I think it started with bathrobes.
When I was a child, robes came in many sizes: 6, 8, 10 etc.
all the way to 20.
A couple of decades back, the robe manufacturers discovered
that they could make robes in three sizes: small, medium and
large.
Then they were struck with a greater inspiration. Create a
medium-sized robe with sloping, undefined shoulders and a bit
more material than is needed in the midsection. Add a long
belt with a couple of sets of belt loops, and voila! "One
size fits all!"
After complaints rolled in from unsatisfied very tall, quite
short, extremely thin and grossly overweight customers, the
legend inside each robe became, "One size fits most."
This same type of sizing has also been used of late for other
products. If one considers that the sizes of most of the
world's population do fit the typical bell curve
distribution, then one size model does fit
approximately 80% of the market for such items as robes,
gloves, ski hats and sheitels.
There is one area where one `size' does not fit all, most
or even quite a few. And that is the area of parenting
advice.
The ideal in child rearing is to follow Shlomo Hamelech's
advice of "Chanoch lanaar al pi darcho." Raise the
child in the way that is tailor- made for him, because even
when he is old, he will not depart from his own personality
and his own set of quirks.
Wise parents look at each of their children as individuals
and treat each differently from his siblings, his peers and
from everyone else in the world, for that matter.
We do not have to go any further than Yaakov and Eisov to see
two brothers who developed together in one womb, grew up in
one household, were raised by the same set of parents at the
very same time, and could not have been any more
different!
However, the individualized, tailor-made approach to child-
rearing became passe in English-speaking countries with the
introduction of a best-selling book on the subject by a
physician named Dr. Spock. If young parents were wondering
what to do about anything from thumb-sucking to toilet-
training, they had only to turn to the appropriate chapter to
find out exactly what the expert had to say on the matter.
Since Dr. Spock was somewhat permissive in various areas,
blindly following his advice when bringing up a `difficult'
child, i.e. one who was not amenable to the laissez faire
approach, led to disasterous results. American society today
reflects the failure of that particular "one size fits all"
method of bringing up children.
Now we are in the midst of the type of adjustment that leads
to, "One size fits most." That compromise is Parenting
Classes.
Now, please don't get me wrong. I am not speaking against a
wise and discerning person of the caliber and experience of
Rebbetzin Altusky teaching young women broad guidelines of
child-rearing from a Torah-based perspective. Nor am I in any
way against our venerable sages giving us advice born of
their daas Torah. I am in favor of both of the above,
and similarly, I advocate experienced teachers such as Rabbis
Orlowek and Brezak helping us with general guidelines for
integrating new "Anglo" olim into Israeli schools
etc.
My problem is with a young person (often one whose own
children are still in the preschool years) who took a few
college classes in psychology and in parenting methods, read
some more books, and is now giving over his/her untried and
very often untrue advice to other young people and turning
them out as "parenting instructors." This may be a very up-
and-coming profession in some circles, but it is not the
ideal for the Torah community.
Rabbi Avrohom Twerski, who is a noted psychiatrist as well as
a rov, wrote a clever book about the influence of birth order
on personality. In his book, Rabbi Twerski used cartoons from
the comic strip "Peanuts" to illustrate his points. And even
there, he points out two very different types of firstborns:
the insecure bumbling "Charlie Brown" model vs. the bombastic
know- it-all "Lucy".
There are many types of preschools and an even wider choice
of chadorim. When my oldest one started school over
three decades ago, Torah Umesorah had a film-strip for new
parents. It began by saying that the best school was a log
with a child at one end and a teacher at the other.
As parents, we are also the first and foremost teachers that
our children will ever have. When each of our children takes
his place on the "log" of life, each of us, in our role as
parent, should mold ourselves into the ideal teacher to sit
opposite that particular child.
A parenting class can only give very broad guidelines. We
have to look at the personality and strengths of the child in
front of us, filter out the parenting methods that are
inappropriate for our child, fine-tune the ones that have
merit in this situation, and find the ways to adapt
everything to `his' way.
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. Bring up the child
in his way, because even when he is old, that is where
he, and the society that he influences, will be.
