I have a question about family.

[jonathanP]

I guess that Jews also have challenges in relationships.

Perhaps the Jewish view, that every Jew is precious, makes it easier to get along with each other.

I like this seder reading from RabbiO, how children are addressed.

https://www.thehebrewcafe.com/forum/show...hp?tid=190

This is a really nice way of looking at children. Knowing how to accept children as they are certainly helps to avoid the pitfall of being critical of what they're not. My wife has been in two community mother's groups - and our eldest is only 2.5 now. But even before he was 1, there was a lot of competition between the mothers: "my child has 6 words, how many does yours have?",  "Oh - he's not very steady on his feet is he... mine was walking at 3 months. Are you concerned!?" That sort of thing. It's pretty sad - and my wife eventually drifted away from the group as the group was intended to be about mutual support - not vicarious self-loathing. That sort of thing is really common in Australia. 

And you've just helped me realise there is another difference that I've noticed between my friends of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds. This one does have some exceptions actually, but a number of my Jewish friends are far more honest about the more problematic aspects of their home lives and children. Not all of them - but my friends of Anglo backgrounds very, very rarely share that kind of news. They are far more competitive, and conversation can often centre around pretty mundane subjects like property values, addresses, cars, etc. etc.

Interesting. Really nice link to the Rabbi's post.