Listening back into the archives having just listened to your recent episode together (March 2025). Again, thank you both! Hippiesq, your stories of professionals make me laugh and cry in their familiarity. Truly, what is expected of us as Moms in "genderland" is outrageous and I am trying to find self-compassion. And, for what it's worth, Jewish ritual life does not offer the welcoming, lovely container that Jenny imagines - at least not in my corner of the Bay Area (and, from my experience, nationally as well). Reform Judaism has been captured, and I have left my congregation over its embrace of gender ideology.
It’s fair to assume I’m looking in from the outside with rose-tinted goggles (I’m half Jewish but my childhood was secular-Christmas-and-Easter rather than secular-Jewish-holidays). Still, I stand by my respect for the ritual of celebrating a 13-year-old’s achievement of a milestone based on study, introspection and a connection to ancestral history, with its implied belief in the child’s emergent maturity and gravitas. None of that was asked or expected of me, but I think it might have been transformative. I’ll never know, but it’s a hell of a lot more than what our culture offers the average 13-year-old. That said: you are such a trouper for listening back to episode 1!! Thank you.
Great job with this first episode. Yes, "airtight certainty about what is best for other people's children" sums up my experience of trying to be a parent right now. Feels like the whole world is against me.
Listening back into the archives having just listened to your recent episode together (March 2025). Again, thank you both! Hippiesq, your stories of professionals make me laugh and cry in their familiarity. Truly, what is expected of us as Moms in "genderland" is outrageous and I am trying to find self-compassion. And, for what it's worth, Jewish ritual life does not offer the welcoming, lovely container that Jenny imagines - at least not in my corner of the Bay Area (and, from my experience, nationally as well). Reform Judaism has been captured, and I have left my congregation over its embrace of gender ideology.
It’s fair to assume I’m looking in from the outside with rose-tinted goggles (I’m half Jewish but my childhood was secular-Christmas-and-Easter rather than secular-Jewish-holidays). Still, I stand by my respect for the ritual of celebrating a 13-year-old’s achievement of a milestone based on study, introspection and a connection to ancestral history, with its implied belief in the child’s emergent maturity and gravitas. None of that was asked or expected of me, but I think it might have been transformative. I’ll never know, but it’s a hell of a lot more than what our culture offers the average 13-year-old. That said: you are such a trouper for listening back to episode 1!! Thank you.
Great job with this first episode. Yes, "airtight certainty about what is best for other people's children" sums up my experience of trying to be a parent right now. Feels like the whole world is against me.
Thanks for that, Shannon. On a good day, I can believe it's down to a waiting game, but I know the feeling.