Relative Sorrows

Writer Leah Gebber puts it this way:

 

"I have a moral objection to the game of one-upmanship some play when faced with difficulty.  I once covered a story about a woman who had three children and was unable to have more.  Her sorrow touched upon more than her dreams of having a large family; she questioned her role in life, the core of her femininity.  Some of the letters we received astounded me.  One such missive, I have no children - how can she complain when she has three? What gives her the right?

 

"I mentally played with many responses to this question.  That no one has a patent on suffering.  That sorrow, no matter the root, is sorrow ..."

 

Really?

 

So it's all the same - a teenager agonizing about a pimple and a teenager hearing bad news from her oncologist? I have a moral objection to that!

 

It's one of the many lessons children need to be taught that problems and suffering need to be viewed within a context, with a sense of proportion.  Breaking a toy and breaking's one back are not equal, no matter how beloved the toy was.   

 

It seems that just as the trend for some time now has been to futilely try to eradicate differences among children, telling them they are all winners when they are not, so too, even some adults refuse to acknowledge that there are matters of lesser and greater importance.  The old gauge, what is it on a scale of 1-10 is very helpful.  See here

Back to the example that Leah Gebber gives.  The woman with three children can be asked to contemplate where on the scale she is.  If she says she is a 10 in sorrow, she can be asked to think about where then, a woman with no children, would fit on the scale.  Her response might be, the woman with no children is a 10 of sorrow on her scale, and I'm a 10 on my scale.  Hmmm.  And would she say the same when asked, where would the Israeli, Mr Hatuel, whose pregnant wife and all four daughters were murdered in one day be on the scale? Then we, society, have a problem.

It's not to say that the feelings of the woman with three children who can't have more should be dismissed.  They can be acknowledged.  A child who is sad about his drawing that was ripped by the baby should also have his feelings validated.  Maturity is needed to regard the disappointments in life with the proper perspective.

Taking Responsibility

I listened to a recent talk given by R' Dovid Orlofsky in which he says, today no one is a baal gaava, meaning, nobody thinks they are superior to others.

Rather, today's mindset is - I am the center of my world.

I thought that was an interesting differentiation.  He went on to give many examples of today's generation's lack of maturity, things like frivolous law suits (some of which are won).  He told the following personal story:

 

When he was a mashgiach in a yeshiva for boys coming straight out of high school, one boy kept saying he was more mature than the rest of the guys since he was a year older, having had a year of college before going to Israel. 

R' Orlofsky finally said, maturity means responsibility, and davening is at 7:15, and you don't get up till after 11, sometimes 12, so how are you defining maturity?
 

The boy said, maybe you should be asking yourself why you can't motivate me to get up in the morning, because ultimately this is your failure, rabbi!

Did your jaw drop upon reading that?
 

His point? Maturity is taking responsibility for your actions.

see here

Maturity

When we describe a child, a young person, or anyone as "mature," what do we mean by that? Some characteristics are:

the ability to delay gratification
the ability to see the bigger picture
being responsible, taking responsibility
working/living for something higher than yourself
seeing beyond yourself, feeling other's pain

How do you become mature?

Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you do with them,
and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

A speaker said that when he was a bachur in yeshiva, there would be a basketball game motzoei Shabbos, not for the bachurim, but for men in the neighborhood.  One of the players was a guy who years earlier, had been the basketball star in the mountains in camp.  At this point, he was older and not in fine form.

The game began and a foul was called against him and he was so upset that he took the ball and said, "It's my ball and I'm leaving."  Those who remained were stunned.  He sounded like a five year old and yet, he had children of his own!

As the speaker noted, just because you aged, doesn't mean you changed and matured.  There are adults who have married and live adult lives but are as immature emotionally as they were when they were children.  We need to actively seek change or we are likely to remain the same.