TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: The Most Exciting Activity You Can Do With Another Person
Date: 02/14/25 Length: 00:59:06
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Welcome Happy Warriors to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. Thanks for being part of the show, and thanks especially to all of those of you who are helping to promote it by letting other people know. And I know from the subscription numbers that are rising that on many, many different platforms, that the show is doing great, and that is very energizing to me, and very helpful. I also want to thank you very much indeed for becoming Happy Warrior members. Many of you are indeed now happy warrior members, and that's wonderful for those of you who are not here, simple just go to Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and there you're able to quickly and easily become a member of the happy warrior community. As some of you know, if not all of you, I do a special tribute, a special tribute of appreciation to Happy Warrior members by recording a more confidential show, a show that I haven't gone public with, specifically for Happy Warrior members, a sort of bonus. Thank you for those of you who are members, so you'll find that on your Happy Warrior membership site, and I hope you enjoy that too. As far as today goes. You know, people say all the time that the strongest relationships are based on those with whom you share some profound experience. So for example, men who share some nerve wracking and grueling combat in the military, they get together again and again and again, and indeed, I think some of the last men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June the sixth, 1944 had One of their last get togethers, but guys get together who went through profound experiences together. Well, one of the most profound experiences you can possibly have is bringing a child into the world and raising that child. And so for that not to be listed, and I've checked again and again and again on marriage, improvement plays. You know what, if people are into marriage, improve Well, find things to do together with your spouse, like go on hikes or go on walks or or find a hobby that you and your spouse can both share. All good advice, but all of them omit the most profound, dramatic, moving adventure of life there is, which is bringing children into the world and raising them. And so people talk about child raising as an ordeal and as a chore, when in reality, it is the most fundamental marriage improvement program that there is, and that's why we're Susan, I are so excited that we are now making available marriage, Child child raising as a partnership program where we we stress and bring you the tools for making sure that instead of leaving child raising to the school or to the afternoon program or the daycare program, or leaving it to the nanny or to whoever it is. Instead of that, you and your spouse turn it into your hobby. You turn it into something that not only produces children you will end up liking, but actually brings you and your spouse meaningfully closer together, and that's really important. So the interview that I'm going to be sharing with you today is is with our daughter, Mrs. Rebecca Masinter, who's not only become a superb mom of six impressive kids, but she's become regarded as a parenting expert, and for very, very good reasons, as you'll see when you hear our conversation coming right up, but yeah, that that is really what we wanted to focus on and make available to you. So get ready to enjoy my interview with our daughter Rebecca, coming up right now, and then right after that, I'll be back to say goodbye and so happy warriors, as I told you a little earlier, we've got a special guest, and you will enjoy meeting her and getting to know her as much as I have over the last couple of decades. And if there's anything that brings meaning to my catch phrase of you know I'm your rabbi, revealing how the world Re. Really works, it would be the whole question of reproduction of children. Is there anything more basic to understanding how the world really works? And at the same time, you encounter many, many people who do not want to have children, and one of the main reasons for that is that they are scared of creating monsters. Sometimes it's people who are worried about certain family traits that they feel that they have inherited, and which they embody, and which they are terrified of passing on to another generation. And sometimes people talk about, you know, they don't want to harm the environment with more children. I mean, there's a lot of nonsensical stuff out there. But the bottom line, I believe, is that people who are scared and and beyond scared of bringing children into the world are are chiefly worried about bringing brats at best, monsters at worst, into the world and and you know, they're worried about marriage breakup, they're worried about economic penalties. They're worried about putting all the time and energy and money and effort and years into raising children who then turn out to be people you have very little in common with. And so I think for for all those reasons, I thought that we should talk to Rebecca Masinter, our daughter, our oldest daughter, who we love very much, and of whom we are extraordinarily proud. And her specialty has become parenting. And we became aware of this because we we live in the same neighborhood. We actually Susan and I moved at Rebecca's urging and her husband's urging in order to be close to them and to be close to their children. But what none of us anticipated was how amazing it would be to discover that she has become a resource in the city, she has become somebody that individuals all over the place, of all backgrounds, seek out for guidance and advice when it comes to children. And this isn't only because she and her husband Max, have six wonderful children, but she has actually made a study, a study based on ancient Jewish wisdom sources, study based on contemporary Knowledge, a study based on certain really outstanding experts that she has become close to and that she has mastered, people, for instance, like Leonard Sachs, Dr Leonard Sachs, whom we've discussed from time to time. We'll probably talk about him as well. But anyway, that's by way of background, because we're going to be discussing Rebecca specialty, and what she has brought to us, which is an an entire program and a course and a way of connecting and a way of becoming expert at parenting as partners. So welcome, Rebecca,
Rebecca Masinter 9:01
thank you for having me.
Daniel Lapin 9:04
Gosh, it's a pleasure. We've done this before, and a few months ago, I think, and it was very, very popular. Then
Rebecca Masinter 9:10
we had a lot of fun, I think, which I hope everyone else could tell that
Daniel Lapin 9:14
we also We absolutely did Yes, so yeah, it's hard, it's hard to just talk with you, you know, without memories flooding in. Most recently, I was speaking to your second son, and I was talking about American servicemen who served in Japan in the occupation period following World War Two. And one of them was gentlemen who became part of our community when you were a little girl. And and he, he used to, he was just so taken up with you. And. So absorbed with because you were really a very remarkable and unusual little girl, he used to get you very elaborate and beautiful outfits, dresses with matching hats, with matching hats, yes, gosh, yeah, that's going back a few years. And as I say, all these memories keep flooding back. What are some of your what childhood memories flood back to you? I mean, do you actually have real memory of when I inexplicably and unbelievably dumbly handed you a huge stack of fine English China plates to help mommy set the table.
Rebecca Masinter 10:50
You'll be pleased to know that my memory of that is only that I was helping you. I don't remember the crash. Oh,
Daniel Lapin 10:56
that's wonderful. That's a repressed memory. I'm quite sure. I'm quite sure your entire mental system has repressed that, and I'm very grateful for that. That's good any like, what, what sort of what memories do come back from? You know, when you were four, 510, 1112,
Rebecca Masinter 11:12
you know, we were just in the car yesterday with my third son and my younger children, and he was sharing with them stories that you had told him recently about when you first came to California and started your synagogue there. And he was telling these stories as if they were family history stories. And I felt this urgent need to interject and say I knew that person. This isn't you know, ancient history that that man I was telling them about, Mr. Lapin, and how he used to give us candies all the little kids, and how happy, how much he loved us. And my children are telling it as if it's some ancient
Daniel Lapin 11:51
history. Well, because I told, you know, graveyard, gray beard, the pirate, tells it to them, and it seems a lot older, I suppose, than when you bring it to life. Yes,
Rebecca Masinter 12:04
I think that that is very strange to me, but, but I think it does illustrate an important part of parenting, that when you are parenting, you're really not just doing it for your children. It is something that just keeps going generation to generation to generation. And I think one thing we don't touch on in parenting as partners, but I think it's important, is the role of grandparents, and what that whether or not a grandparent lives in the same town or same city or even has the opportunity to directly influence their grandchildren's lives, the fact that they raised their grandchildren's parents means that they have started something in motion that just never ends right.
Daniel Lapin 12:48
I think that narrative, family narrative, is important as well, to be able to speak to your children about your parents and your grandparents. I think that that is a big family building element. Is that, is that how you see it as well? I learned
Rebecca Masinter 13:12
that from you. There's the Emory study that you enjoy speaking to about a lot, about children who know family stories, and how much demonstrably better they their life path is than children who don't know their family histories. And when I speak to parents, it's one of the things I share, is that whether or not you like your parents, whether or not you are you had good parents or grandparents or siblings or aunts or uncles, that's your own personal story, but your children need to be connected to that. And so even if you're not doing more than just saying to them, oh, this was, this was, you know, great uncle Mark's favorite type of sandwich, you need to do it, even if Great Uncle Mark was a person that you couldn't stand because your kids need to feel connected to their broader family. They need to feel connected to their history, and so that's an important role that parents play in being the bridge between their children and their children's past and extended family. And even if it requires some selective picking and choosing of what you share and what you don't, or how you connect or how you don't, it's something that people, in my opinion, need to do more of, because the trend today is to cut off family members that you find disagreeable or offensive or may really be difficult or troubled people, but your children can't, can't have them. They can't be cut off from those people. You need to find a way to make them feel connected, albeit in a safe way, albeit in a loving and a positive way. But it's not a great idea to cut yourself off from your history and your family so that your children are left feeling rootless.
Daniel Lapin 14:57
Do you have any sense of why it is? Is that now, more than any other period I've lived through, it seems so prevalent that people are cutting themselves off from their parents. What is it that makes people and they speak about my mental health requires that I disconnect and I seven connection with my mother, with my what I mean, any quick guesses on what's causing that I
Rebecca Masinter 15:29
think in in the 32nd story, my vote would be that we have become a much more self centered society, where nothing is as important as me and what I feel and my safety and my you know what I want, and I don't think the world used to be like that. I think more and more people used to be focused on what are my responsibilities to other people? How can I serve other people? They were outwardly focused, and now we take up way too much of our time thinking about ourselves.
Daniel Lapin 15:59
Yeah, so one of the things I've been looking at lately is that the current obsession with mental health, and when I say obsession, I'm simply basing this on the wild and meteoric growth in the number of diagnosable mental diseases in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM six and and I was struck When you look in there for the characteristics to diagnose narcissistic personality disorder. Rebecca, it is the funniest thing. I mean, not that any of this is really funny, but it is so laughable. If you look there are about 10 characteristics, maybe nine or characteristics that enable the mental health practitioner to diagnose narcissistic personality disorder. They are all every one of them is things you would describe, used to describe a bad, badly behaved two and a half year old. Yeah. And so if I went to my father and I said to him, Dad, I've been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. You know, he'd want to hit me twice and say, grow up and become a normal, functioning adult. Stop the nonsense. You're not a two year old anymore. And so a lot of this mental health, obsession tends to make me a passive victim anxiety disorder. There is an easy cure to anxiety. It's called faith. Fear goes along with secularism. Faith goes along with confidence in the future doesn't mean bad things don't happen, but you don't have to live through the pain twice, once when you're imagining it coming, and once, when it does come. So again, whereas in my parents generation, we'd be told, you know, man up, grow up. Stop behaving like a child. It's now, oh, you poor thing, you know, look at these difficulties you struggling with. Let me look in my medicine cabinet and see if I have some tablet you can take that'll make you feel better. And so if that is the obsession, then I undeniably am a product of my parents, and therefore anything wrong with me can only have come from one place. It's not anything I've done, it's not mistakes I've made in my life, because there's no such thing. And so therefore, I think the current culture tends to make us madder and angrier at our parents all along till finally, you know, since my parents contributed, if not entirely, caused my mental condition, which people talk about all the time. Now, in a way that I mean who, when I was a kid, Father said, you know, my mental health needs for you to stop punching me in really, it's it would have been laughable, but I think so. Now, yes, I guess I have to sever my connection with these people who caused my problem, because all they'll do is stop me being cured, because they're going to keep doing it, and I'm thinking along those lines, well,
Rebecca Masinter 19:45
the continuation of that is that young parents who are now wanting to do the right thing for their children are scared that if they do something wrong, they are causing their children to have future mental health problems. And if you take a look at the marketing that is out there for parents today, it is all fear based. And, you know, do this so that your child won't turn into x or require therapy or, you know, be bullied. It's it's fear based that you have the power, and if you get parenting right, your kid will be fine, but if you get parenting wrong, your kid is going to have whatever come
Daniel Lapin 20:27
back. I guess I should try the same thing, right? Folks, you happy warriors. You want to get parenting right, you better listen, otherwise your kid's going to be in therapy for years. That's
Rebecca Masinter 20:37
well you could, but they'll be disappointed, because a lot of what I say is that you need to step into your role as a parent. You need to accept that you are the leader, you are the person of responsibility, and no one else can or should be telling you exactly what to do or how to manage your child, because you are the boss.
Daniel Lapin 21:00
But that's not going to be popular.
Rebecca Masinter 21:02
No, it's a lot of work, and it's scary, like you said, it requires faith, and it requires a new understanding of what it means to be human. The idea that some perfect parent is going to create a perfect child who will have a perfect life is utter nonsense, and no one ever thought that before, very recently. You know, we never had generations that expected all their children to grow up, first of all, into healthy adulthood, to then not be malnourished, to have enough. You know, physical of their their physical needs to be taken care of, to be strong and live long, and to have their mental and emotional needs being taken care of and to have a full education, and no one even going back to just my grandparents generations, that was not an expectation that people had. It's a different world today.
Daniel Lapin 21:53
There were, there was one particular couple I'm thinking of back in our synagogue days in California, it was a childless couple. She wasn't she. She suffered from polio, and they didn't have children. And one saw what I'm about to describe with them, and I observe it in many childless couples, which is they fail to mature, they fail to grow. And so in ancient Jewish wisdom, there is this idea that God wants us to grow constantly. And so the first thing he does is help us get a spouse. And that is a huge growth experience. I mean, ranging all the way from the fellow who grew up in a comfortable home in California, never shared a room with siblings, got married and speaks about the trauma. That's another word from the mental health business of suddenly discovering you have to share a room with somebody and and so marriage is step one on the growth escalator that God plans. The second one is children. And for a very good reason, he gives us at least nine months to be aware of what's coming down the road because it is so incredibly challenging, and ideally it is a growth program. But it's not only a growth program for you as an individual parent, it's also a growth program for the marriage. True or False. Absolutely true.
Rebecca Masinter 23:44
You know, when you are living with your spouse before children, you can pretty much choose to operate, um, as friends and roommates. You know, I do my thing during the day. You do your thing during the day, and even if I disagree with, you know, the way you might do something, it's not a big deal. All of a sudden you have a child in front of you, and the mother says, you know, it's it's really important to have a proper bedtime. And the dad says, No, live and let live. The kid is so cute. They're having fun playing. Why can't they just stay up longer? Well, now those two different personalities need to figure out together what is actually the right path for this child, for our family as a whole,
Daniel Lapin 24:30
is bedtime? Is this from your practice and experience? Is bedtime one of the first things that crop up as as spousal disagreements in child rearing, and what are some of the others? Maybe
Rebecca Masinter 24:43
that's a good question. I think each stage and age, you know, has their own bedtime is challenging, because especially if one spouse is out of the house all day, and then you just come home and you don't want to miss seeing your child, you know, you want to have time with them, but the parent. Who has to deal with waking up the next morning and getting that child up and out of bed for, you know, to be well rested, they might want, validly, you know, to have their child have had a good night's sleep, even though the other partner didn't get to see them so much during the day. So that's, it's a it's a real conflict, and it means, you know, to do bedtime right is very limiting. It's much, much easier to take your baby with you and you go out to socialize and go out to eat and go to weddings than it is to start a routine that says, No, you know, this is bedtime, and we do it at home, in the dark, in the quiet,
Daniel Lapin 25:36
by the way. I don't, I don't know if we've spoken about this, I don't think so. But when we were in Israel, not with the outbreak of the October 7 war, but more recently, we were, I think we were just there for two weeks, but we did actually end up going to dinner with friends in Netanya a couple of times. And one of the things we noticed, and then we realized we'd noticed, it was something we'd seen before, kids in restaurants, so you know, and it's Mediterranean, so dinner might be at 830, or nine, and kids even in strollers, little kids now, for the most part, not disruptive. They, they sort of obviously had done this before. Knew how to behave but, but I realized you don't see that so often here.
Rebecca Masinter 26:34
You know, that's probably a societal cultural difference. Yeah, very you know, I don't think there's a right or wrong? I that's where I believe each Each couple has to sit down together and say, what is right for our family? So
Daniel Lapin 26:47
sorry. No, go ahead. Let's imagine that there were 10 items of in 10, the 10 important things to know about parenting as a partnership. Um, um. One of the 10 is you have to be on the same page. You've got to speak with one voice consistently to your children. Where on that scale of number one to number 10, least important to most important. Where, what number would you assign to that one?
Rebecca Masinter 27:25
Well, I'm not sure I would make it be a standalone value. I think where I would actually take it is to say that one of the most important things you can do is appreciate that when you have differences of opinions and you have different ways of looking at different parenting situations. That is not a problem in your marriage, that is an opportunity, because there is a reason
Daniel Lapin 27:48
they say the tech world is not a bug, it's a feature, correct?
Rebecca Masinter 27:52
God designed a family to be one man and one woman and their children, and he made men and women incredibly different. Then he put the two of you in different childhood homes, growing up in very different surroundings, often in different cities, or maybe even different cultures. And then all of a sudden you come together, and you're gonna realize that, oh my goodness, we see everything differently. And that could lead people to think there's a problem with us, there's a problem with our marriage. And the truth is, is that this is exactly the way God designed it, that there's a reason he gave us, for example, two eyes. I know you've spoken about this before, that by looking at something from a slightly different angle with one eye and then the other eye, and then the brain puts the two together, all of a sudden you get a 3d image. You get something that's rich and
Daniel Lapin 28:41
full perception of depth becomes possible. And so when you have two
Rebecca Masinter 28:45
parents with different perspectives and different backgrounds and different opinions, it's not a problem. This is how this is how God enabled you to create a richer, more in depth, more 3d home and family. And so very often. You know, on very minor level, you'll have a young father will come home and they'll, you know, throw the kid up in the air, or spin them around, and the mother saying, no, no, no, don't do that. You know, you gotta be more gentle, and it's not a bad thing. God wanted this child to have a father. And fathers interact differently with children, and children need both of you and so learning to see those differences of opinion. And maybe one does say, you know, I really want my child to go out with us to eat at this restaurant at 830 at night. And maybe the other one says, No, I really think it's important that they be in bed. That's not a bad thing. This is an opportunity to sit down and discuss and say, Okay, let's, you know, I'll share my perspective, and you share your perspective, and then all of a sudden you're going to come up with some answer, some solution. And I don't know what it is, but there will be something that you'll be able to both get on board with and feel good and comfortable and support each other with a lot of the time, some of the time one of you is just going to give in, because. Other parent maybe feels more passionately about it, or is, you know, done more research into it, or perhaps they have more at stake in it, you know, like, if, if one mother, if the mother is going to be the one waking up in the middle of night with a kid who's crying and crying because they didn't sleep, well, then maybe she, maybe, you know, you give in to her on that. But a lot of the times, you actually will use your two different perspectives to come up with a family something so much richer that enhances your marriage and you're raising your children.
Daniel Lapin 30:32
My sister raised three lovely children who are now adults, and they're all parents themselves. So she's a grandmother, but she her marriage failed when those were very little children, and nonetheless, as a single mom, she raised a terrific group of children. However, she didn't do that alone. No, she was part of our congregation in California, and many men in the community took on the role of being sort of surrogate dad for those kids, and so she was really very fortunate. She found herself in a situation that adjusted and accommodated her particular circumstances. But here we've got a program that we're very proud of and we believe adds enormous value, called parenting as partners. But we also know that the reality of the world in which we live is that there are a lot of single mothers and single fathers who are trying this for not for by choice, but by circumstance. They're having to do it as a very lonely trip as a mother or a father without a spouse, and they're raising children now, I try and avoid the term single parent, because Hebrew the Lord's language, is a wonderfully illustrative language and program, because the structure of the language reveals in itself how the world really works. And one of them is that the Hebrew word for parents doesn't exist in the singular there isn't a singular version. And so by definition, the process of raising children is a two person occupation. And just to clarify, that would mean one mother and one father. But nonetheless, you know. And we can study pure mathematics. We can we can study about how you could build a bridge if you didn't have to worry about wind forces and and synchronized motion causing straight if you didn't have to worry about real world problems, the mathematics is quite simple and straightforward, and you got to know that. But then you have to move to the next step of dealing with a real world where there is unpredictable wind force and there's shear and there's material failure and steel aging and becoming brutal, all kinds of real world things. So similarly here, it's all very well. Ancient Jewish wisdom speaks about parenting as a two person, a mother and a father, job, but you are dealing with real world men and women, real world children and so, how do you switch from pure mathematics to applied mathematics? That's
Rebecca Masinter 34:11
a really great question, and it is something that is relevant to many, many people today. And I would just switch one step when I do talk to single parents and I do, I try and remind them that it's not just two people that make a parent, it's actually two people and God. And so even if one part of that trio is not active or not present for whatever reason, the remaining parent is not alone.
Daniel Lapin 34:41
That's beautiful. So a parent who no longer has a spouse, that's a loss of 50% but if you realize, as you've just said, that there's three partners in a child, mom, dad and God, now. Now if Dad vanishes, it's a loss of only 33 and a third percent, which is a lot better than 50%
Rebecca Masinter 35:07
not only is it a lot better, I think we'd all agree that the God part of that trio is more than 33% of the influence. And the reason I think that's so important is that your you, as you mentioned with your sister, having a community of support. It's hugely important, hopefully, having extended family, creating relationships with neighbors and communal figures and religious leaders, hugely important. But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, you are alone in that house taking care of what needs to be taken care of, and so that partnership with God needs to become front and center in the remaining parent, because otherwise you begin to fall into fear, right? What? How is my child going to get through life? They don't have a father, or perhaps there's a parent who, you know, for whatever reason is is detrimental or harming the relationship and their act they're in, you know, alive and active, but not in a good way. Well, you don't need to worry, because it's not like 50% of your child's life depends on that other person. Again, there's three here at most. That's 33% but let's be honest and say that God is more powerful. Cares about your child more than you do, loves him more than you do, is able to do more for your child, more than you are. All of a sudden, you're not carrying that burden on your by yourself. You're not feeling this sense of responsibility. It's all on me to make sure they turn out. Okay. No, it's not. You're not alone.
Daniel Lapin 36:34
So parenting as a partner can mean with your spouse and with God, but it can also sometimes mean just you and me, God, we're in this alone.
Rebecca Masinter 36:46
I think so. And I It sounds theoretical when I say it like this, but I mean it very practically. And when I speak to particularly mothers, I tell this to them practically. You know when you're at that moment that you're just at your wits end and you don't know what to do for your child, and you, you're, you're literally just drained to the last drop, and go into your room and close your door and turn to God and say, God, this is your child. You created him. You love him. I need you to show me what to do, because I am at a loss, and I can, I can't. There's no promise here, but my experience has been that you will walk out of that room, and within a very short period of time, you will get a phone call from someone who offers to do something that you just now, you know, or you'll, you know, someone will recommend, you know, have you heard of that book? And then you'll look at that book, and it's the answer to what you need. God is a real partner, like, really, really, really, practically, and we can lean on him,
Daniel Lapin 37:46
yeah, yeah, I think that's 100% correct. You speak a lot about having a value system in your family, and
Rebecca Masinter 37:57
that's for single parents and for married parents, right? Absolutely. And
Daniel Lapin 38:03
you know, one of the the questions I want to ask you is that, you know when, when people say, you know, what are you? What are your family's values? Well, it's honesty and generosity and compassion and friendliness and caring and so on so. And who doesn't have those and so, how do we personalize that and and by way of of sort of leading the witness, I will tell you that we had a few values that were special to our family, in addition to the basic ones, one of them was confidentiality. Yes, because ours was a rabbinic home, people often came, you know, early in the morning to late at night to discuss a problem with Mama or with me, you could quite easily, and your siblings could quite easily have deduced who in our congregation was having problems, and you could have so from the earliest age, we knew that we had total confidentiality. We didn't have to worry about anything that you heard within the four walls of our house behind our Mezuzah, as it were leaking out or becoming heard. So
Rebecca Masinter 39:32
we used to have a saying, I don't know how many times we said it, because it's in my head, a Rabbi's daughter keeps her mouth shut, and I remember thinking how ironic it was as a little girl, I remember thinking how a Rabbi's daughter keeps her mouth shut, but I have nothing to say, because you guys never told me anything about what was going on, so I couldn't have told you what was happening, because you and Mommy never discussed it in front of us. Yeah,
Daniel Lapin 39:56
right. I guess we just assumed that. You're around, you see who's coming in and out. And, yeah,
Rebecca Masinter 40:03
I was very excited the one time I knew in advance that someone was getting engaged because her fiance to be came to visit you, and I was still awake at night, and I got to see him. That was the one and only thing I remember knowing about in advance.
Daniel Lapin 40:21
So one of them was an Lapin child. Keeps their mouth shut. Another one was we were very big on refined language. We had zero tolerance in the house for any vulgarities, so much so that your brother's friends, who I'm quite sure in their normal activities, spoke not badly, but with a degree of typical masculine but when they were in our home, they were meticulous. They got to know it was it was so nice to see these guys how they adopted that when they came and and it remains to this day on family chats, when anybody even comes close to a use of unrefined language, the response from several of the siblings is always the same that it is a certain Lapin code word used for careful you're coming close to danger here. So those are some of the values we had advice for a couple starting their family. How do they go about figuring out what are their unique set of values? Well, that's
Rebecca Masinter 41:45
actually a big part of the parenting as partners course that we lay out, my husband Max and I talk about how to have the conversations with each other to determine not just what you think is important, because we all agree, as you said, there are many, many values. We all would say that's important, but what are your most important values that are going to define your family? And we have worksheets to help couples work through and have conversations with each other. What were the values of your family growing up? What were the values of my family growing up? Which of those do we like? Which of those do we not like? You know what is most important, and once you've clarified your most important values, the beauty of this is now when you need to make decisions, you have a framework within which to make it. So for example, if you talk about being careful with language in our home growing up, that meant that when you and Mommy had a question of, well, should we bring this book into the house? Is this an okay book for my kids to read? There was a very simple litmus test, is there any unrefined language in it? When there was a question of, should we let our children go watch this movie or go to that other family's house, or this activity or that activity, there was a litmus test, well, if there is unrefined language, is just a no. And so when you're clear on your values, it makes it so much easier to now make decisions that are principled and consistent, instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Well, the kid asks, Can they go there? I don't know. I'm too tired to worry about and also, I just say yes. And the next day they ask, and I say no, and why? Why yesterday was okay and today not? I don't know. I'm too tired. I don't know. But if I have really clear values, and I know this is what's important to our family, then we know how to make decisions that are in line with those values. We actually had this today. One of the values that's very important to our family is is giving to other people, being of service. And my husband works very, very hard, which is why he's not here with us, even though this is a parenting as partners conversation. But there was an opportunity that came up to do community service that was really unique to him. He was the he was the person who was able to do it, and he and our 10 year old went and spent two hours in the middle of the day today doing that. How did they make that decision? How did I make that decision? Because that meant we didn't homeschool, by the way, like that meant there were no academics today. This morning was two hours of doing something for someone else. Well, because we know that that's a value that is really important to us. And he'll catch up on the math, and he'll catch up on the spelling, and my husband will even catch up on his work. But right now, we had an opportunity to live our core value,
Daniel Lapin 44:29
right? Yeah, I remember also many months ago, I think it was that a young single mother had troubles. She'd made a terrible mistake trying to buy a car, and she was in a real fix. And I remember your husband at that point, our son in law, not being available for either work or other things I wanted to discuss and do with him, because he was solving that problem. And I. Yeah, and so, yeah, I've seen that at work.
Rebecca Masinter 45:02
No, I want to stress it's only it only works when both partners are on the same page, right? If my husband would have said, Oh, I want to take our son today to do this project, and I would have said, No, it's most important that he do his schoolwork, or it's most important that he do something else, well, then we'd have a problem. But when you have values that together, you've decided are important, well, then you can both support each other and cheer each other on and stand up for each other. Because whether they are, you know, whether he's at home or whether he's not at home, whether I'm at home, whether I'm not at home, we know that we're both standing up for the same values. So it
Daniel Lapin 45:36
really is. You know, parenting as partners is a marriage maintenance program
Rebecca Masinter 45:42
without a shadow of a doubt. I you know, I think you have to engage with such questions on such a deeper level, when you're dealing now with building a home and building a family and transmitting these values to your family. You know, we were, our family was very, very, very excited last night, we went to a wedding, and it was a wedding that all my kids were invited to, which is a really big deal. This is they look for every invitation that comes through the mail doesn't say and family, and this one did, and I spent a fair amount of the wedding actually, again, helping somebody, instead of being out with my kids and dancing with them. And at the end of the wedding, my family was ready to go home, and I couldn't leave because I was still or, I guess I could have left, but I was choosing not to leave because I was still helping somebody. And the fact that when I walked out and it was already 1130 at night, not one of my children and my husband, nobody looked at me and said, What took you so long? We're so tired. We were ready to go half an hour ago. They were aware everyone was on board and everybody was happy that wasn't me doing a kindness, that was our family doing a kindness. This was a family, and when I got in the car, I thanked them for allowing me to do what I did, because we were doing it together as a unit. And it would have felt so terrible if I would have come out to complaints and to accusations and to, you know, I've been waiting and why we're into you here instead, I felt like this is something we were doing together, because this is a value that's important to all of us.
Daniel Lapin 47:12
A lot of these things we're talking about are things that over the years and even recently, and I sit down with a young couple on the threshold of marriage to talk about, and so even if you're not going to have a child for the next, who knows how many years. But right now, these are the things you should be thinking about, already creating your system of shared values, getting on the same page, all of these things that will make the transition to parenthood so much more joyful. Perhaps the hardest question for lost, and that is a lot of the people listening to us right now are people who are well into their marriages. And you know what I mean, they ask you to see if you actually do know the one phrase throughout my years that I hear from people more often than any other phrase, which is where, where were you when I was young? Exactly? Yeah, I want to say I've been asked that 1000s of times, not just hundreds of times, where I'm talking to a, you know, a group of young parents, you know, maybe they're in their early 40s, and they've got little children and older children, and again and again and again. Some of these ancient Jewish wisdom insights that you're going to be teaching are so scintillating and so incandescent that you just say to yourself, This changes everything. And then that brings up the question, Where were you when I was setting up my marriage? Where were you when I was starting to have children? Where were you when I was choosing a spouse? That keeps coming up, even, by the way, on this podcast, YouTube channel, that question keeps on showing up as well,
Rebecca Masinter 49:18
and it's a common parenting question without you know the big picture of where you were, but a mother will say, I wish I knew that when my first child, when my eldest was a young I say that I wish I would have had the wisdom, the experience, you know, that I had after 10 years of parenting in day one. So, so why didn't I? And I think this goes back to parenting as partners. Is not just with a spouse, it's with God. And if you have God in your life, then you know that there are certain things he opens up and shows to you at certain times, and that was up to him. And if he wanted you to be aware earlier, if he had wanted me to be an experienced mother when I was young, he could have made the world different. I don't know how he could have made us not. Have children until we're much, much older, until we've all raised one family, and then we kind of press the Erase button and start over again. He didn't do that because he wanted us to grow and learn on the job. He wanted us to change and take each opportunity as a point of today. What can I do now? And I really believe that when you approach the the future with that perspective, instead of looking back and saying, Well, why didn't I know this? Or where were you? Then say, God brought this wisdom into my life today. Because he wants me to make a decision today. He wants me to do make a choice today. He wants me to take an action today. He didn't want me to do it 10 years ago, because if he did, he would have shown it to me then. And as your kids get older, by the way, this gets more and more and more important, because as the kids become teenagers, and sometimes things come into their lives that are very, very scary and very damaging, and it's a horrible feeling to be a parent who doesn't know that there's a problem in their kid's life, and then one day you wake up and you're like, oh my Goodness, maybe they're a victim of bullying, or maybe there's even drugs or something that's terrible. You know why you didn't know before? You didn't know before, because God didn't tell you before. And if you see yourself as a partner in your parenting, that means you have trust that he is going to show you what you need to know on any given day at a time, and on the day he shows it to you, that's the day you're meant to take action and move forward and and you don't beat yourself up over what you didn't know in the past.
Daniel Lapin 51:28
We gotta start bringing it in for a landing. But I can't help but ask you this, there are people listening whose children are grown, maybe they're even grandparents, and they're not happy with how they see their children embarking on marriage or child raising. Is there anything you can say to those older couples?
Rebecca Masinter 51:56
Wow, I think two different things. One is is don't ever discount your influence, and don't ever think that your children, even when they're adults, are not watching and looking to you because they are. And we know that. You know they're not looking for unsolicited advice. They're certainly not looking for criticism. But you can choose selectively, what it is you choose to praise, and what it is you choose to point out and what you choose to appreciate and tell them. Tell them when you see your child doing a really great job, because the more they feel that you are supportive of them and that you are admiring the job they're doing. And believe me, it's much harder to raise children now than it was in previous generations, I believe. So tell them how fantastic they're doing, and that will make it much more likely that when they hit a bump and they hit a rough spot, they're going to turn to you and ask, What do you think about this mom? What do you think about this dad? Whereas, if you are pointing out their problems and deficiencies, chances are good they're not going to want to show any vulnerability and tell you that there's something that's not perfect in their world. So I do think and something my husband and I learned from you and Mommy, that from the beginning, you you complimented our parenting and you complimented our child raising, and it makes it much more comfortable for us to to want you in our lives and in our children's lives. Well.
Daniel Lapin 53:22
Thank you very much. I remember one boat trip where I said to I think maybe you were all sitting together on the top deck, and I remember saying that, you know, I I don't know how well we did, but all I can tell you is, we did our best. And the problem now days, the recent years, I think to myself, did we really, you know, that's a bit disturbing. Did we really do our best? I mean, you know, thank God, you're all wonderful. But could we have done better? Was it within our ability to have done better? Probably, and that's that's disturbing. No comment needed.
Rebecca Masinter 54:12
I do think that I'm going to bring this down to parents today, because, yeah, very I know the parents were at the end of our time, but it's very easy for parents to beat themselves up, and it's very easy to feel like you're a failure, and it's very easy to see all the things we're not doing for our kids, and all the times that we're not patient with our kids, and everything that we are not giving our kids. And I think it's important to recognize that mom guilt, which is what this feeling is. I guess it could be bad guilt. Yeah, sure. Is there because we were created with a soul, because we have a touch of the infinite in us. Means We always want infinite. We have an infinite amount of dreams for our kids. We have an infinite amount of desire. We seek a good life. And because our goals are so high and we're only human, of course, we're gonna fail. Of course. Us. We can't meet our dreams, we can't meet our goals, we can never be the parents we want to be, and that's not a problem in us. That is a testimony to the divine spark that's in us that always wants more than we're capable of giving.
Daniel Lapin 55:14
You are a very wise young woman. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming, and I'm really looking forward to Happy Warriors being able to access parenting as partners and and enhancing their marriages and their families. Me too. It's going to be wonderful. So there it was, my conversation with Rebecca on parenting as partners, and there's, there's really a lot of true value in all of that, you know, if I were to say to somebody, you know, what is the most exciting and wonderful activity you can share with another human being, I think we all know what the answer would be, but that's a little bit like me asking, so what's the most exciting party you can go to, and what's it like? Well, it's a costume party, and the best part of it is the Uber drive to get there. No, you need to get the Uber drive to be able to get to the costume party so you can enjoy it, and it's certainly an important part. And if you get a nice Uber driver, and it's a nice route, you might have an exciting, pleasant journey, but it's only the start of something that continues to be even more exciting. And I think that that is the the key point that I want to make here. Yes, you know. We all know what the most exciting thing that two human being, a man and a woman, can do together with one another, but that is only the start of something which continues to be wonderful and exciting all the way through bringing a child into the world, watching the child grow and then playing a major role in the development of that child. It's called parenting, and here's one of the main results of it, and it really is, is relevant. I mean, you end up with children that you really enjoy being with. That's the key thing. It really is. Because I can't tell you how many times I talk to parents as the summer vacations draw to a close and parents say to me, I can't wait only another week of hell, and then my kids go back to school, I hear parents talking like that. Heaven forbid the children should hear parents speaking like that. But who knows, maybe they do, and that's really the best evidence I have that most parents do not really enjoy being with their being with their children. We regarded homeschooling as the greatest privilege possible, because we we're going to spend the whole day with our wonderful children and and you can too, and everybody can, you know, unless, unless you've passed that stage in life already, but the idea is raising children that you really like, that's a big deal, and it's an enormous life enhancing thing for children, and then later on, for good, for grandchildren or grandparents as well. So hope you enjoyed it. If you're not yet a member of the Happy Warrior community. We'd love you to do that at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and if you haven't yet taken a look at the parenting as partners program, you'll see that also at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com so all you happy warriors, thank you all for being part of the show. Thank you for being here and do stay in touch, as you know, Susan and I communicate with you all on the happy on the happy warriors website. So looking forward to all of that and wishing you a wonderful week of fantastic progress with your family and your finances, your faith, your friendships and your fitness. God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
