on television according to Carlin, add the “h” word.

Your kids will be better for it.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Language