continued from previous post
One of the editors of Mishpacha wrote a short piece called "What they want," about what readers want to read about. Her list included:
role models, show me greatness
make me laugh
inform me, about health, finances and psychology that I can apply to my life
make me cry with heartwarming stories
inspire me
let me face the prejudices I didn't know I had
I think Mishpacha comes up with terrific people to interview and they have tremendous resources so they can cover people and topics all around the world. I like the overall tone and look of the magazine which is upbeat, even if I sometimes disagree with specific points or even an approach. I feel I "belong" more with Mishpacha than the other frum magazines.
I wonder what impact it (and the other magazines) have on frum society. Are they really changing the way people think about societal issues? Could be, though how could we measure it?
Naturally (to those who have been reading this blog), I am not thrilled with their coverage of mental health issues. Here and there, some good perspectives have been presented but there has been too much mainstream thinking, i.e. the importance of "mental health professionals" and taking medication. Additionally, there have been an abundance of articles about nuts of all kinds which makes me wonder how nutty are we (frum people)? Is every other person on medication? Must we continue to focus on our mishugasin? I'd like to see an emphasis on healthy, normal, balanced thinking.
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I recently received a gift subscription to Mishpacha. My first issue was this past week and it covered how frum therapists cope with such dysfunction and tragedy. One mental health professional that was interviewed said that she had to cut back on her practice before she started to view the entire frum community as dysfunctional. Another article in the main part of the magazine dealt with the abusive education in the Taimani community that led to Taimani men being abusive husbands. And yet another article in the same magazine was about doing research to track mental health issues in the frum community so that steps can be taken to combat them. They seem to have zeroed in on which factions within the frum community are more likely to have children who are treated for ADHD and which are more likely to pick shidduch candidates based on weight.
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