Last year, Jordana provided us this “Parent’s Vidui”–a list of collective apologies specifically geared for parents during Yom Kippur. This year, Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Tuesday, September 25.

The Yom Kippur prayer known as the Vidui, or Confessional, is one in which each Jewish congregation stands up and collectively takes responsibility for its sins. Regardless of whether or not we ourselves have committed a given wrongdoing, we confess to it and thump our chest in contrition. We do so collectively so as to not shame those who have done these things, and to facilitate their admission and recognition of their wrongdoing. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Traditions
• Tags: sorry, Yom Kippur

NOT.

Apologies are seductive. Especially for a new mother, who finds her world suddenly spinning beyond her control, apologies are incredibly appealing. The trouble is that a new mother can also find herself always apologizing. Everything is a first, and nothing goes as she expected. Does she blame herself? And should she?

New mothers are barraged with advice. Most of it is useless, and some of it is obnoxious, but occasionally it’s wise.

I was scheduled to have a phone call with our local Jewish Family and Children’s Services representative on what turned out to be Lila’s birth date. When I finally connected with the woman in the weeks following, I apologized for being out of touch. “Don’t apologize,” she told me, “you’re a new mother. Everyone understands.” I was momentarily startled, but realized she was right.

Since May, this has been one of the best mothering pearls of wisdom I’ve heard. It’s important because I’ve lost count of how many times my plans have gone awry; I’ve been tempted to apologize, generally for things that don’t offend other people or aren’t my fault. It’s tough to fight your nature, when your general tendency is to be polite, but that makes this lesson crucial. Not apologizing is a survival skill in the jungle of early motherhood, learning to let go of all that you cannot control (which is most things).

With that, I’d like to introduce a new mother’s update to Passover’s Dayenu. Rather than “It would have been enough,” this is about saying, “It is enough, no more apologies.”

1. When it’s 7pm and I’ve accomplished nothing all day beyond feeding, changing, and naps, because newborns are labor-intensive. I will not apologize.

2. When I am 20 minutes late to a Mommy and Me class or play group because Lila was fussy, or we simply required more time than anticipated to get ready. I will not apologize. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: new moms, sorry

Taken on my iPhone.

Often, if you think about it, we expect more from our children than we do from ourselves. “Tell her you’re sorry,” we tell our kids post-whatever-the-latest-problem-was, expecting them not only to feel badly about what they’ve done, but to have the natural inclination toward grace and equanimity as opposed to pettiness and grudgery. And I don’t know about you, but I can be pretty petty and grudgy, and I’m allegedly an adult. Like you, possibly, I also hate to admit it when I’m wrong.

So here goes: I. Was. Wrong. And. I’m. Sorry.

I wrote a post here about the ills of smartphones. I hated the little know-it-alls. I hated the way they reduced their owners to Pavlovian puppies who jumped at their little buzzing noises to check stupid e-mails. I didn’t see the need to immediately Google various idiocies.

I’m not sure if I would have gotten a smartphone had destiny not intervened. And by “destiny,” I mean “my dumbphone falling out of my sweatshirt pocket and into the toilet.” My husband likes to tell people that this is the fourth time this has happened to me. The more I think about it, though, the more I am convinced that it is only the third time. So there.

So we went to Verizon and I showed the unusually nice and well-informed guy there my phone. “Can I get another one of these?” I asked him. He looked at me with the look you reserve for someone who tells you that they can’t get their computer to work and it’s largely because they haven’t turned it on, i.e. “I don’t think so, Most Clueless Person Ever.” Apparently, my little dumbphone was discontinued right around when Charlemagne came to power. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: cell phones, iPhone, sorry