Sorry I know this was pages ago but these groups are definitely not trying to convert people, unless they are some non-Jewish "Jews"4Jesus group. It’s explicitly against Judaism to try to convert other people. I’ve never heard of a Jewish day camp that wasn’t solely for Jews. And many synagogues will welcome any member of the community to their events and celebrations but the goal is not to get them to convert.
Once kids are off on their own, is there really any valid justification for a parent to place expectations for how kids live their lives?
I realize all families are different, but what am I missing?
I am Catholic. My faith is important to me. I had my offspring baptized and insisted on mass on Sundays and religious instruction. This is not something I think I had a “choice” about. I believe very strongly that if I didn’t I would commit a sin, a very serious sin.
When I was in college, I fell in love with someone Jewish. My family was upset. His family was upset. Our parents met and liked each other. Neither side threatened to disown us. Yet, both sides made it clear that they would be very disappointed if we married. We didn’t. I’m not sure we would have otherwise, but certainly the difference in our faiths was the most important factor in our decision to break up. Yes, what faith our prospective children would be raised in was something we couldn’t work out.
My offspring knew that mom would definitely prefer a Catholic. My kid married a Protestant. They married in the Catholic Church; I know most of the reason why was my kid knew how upset I would be otherwise. My kid is right. I didn’t threaten to cut off my kid. My kid knows that’s not even a remote possibility. Yet, when it came time to choose, my kid took my feelings into account.
The D of one of the people I worked with got married the same month. She was married by a judge at her parents’ summer home to a Protestant. He and his W had told all their kids they would prefer they marry Jews. If they chose not to, they should have a civil service. Mom and dad would not attend and certainly would not pay for a non-Jewish religious service. His D respected their wishes.
I disagree with those who say if a believing Jewish grandmother chooses not to attend her grandchild’s baptism that it will necessarily cause a rift between her and her S. If her S knows that she is upset that her grandchild will be raised as a Christian, he will respect her choice. It doesn’t mean Grandma will never see her grandchild or attend holidays in their home. It probably does mean nobody should count on her coming along for a midnight mass. Expecting her to do so is wrong, IMO.
Imagine a devout Quaker had a S who chose to enlist in the armed forces. If mom said “I love you. I’ll always love you, but I just can’t go to your induction ceremony because I believe what you are doing is wrong,” would all of you say mom is a terrible person? Would you call her a bigot? I wouldn’t. Now, if mom said " I’ll never speak to you again, I’ll cut you out of my will, I’ll cut up every photo of you I have if you enlist" I’d think she was wrong. But if she just said I think this is wrong and I’m just not going to come and smile and listen to your new NCO tell you how proud I should be of my S for serving his country, I’d think that was fine.
Respect is a two way street.
@jonri - thank you for your post. I appreciate your understanding.
Expecting someone to go to midnight mass is different than expecting someone to attend an important event in the life of a family member. In the case of a grandchild’s baptism you aren’t just dealing with your son’s feelings but his wife’s. If momma ain’t happy…
Oh, PUH-LEAZE. Wife knows Grandma is Jewish. If Grandma is kind and loving and supportive in other ways and just lets it be known this is just a bit too much, it will be fine…or DIL isn’t worth it anyway. To be blunt, IMO, if she throws a hissy fit about her Jewish MIL not attending a baptism, she’s the one who is a bigot, IMO.
@jonri, the kids you described who considered the family’s feelings are daughters. Big difference with sons. In another thead, there were many posts about MIL vs DIL, not so much with SIL vs MIL.
Ok. So my son found he could fly to Chicago quite in expensively, although the that city is 90 miles away from where his g/f lives. He flew out, took the train to her city, then a cab, to surprise her. Is that love? Desire? He just saw her a few weeks ago.
Would I ever NOT support sch a relationship? I think my son is one of the true romantics left on this earth.
“The concept of “discrimination” doesn’t apply when you’re choosing a marriage partner. There is no obligation of fairness. There isn’t even any such thing as fairness in this context. It’s 100% about personal taste.”
Without historical social context, I would agree with the above statement. However, since personal taste has been tainted with racism in many corners of the world, including the U.S. where it was illegal to marry someone who was not your race in my generation, a blanket statement like this is not true. It may be true for the specific individual involved, or it may not be true for the individual involved. But it certainly is not true across the board. People can’t change their skin color or cultural heritage to please a boyfriend like they can straighten their hair.
Whether you think a mixed marriage is a good thing or not, ultimately, we all fear the same thing – that our identities are being threatened. Those at the receiving end think the message is that they “are not good enough.” Those who dishing it out think the message is that their race/culture/faith heritage is being diluted or diminished. Both are valid in my view. I think people on both sides, at least those who have posted here, come from a good place.
I feel sorry for the kids “at the receiving end.” They will hurt. I feel sorry for the kids who have to say “my parents say I can’t date you because you’re not (fill in the blank)_.” They may be socially ostracized because of their point of view, once revealed. They will hurt too. It’s unfair to the both kids.
I don’t agree that a Jewish grandmother refusing to go to her grandchild’s christening is like a pacifist mother refusing to go to her child’s Army induction ceremony.
The pacifist believes that being in the army is morally wrong. Rockvillemom, I’m sure that you don’t believe that christening a baby, or a baby being welcomed into a religious community that isn’t your own, is morally wrong. It’s not what you want, and you would be disappointed that your grandchildren were not to be Jewish, but I’m pretty sure you don’t believe it’s morally wrong to be a Methodist.
I’m an atheist, so my belief is that all religions that have supernatural beliefs are wrong. I don’t mean morally wrong, just factually incorrect. Being an atheist, I naturally believe that there are no gods, and therefore people who believe in the existence of gods are believing things that are factually untrue. But that doesn’t prevent me from going to religious weddings, funerals, brises and other religious ceremonies that are important to the people close to me, or from celebrating holidays with friends from other cultures who have different cultural holidays.
I don’t think that God is actually blessing that newly married couple, but I do think that a religious ceremony is important to them, and I share and celebrate the family’s joy. I don’t believe the Bible is literally true, but I’d still be happy to enjoy a seder at a friend’s house. And if you came to my house on Christmas, you’d see our Christmas tree and you’d eat cookies.
Rockvillemom, I hope you rethink the idea of boycotting your hypothetical Christian grandchildren’s religious milestone celebrations, and not treat them as you would inductions into ISIS.
I am rethinking it. I still would not be thrilled - but I don’t think it would be worth hurting my son and risking my relationship with d-i-l. I’m realizing that while I may feel between torn between the past and the future - the future is where the living people are. I may have to accept the idea of my grandparents turning over in their graves and the guilt that I am failing my Jewish heritage. I guess if he marries a non-Jew, I have failed to an extent, and I just have to make the best of it.
My grandmother thought it was a sin to attend some of her grandchildren’s ceremonies and rituals. I am willing to believe it was. I am willing to believe her daughter-in-law was a bigot for passing that information along to her children. Maybe that whole side of the family is going to hell, as my grandmother believed and feared. However, while we are all still alive, it seems it would have been nice to have had more of a familial relationship. That requires shared experiences. Important life events are part of that shared experience, imho. They may not be absolutely necessary and perhaps there is a way to get around it, but those with the most shared experiences will have the most in common. I can’t fault my grandmother for her sincere beliefs. I can’t fault my aunt for wanting to protect her children from someone who thought she was dooming them (quite literally) to hellfire and brimstone, or for choosing to raise her children in what she believed to be the one true church, the one that did guarantee them eternal life after death. Both had the children’s best interests at heart.
Rockvillemom: I sincerely hope you don’t have to deal with this. If I believed in prayer, I would pray for you to be spared this parenting challenge. It must be so very difficult.
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I guess if he marries a non-Jew, I have failed to an extent,
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I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Our parenting efforts aren’t validated or invalidated by those decisions.
This is the way I was raised - this has been my belief system for 53 years. I may not always agree with it - but very ingrained. The changes that appear to be in store - it’s a lot to digest.
I’m an atheist but my wife reads the Bible from time to time and she thinks she is a Protestant. My son thinks he is a Protestant also and then decides to become Catholic so he could go to the same Church his GF goes to (the interpretation of this atheist here. My son may not agree at this.) It is fine with me: Every family member has his/her right to choose whatever s/he wants to do with his/her life.
Heritage? We really do not care much about it. We would not look down on our heritage and we would not think it is the best in the world. Again, if our son wants to join his future spouse’s heritage (if heritage could be “joined” like going to a grocery to buy it – if this sentence makes any sense at all), we are totally fine with it. We have raised him and he could choose whatever life he wants. For me, the life is too short to be concerned about these things which can be no right or wrong, better or worse, factually or morally but it is important for some but not so important for others – as long as no other people force me to live a certain kind of life (and I will not force or even try to influence what life others, including my spouse or my child, will choose to have.)
You can say I am strange.
BTW, when my child wanted to go to any type of Church while he was still with us before college, I gladly took him there as he wished and I went in the Church with him. Many CCers here (likely with the exception of Cardinal Fang and maybe Romani also?) may think I am weird, and some may not even believe I am really like this.
Why did our son get involved with the Christian religion in the first place while his home environment is totally not conductive to ANY religion? I think he was influenced by a very devoted Christian, an old lady we hired for many years in order to teach him English. (The not so high “tuitions” we paid her for almost 5+ years all went to her Church.) My wife started to claim she was a Christian too because of her. So, everything stared because we wanted our prechooler to be not behind in his English before elementary school. Another thought (from the “practical” point of view of this atheist): If my son would not become religious, he would have a much difficult time to fit in especially during his college years. I also believe he would have no chance to develop relationship with his current GF if he were not a Christian.
I know I could be weird in the eyes of many here.
On the other hand, I know Chinese and other minority ethnicity people from Canada who identify themselves primarily as Canadian.
Is this really true with respect to Vietnam?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people suggests that Chinese Vietnamese were often not treated as equal persons or citizens in both the Republic of Vietnam (south) and the Democratic/Socialist Republic of Vietnam (north/all-after-1975). Also, some people in Vietnam are of multiethnic ancestry (both Chinese and Vietnamese).
But this is an interesting phenomenon that may seem odd to some people – someone from country X, but is of a minority group with ancestry in country Y, moves to country Z. What may cause some people to be surprised is that they do not realize that country X has its own ethnic minorities (e.g. ethnic Chinese in Vietnam or Canada or other places).
RVM, your deceased grandparents may have yielded a little bit, with time, as many things gently shifted in your religion and the world, and after meeting the young woman, seeing the values they do share.
I did a lot of genealogical research on DH’s family, but had trouble tracing my own, as turn of the last century immigrants. Recently, in a stoke of wild luck, one in a million, I found my Jewish GF’s line, back to the first one to immigrate, my great great grandfather’s brother. And from that, branches and branches of their children. I was so moved, sitting there, realizing this significant part of my own heritage.
How I wish the ones who had been living when I was younger had transmitted some of this to me, rather than draw lines. I can’t recapture that part of me. They may have had cultural reasons, may have thought they were “preserving” their heritage. But they actually cut it off, failed to transmit it.
This is the way I was raised - this has been my belief system for 53 years. I may not always agree with it - but very ingrained. The changes that appear to be in store - it’s a lot to digest.>>>>>>
It’s just another great example of why having children can be challenging, another “thing” you have to possibly deal with. I understand.
Sorry folks- too many posts for me to go through.
OP- WHO decided YOUR religion was supreme! ??? It sounds like you have an us/them mentality- “chosen people”, exclusion. If being Jewish means such a position of being the only correct religion- no wonder everyone else is against your belief system. Likewise for many other religions. Sorry, but you are most definitely wrong about things. Your religion is NOT sacred. Any religion that requires having certain ancestors excludes the rest of us. I can’t buy that any belief like that is superior- in fact it has a basic flaw.
Of course we want our children to be like us. But- we would still be living in little tribal groups, trying to kill each other off more than we do now.
I still remember when I told my Catholic father (M had died a few years prior) I was getting married and it wasn’t going to be a Catholic wedding. Silence. Hung up and called a week later. He came to the wedding, thought highly of H. Was just shocked at the departure from his norm. Hindu raised-atheist H to be was willing but I was not- he didn’t conceive of the thought of promising to raise kids in a given religion.
There are many facets to people- not just religion. I discovered how much Catholics and Hindus have in common compared to other religions that claim to be “Christian”.
Regarding race. H is of north Indian descent- no browner than south Europeans. I thought about this decades ago. I had more in common culturally with my H from a different continent than my origins than I did with African origins Americans I knew about. Of course, H had embraced the secular American culture I knew.
R…gypsies- I really get your viewpoint. Rockville…-OP- I can’t change your ingrained/brainwashed views. You are dismissing a huge number of equally wonderful people as those you claim ties to. Get over the tribal mentality. Religious bigotry is alive and well.
If CC were a barometer of the US population one would think those of Jewish ancestry were the majority. There certainly are more in the US than there are Hindus/those of south Asian origins. The perceptions of being a persecuted minority are long gone. Try to not live with the past as much- even one generation, much less what happened in your version of history thousands of years ago. Then perhaps you can be more than single faceted as a whole person.
I’m waiting to be dissed. Tough luck. Can’t believe how strong people are in keeping within their ancient tribes.