TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Trump, Toddlers, Teenagers, and Tantrums
Date: 11/08/24 Length: 01:01:49
Daniel Lapin 0:01
Welcome everybody to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works and today. Special opportunity, special pleasure, I don't get this very often. You might remember a few weeks back, few shows back, I had a conversation on the show with a grandson of ours. And many of you wrote about it. You found it interesting. You found things, he said interesting. The whole conversation was terrific. Well, this week even more exciting, because this is his mother. Her name is Mrs. Rebecca Masinter, and she is our oldest daughter and somebody we are so proud of, it's impossible to adequately even express it. But Rebecca has made a specialty. She and her husband have made a real specialty out of raising children, you might say, well, what makes her an expert? Did she get a university degree? Well, she did, yes, but it was in Chemistry, Biology, yes, it was in Biology. And so at very best, she'd know something about the way children are conceived, but how children are raised? Well, that's something else entirely. And the reason she's an expert is because she has six amazing children, ranging in age from nine years old at the low end, and I can't believe in the upper end is 21 he is already, or about to be, 21 he is 21 already is 21 he sat on my lap while I was doing a radio show. I was doing a remote broadcast from your house in Maryland. Many Well, 21 years, and in the middle of the show, I demonstrated remarkable equanimity because he peed all over me, and nonetheless, we continued the broadcast as if nothing had happened.
Daniel Lapin 2:33
You certainly.
Rebecca Masinter 2:34
did, and it didn't harm your relationship either.
Daniel Lapin 2:38
No, that's fine. He actually gave me the name which sticks to this day. So at any rate, I wanted to have an opportunity to bring your approach to the attention of the Happy Warriors on the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, because the culture has become so weird and so bizarre on children. And we all know the extent to which fertility figures have dropped, the drop in the number of marriages, the drop in the number of children that are being brought into the world. And one of the reasons that I've discussed on this is because of anxiety about a lot of different things, absolutely, and we are recording this show just after President Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election. And so that might be a reasonably good place to start, in Dearborn Michigan, which I think might be the most Muslim city in the country. President Trump won, I think 42 to Harris 36 and then Jill Stein got, I think, 18% of the vote. Wow, yeah. Now, one way of looking at this is that the Muslim residents of Dearborn had a choice between voting for a Jew, someone married to a Jew, and somebody with Jewish kids or grandkids. That was the choice. But I think there's something else at work, and I think it just may be that enough Muslim voters in Dearborn Michigan are concerned about what the last four years has been doing to their children, what's happened to public schools and they heard Loud and clear that President Trump was going to fix that, and so perhaps in a way, that was always a part of America. In other words, you know, Yugoslavs moved here. They didn't bring old world problems and fights with them. The Germans came to America. Most prominent among them, John Roebling, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge, right? German. Germans didn't come and bring their traditional hostilities, you know, to to America. People left them in the old world. And the only group that has really not lived by that over the last couple of decades in America, is that Muslims, for the most part, have indeed imported their their, if you like, their old world antagonisms to America. But maybe that's changing. Maybe this is optimistic. And maybe the Muslim residents of Dearborn said to themselves, you know, this has nothing to do with the Middle East. This has to do with our children in failing schools in Dearborn and maybe a president who's more interested in our children than in the teachers unions might be the right guy people have been. Looking to the government to raise their children and to educate their children. Maybe that is changing. I know you home schooled your children as we home schooled you, but people are worried about schools. Are they not? What do you what are you finding?
Rebecca Masinter 6:23
I know people are worried about schools. You're you're absolutely correct, of course, but I would even broaden that statement to we used to have a traditional culture where parents were automatically above children. Children were born in a culture, in a society where you look up to your parents and traditional cultures. And I think many Muslim family, many Muslim immigrants, would fall into that category as well, where there is a strong family culture. And this is not a democracy where everyone gets an equal vote. It is not a anarchy where kids just do whatever they want. This is an authoritative family system, and mom and dad are in charge. And what you reminded me of when you were speaking is there's a wonderful doctor, Dr Leonard Sachs, who has written several excellent books about
Rebecca Masinter 7:16
parenting, is sitting right over there. He speaks at
Rebecca Masinter 7:19
many he speaks around the country at many different events and many different schools. Several of them are Muslim. He actually sends out a list, you know, I'm going to be here on this date, and you've got your Christian schools, and you've got your Jewish schools, and you have a couple that are you can't, are not necessarily religious. But he also does speak in Muslim institutions. And they know he's Jewish. He makes no secret of it. So I think that there is a certain subset of the American population, and I'm sure the American Muslim population, which says, whatever your theology is, we can't afford to let our culture disappear the traditional respect that we have for our elders, because if you don't have children who are looking up to parents for guidance, you cannot parent them.
Daniel Lapin 8:08
So what is the culture telling parents the attitude should be towards their children? They should be running a democratic household, one, one child, one vote or one? What are they? What are what are people? People seem to be tumbling into family formation. Now, in a way, there was a little bit different. There was more purposefulness to it. There was more a sense of of saying to your daughter, you know, one day when you're a mother, you'll, I don't think that language applies so much today. Or saying to a boy, you know what, you've got to start becoming a man. Pretty soon you're going to have a wife and children. I don't think that language is used anymore.
Rebecca Masinter 8:46
Do you know my daughter actually mentioned something to me today when we were driving and she said, Do you know, Mom, I think that little kids used to play little girls used to play mommy and house much more than they do today. And she babysits. She spends a lot of time with the young kids. And as soon as she said that, I thought, wow, that is so profound. Because, of course, you're right. If you're a little girl and you're playing mommy and you're playing house, that's what you're hoping to grow into. That's your model. And if that doesn't even exist in our children, what hope is there when they're going to grow up, that they'll even want that,
Daniel Lapin 9:25
and is that what's happening in elders is, are children not growing up to think in terms of one day being parents, and furthermore, our parents are people who day, Who today should be adulting. Who should be becoming parents and who should be forming families? Are they frightened of doing so? And key word, yeah,
Rebecca Masinter 9:50
I think you began by speaking about fear and anxiety, yes. And I think that fear is undermining our parenting and our families in America. America today, very, very, very much, because to be a parent means to be a leader. And to be a leader, you must act courageously. You must do you must, first of all think through, what do you think is right? And then you must follow through. And today, so many parents are afraid. They are afraid of messing up their kids, that's a big one. They're afraid that they will ruin their kids. Their kids will need therapy to get over their childhood. They are afraid their kids will somehow not grow, as if there's not an internal drive for growth and development that God put into each child that can actually go through some pretty rough things and still survive. So many parents have a fear that if I don't do it right, if I don't say the right thing, if I don't respond the right way, if I if I punish her too harshly, or if I say something she doesn't like, well I'm gonna I'm gonna fail. And when you have fear, you can't you can't be parenting. It doesn't work. You have to be a leader. So I think there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear, physically for our children today, there's a lot more fears of even something like kidnapping, which statistically has gone way down. But if you ask the parents on the street, they're much more scared of it than their parents were. They're much less likely to let their kids just go off and explore for hours in the neighborhood, because what if something happens? And an interesting thing I think you'll appreciate is that there's a big movement now in schools to ban cell phones that students shouldn't have cell phones with them. Students cannot learn when their cell phones are with them, as I'm sure you can understand, why do you know who's pushing back on it. It's not the kids, it's their parents.
Daniel Lapin 11:45
They don't want to be out of touch.
Rebecca Masinter 11:46
I need to be able to reach my child. What if there's a school shooting? Parents are living with so much anxiety and so much fear. And of course, when you don't live in a when you don't have a traditional, faith based model. Fear is the alternative.
Daniel Lapin 12:04
It's more than the alternative. It's the default. The natural default for human beings is cowardice and fear, and that's why we have a thing called courage and and it has to be educated. You don't, you don't get born being courageous.
Rebecca Masinter 12:19
You don't. And there also used to be an understanding that whether or not I think that I'm wise, or whether or not I'm I think that I know what's best for my kid. If I'm a mom, I better act like I do. Right? No mom until the last few decades, would ever think of saying to a child, I don't know what to do. What do you think, even if I didn't know what to do, I'm going to pretend like I do because my kid needs to be able to relax in the security of knowing that mom's taking care of me, that I'm okay, because there's someone who is wiser and responsible and in charge. And even we don't, we don't even have the concept of faking it till you make it anymore. There's just this overabundance of vulnerability that is not letting people act courageously
Daniel Lapin 13:10
the I've noticed this in speaking. You know, I don't speak to hundreds and hundreds of parents, but at events and appearances and lectures, people come up to me, and one of the things that I'm noticing is a huge increase. And I'm thinking back to when you were a little girl. I don't think I mean, I'd have to check with mom, but I can't remember a time when we looked at each other and said, you know, we'd better we'd better hire an expert, or we better get a consultant, or we better get a therapist, or we better get I mean, on the contrary, after a few children, as I think, you know, the pediatrician, whenever Mommy would call The pediatrician, he'd said, Well, what do you think? Because he began to respect her own intuition as a parent. Is that vanishing? And why? What's what's going on there?
Rebecca Masinter 14:13
Oh, it's so sad, because it is vanishing. And I know that you've read Abigail Schreiers book on the dangers of therapy for children, and this is particularly, I think, what you are, what you're speaking about, when we as a society in general do not value traditional families, and we don't have a culture that supports traditional families, then More and more families lose the innate skills that they would have had because they'd be watching other people who are good parents at the playground. Today, there aren't even moms at most playgrounds. It's the nannies at the playgrounds, right? So each mom is alone trying to figure out what's best. There isn't a group anymore where they'd be able to look at someone three years ahead of them and say, oh, what? Did you do when your child started climbing out of her crib at night when she was two years old, or whatever? And because we have a breakdown in extended family relationships, and I cannot tell you how many moms reach out to me to ask about, well, what if my parents are toxic so I can't let them near my children. And I talk about how important extended families are, of course. And you say to her,
Daniel Lapin 15:23
Look, I've had a lot of experience with toxic parents.
Rebecca Masinter 15:27
How are you supposed to learn if you don't have a mom that you respect enough to say, How did you do this? And I'll tell you, this was actually very scary. I was a young mother. I had just had my third child, and there was another young mother in the community who had just had her first baby, and she was nursing this baby, and it was, it became clear, just seeing this baby was malnourished. She was not getting food. Her eyes were huge, and her everything else was tiny. And I saw her, and I, I said, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do. I just, you know, pretend I didn't notice anything. She's got a pediatrician, and I ended up, I prayed on it a lot, and I knew that her pediatrician was my pediatrician, so I asked her, I said, May I share something with you? And I may be totally off base, but perhaps there's something to look at. Would you mind if we went to the pediatrician to ask about about this? And I even called the pediatrician to say, you know, please don't just race through this like a normal Well, visit. I think there may be something off. Bottom line is, is this child was extremely malnourished and was it was the line where the pediatrician said, I will send you to the hospital right now, or else you must do you know X, Y and Z immediately. A few weeks later, the the wife of the Rabbi of the community came up to me, and she was an older woman. She's a mother of 10 children. She knew way more than I ever than I know today, and she said to me, I'm so glad you did what you did, because I spoke to her and I was discounted as being an older generation, a woman who doesn't know anything, because times have changed. You used to think that you needed formula, you know, but now I know that breast milk can fill all my child's needs. This young mother, and I don't blame her. This is how was she supposed to know? She discounted advice from someone who was experienced and mature in favor of a young person who it turned out that it worked out well, but someone else could have given her. Someone else young could have given her bad advice, and she would have listened to that too, instead of an older, more mature woman.
Daniel Lapin 17:38
Gosh, so instincts are confidences has vanished, and obviously I want to get to to the cure. Like you know, what? What can we do about this? What should people do and what, what should what? What should grandparents do? What should parents do? There have to be some steps we can take. How old you when your first son was born? Hmm,
Rebecca Masinter 18:04
now that you've told everybody how old he is,
Daniel Lapin 18:08
you were probably in your early 20s. Yes, I was you would? You were more than 20? Yeah, somewhere very early 20s. Okay, fine, sorry, didn't mean to. I've got to do mental arithmetic, killer more quickly than that. So I'm going to ask you, what you remember your your biggest surprises? Well, what? What came as utter shock and and bewilderment when, when you first had your first child. But first, I have to tell listeners something about the show. First of all, as always, please go ahead and subscribe to the show. Hit the like button if you have one on the on the the platform you listen to. And we'd really appreciate that very, very much indeed. And not just me, Rebecca, would appreciate that too. And we've got to give your website out also. Soon we'll do that too. Also, as you all know, we very much appreciate those of you who become part of the happy warrior community. And in order to show our appreciation to you, we also produce a bonus podcast, something a little bit additional, something beyond what we cover in the main show, which is pretty darn good, if I may say so myself, but I made a note of what I wanted to to cover. Yeah, so what, what we're going to do is, when we eventually reach the end of the show, we're going to do a separate recording just for happy warrior members. And the question that I want to address there is the following, you have currently two children who voted in. Today's election,
Rebecca Masinter 20:01
I actually have three children who are over 18 now. They were not in town. We had to do early voting rights.
Daniel Lapin 20:10
So I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all your three voting age children voted just the way you did. I know that. I also know that if late Rina was alive, she'd have voted the way Mommy and I did, and I know the rest of you, all of you voted the same way. It's crazy, right? How many people are able to say that today? How many people can have their children know that their children's values are the same as theirs? And you've got this? And so in the in the bonus section, and didn't mean to get a bit overwhelmed, but in the bonus podcast, we will be talking about how that, how you can increase the livelihood, no guarantees, but how do you get to a point where your family can have a political discussion around the dinner table without raised voices, without anger, as just as we were blessed to be able to do as well. But we'd like to impart some practical guidance for people. How do you do that in your family? How can everybody get a chance to do that? So we're going to do that and and finally, I just want to invite each and every one of you who is not already a member of the Happy Warrior community to please join us, join our community. All you have to do is go to our website RabbiDaniellapin.com. It's tricky because there's a double L there, right? There's an L at the end of Daniel and there's another L at the beginning of Lapin. But if you get that right, you are going to be at the Rabbi Daniel Lapin website, and you will easily find right there, how to join the Happy Warrior community. And you'll love doing that so and we'd love to have you, and you get a chance to not only access a vast body of information. You also get a chance to help other people, because there's communication on the happy warrior website, people talk to each other, people raise questions, people provide answers. And as I always say, in my own mind, I don't know whether it's more fun to be able to ask a question or to provide an answer, but both those things happen at the website. So our daughter, Rebecca Masinter, whose website is mothersguidance.com, mothers guidance, you don't have to put an apostrophe, no apostrophe, mothersguidance.com, and the question I asked you just before I welcomed Happy Warriors was young mother in your very early 20s, and all of a sudden you're holding a baby boy in your arms, and in the ensuing months, he's becoming a real boy, and then he becomes a big boy, and then he became a young man, but initially, going back all those years, like, what were some of the, what were some of the surprises, if not shocks, because he was followed pretty soon by his younger brother, he certainly was. And then after that, he was followed by another brother, yes, he was. And then by two sisters, yes, and then by another brother. So, so that's the 21 to nine run through there. But what was it like?
Rebecca Masinter 24:07
Well, this could be fun, because the honest truth is, is that my my oldest son, as you know, he was a textbook baby. I felt like I had mothering down pat. I mean, this child did what he was supposed to do, and all I needed to do, if he would ever start to do something he wasn't supposed to do, is just look at him and he would stop. He was as regulated and calm and routine based child you can imagine. So I'm not sure I had surprises with him, but as you mentioned, not too long after he was born, I did have another child, and
Daniel Lapin 24:47
that was the son, by the way, who you all met a few weeks back when I had a conversation with him right here on the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, and he is you will be shocked to hear more about him as Rabbi. Tells the experience she had when son number two arrived.
Rebecca Masinter 25:03
Son number two absolutely left me confused from day one. In fact, one of my husband's fondest memories about Mom is when she offered to watch him for an hour or two so we could go out for dinner when he was six weeks old, and we came in the door and mom just went here, and Max said he has never seen her as frazzled before or since, this baby would be fast asleep and then within a second be screaming as if he was being tortured to death. There was no such thing as moving around and whimpering and crying softly and then screaming. He went from zero to 100 he was intense as he got a little bit older. He was strong minded before he was old enough to know his mind. He had a capacity for a tolerance, I would say, for fighting, that far exceeded mine, and I'm pretty strong willed myself, and so that, that was where I was shocked, because I thought I knew how to parent. I thought I knew you'd be loving, and you have your rules, and you're consistent, just give unconditional love. Everything will be fine, correct,
Rebecca Masinter 26:20
and it'll work, because, look, I have this amazing 16 month old, 18 month old, two year old, and it wasn't working. It was not working. It was backfiring. And I really believe that that God stepped into my life in a big way. At that time, there was a book that had recently been published. It might have actually been, I think it was published the year he was born. God really good to give this to me by Gordon Neufeld called hold on to your kids. And Gordon Neufeld reframed my entire approach to parenting from that day until this day. And we are blessed this. The son did grow up. He is growing up to be a fine young man, a wonderful, person,
Daniel Lapin 27:01
people, people, meeting, right? You're on the show. See,
Rebecca Masinter 27:04
it is a testament to the fact that through the learning that I did about this new method of not new method of parenting, which made me understand, first of all, developmentally, what's going on in this kid who, who is he? What's happening in his brain, what's happening in his alarm system, and not his his emotions, his panic level. And when you understand that, and when I understand the priority of making him feel that I am always there for you and with you no matter what, I'm still going to discipline you. I'm still going to tell you what not to do, but it will nothing you can ever do will push me away from you. Nothing you ever do is going to make me run away or make me stop loving you. And it shifted my entire approach. I then was able to, fortunately expand it and use it for the rest of my children, for our family, and that's the approach I share with many parents today, with the added bonus that, as a Jew who has been raised in your home and with ancient Jewish wisdom values, I see how God has built these principles into the world, and our relationship with God is completely reflected In a parent's relationship with a child. So for example, that one piece I said that I may be I may have to make you unhappy because you did something really wrong, but that connection will never be broken between us. Isn't that exactly what God's relationship with with us is? Yeah, things are not going to be great all the time. There are going to be really difficult periods in your life, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm here with you through the hard stuff.
Daniel Lapin 28:46
So a huge tip for listeners who are in parenting mode is what you've just said, which is, if you ever are uncertain, correct me, if you want to phrase it differently, but as I'm phrasing it from what you said, if you're ever uncertain how to react to a circumstance with your child, ask yourself, how does God react to that situation? And then try and do the same.
Rebecca Masinter 29:19
That's a very interesting way of phrasing it. The only caveat I'd perhaps add on to that is that, as you have taught me, without a understanding of the without the traditional Jewish wisdom explaining what God is actually doing, it's not too hard to misinterpret. You know what you think he's doing. And perhaps, perhaps that isn't necessarily intuitive. Maybe it is. I would want to think about that.
Daniel Lapin 29:46
Can you off head, off the cuff? Can you think of another example where we'd say, Okay, in this situation with your child, you want to know what to do. Simple look, let's look inside.
Rebecca Masinter 29:57
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. You've got a kid. And. He's playing Legos, and you want him to come for dinner. And if you do the typical you know, mom calls from the kitchen while Tommy is playing in the living room, Tom come for dinner now he won't hear you. Most Toms won't hear or won't come. Du Betty's, actually, this is a difference between boys and girls. I'm very excited I'm going to be doing a special class just for parents of boys soon. Boys do tend to get hyper focused, and they literally do not hear what they're not focused on. But many Bettys won't either if she's a middle of doing something, and if you want your child to come when you call them, what you actually need to do is walk to them and make eye contact and smile and make them feel this human connection with you. Maybe you say, Oh, my goodness, that's such an amazing castle that you're building. Show me where the moat is. And then once they've connected and they've looked at you and they've smiled at you, then you say, Come for dinner. Now, not a problem. And in fact, I used to wow mothers on the playground, because every mother on the playground does this, five minutes till we're going, two minutes till we're going, time to go. I said, we need to go. Come, come, come, and kids don't come. I would say to my kids, time to go now. And they would all come, and no one knew that. It was because I had laid the groundwork a few minutes earlier by going over to each child and making eye contact and smiling and reminding them I'm here. Hi. Remember me. We love each other. And then when I said time to come, my kids just came because they wanted to. And believe it or not, God actually does the same thing. He did it first of all, before the before the Torah, before the Bible was given on Mount Sinai, four days earlier, God said to the Jewish people, he said, You are my treasured. You are my treasured. A kingdom of priests, my beloved treasure. The emotional connection got their attention. The emotional connection that was built between them preceded the 613, laws that I'm about to give you that you really need to follow. And even more than that, when we're told that every single time God taught a new commandment to Moses, he started before he gave a commandment, he started by saying, Moshe, Moshe, or Moses. Moses, which is an endearment, a connection. And once you have a connection with someone, then you can say, tell the people, this is what they need to do. But you don't ever give an order if there's no connection relationship, because why should someone want to follow you? The opposite when some lady, a bureaucrat at the post office, tells me, stand here, the last thing I want to do is stand there. Because Who are you to talk to me like that? But if you were to say to me, stand here, it wouldn't bother me, because it's in a context of a relationship.
Daniel Lapin 33:01
that is an example of the kind of things you are teaching your clients, your parenting clients. How can people reach you? How can people connect with you? That's a great question. And what do you and what are the ways in which they can access some of your experience.
Rebecca Masinter 33:22
Wonderful. Thank you. So at www.mothersguidance.com - I have videos that I have created. One for teenagers. It's called thriving with teenagers. It's a fun time of life. Another is geared more for parents of elementary school kids, called parenting for children to listen. And it's a lot of this, how to build a relationship, where they want to listen to you, where the default is they're going to listen. My husband and I together did a course, which is, now it's on a video, but it is going to be shifting soon to be an online course that will have modules, and that is parenting as partners, how two spouses who grow up in two totally different homes with two totally different visions can work together to create a family that reflects their joint wisdom, their joint parenting, their joint leadership, how you can work together, not against each other. And I have coming up in just a few weeks, a online, an online class called nurturing toddlers, and that is going to look at everything toddlerhood, what you want to know about them, how you want to parent them. So that is all on the website.
Daniel Lapin 34:34
Well, if you got friends who are parenting toddlers, make sure you let them know about that.
Rebecca Masinter 34:42
And I also have articles I send out every week. I send weekly articles with a parenting, a practical parenting lesson that comes from the weekly Bible portion. And so every week that goes out to anybody who subscribed to my website, that is for free.
Daniel Lapin 34:56
So biblical lessons in child raising.
Rebecca Masinter 35:01
biblical lessons with practical takeaways for child raising, yes.
Daniel Lapin 35:05
right? Give me one or two or three of the big no nos if you're speaking to a couple mother and a father, the mistakes you see they're making and and things that you and max your husband teach against doing. What are some of the I want some of the listeners say, Oh no, no, that's what we
Rebecca Masinter 35:36
do, and it's okay, because you can always change. Yes, you can always grow. One of the harder dynamics when you're raising children is when the kids know mom is going to say no and dad will say yes, or maybe it's the other way around, but they know who to ask, because each parent will give a different answer, and when you are giving different answers, you're actually setting up a situation where your kids are triangulating you and your spouse. You're no longer together as a team. They know when I want this, I'm going to go here. When I need this, I'm going to go here. And you may very much disagree with each other's opinions, and unfortunately, when that happens, it creates not just confusion, but it breaks down the relationship between the child and both parents. Don't think that just because I'm the one who says yes all the time and my spouse says no all the time, my kid will love me and only have a tough relationship with them. It doesn't work that way. You guys are together. You're either gonna both be in this well, or you're both gonna really suffer.
Daniel Lapin 35:37
And so practically speaking, as early as possible you want to get on, is it getting on the same page with your spouse, or is it setting up a rules? One of the things that I remember having to learn as a new husband was, and, you know, I didn't get married at 22 so I had a lot of time to get into bad habits. But one of the things that was really hard, and when I got it, it made life so much more pleasant and so much simpler. And you I'm sure you know where I'm going, is people. You know people. I was a busy rabbi, right? So people would say to me, so is it okay if I come over to you at seven o'clock tomorrow night and you can help me go through this thing? And I'd say, Sure, and and then it would turn out my new bride was hoping that we were going to have dinner at seven tomorrow night, because she was going to be wanting to it was very liberating when I discovered there's a simple answer, and that is seven tomorrow night. Do me a favor, call me back in about an hour, and by that time, I would have checked with my wife to make sure that works for us.
Rebecca Masinter 37:59
It is that is one piece of it for sure, to learn to say you don't need to answer any question right away. You can just say, I'll talk it over with daddy. And Daddy can say, let me talk it over with mommy. And if that is the default, then the truth is, you don't even have to always talk it over, meaning, sometimes I know what he's going to say, but it's still coming from both of us. There's no sense of, oh, I asked mom and I got away with it. The default is, you're asking me. You're getting our answer. You're not just getting my answer. And of course, that's an important part, and especially for provide
Daniel Lapin 38:35
security as well. Right to know that you know your parents are
Rebecca Masinter 38:40
absolutely and in many families. You know when we first for sure, the first several years of our marriage. As you know, my husband was working during the day and in school at night. I was doing 95% of the hands on parenting. But just because one parent is actually doing the physical work more doesn't mean that they shouldn't both be feeling equally supported and responsible together. And so when my husband, when he was home and a kid, would say, Well, can I have a lollipop? And his default was, well, let me ask mommy. That made me feel so supported. It's not like, Oh, you just get to Walton and have fun with them and give candy the four hours a week that you're home with them, it's you recognize that you know what? Maybe that's going to mess up their sugar levels. Or maybe it's almost dinner time, and that's not a good let me just ask mommy. Makes me feel good. But there's another part to it, and Max, and I talk about this a lot in parenting with partners is we give parents questions to discuss with each other. We give them lists of conversation topics. No, you're not going to sit and do them all at one time. You don't have to do them before you have kids. But over the course of years, you start having conversations of, what are our values? What values did I get? From my family that I was born into. What values did you get from the family you were born into? Out of those values, which do we like, which do we not like, which do we really like, theoretically, but practically cannot deal with right now.
Daniel Lapin 40:15
Can you think of an example that might fall into that category for somebody?
Rebecca Masinter 40:21
Absolutely, even just what I mentioned before of how so many of my kids early years my husband was not available to be a hands on Dad. So our theoretically, our value was both parents matter and a very involved dad is very important. Practically, we needed to get through law school, yeah, and so we were comfortable putting that one aside for a few years, knowing that it was still important to us. We would come back to it. It wasn't something that we said, oh, well, that's never going to happen. Just forget about it. This was important value, but it's a value we we said we very important to both of us, and right now we can't live it the way we would like to eventually,
Daniel Lapin 41:08
right, there's so much here. There really is so much that I would love to get into one one of them. One of them is, there are, I think, a number of toxic trends in the culture, in parenting. One of them we spoke about earlier not feeling confident in telling your children what the rules are. Again, by the way, another god, human being, relationship thing as I think of it, right? Yeah, but another one, and maybe it isn't toxic. It may only strike me that way. You will tell me what you think, but that is the trend, and I've read a lot about this. Most recently, I looked at it in The Atlantic magazine, which has Atlantic magazine, I often feel like I'm working in a garbage dump where I have to search through the garbage. That's my job. I have to look for stuff. Once every 10 years, I find a diamond ring or a wallet with money in it. The rest of the time, I'm sorting through garbage. That's what reading the Atlantic is like to me. But one of the pieces they had on was gentle parenting.
Rebecca Masinter 42:44
Very popular. It is right. I believe so.
Daniel Lapin 42:47
Okay, tell me what gentle parenting means. What how do you do this?
Rebecca Masinter 42:53
My understanding, I
Daniel Lapin 42:54
will tell you that my parents knew nothing.
Rebecca Masinter 42:56
I know that. Every term is certainly used differently by different parents. So I do not want to imply that there is no organization that said, these are the definitions and these are the rules of gentle parenting. You will see people using it in lots of different ways. My understanding is, is that it is an approach to parenting which is very much based on appreciating and empathizing and validating your child's experiences and perspectives as not just equivalent, but really above the parents. And I believe it usually goes along with a you do not say no, you do not punish. There are no consequences. We just understand you. Is that what you got from the article?
Daniel Lapin 43:38
Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. Yes, gosh, would it be nice if my parents were like that? I think I would, would have had a pretty easy childhood, maybe, maybe not a good adult. It's not such a good adult, Good So What Give me your reaction now, right? I'm a mother coming to you for for guidance, like so many mothers do, I'm sitting in your office and I'm saying? Well, I just, you know, our approach is gentle parenting. We just don't want our children to ever hear anything negative from us. No, no, no, nothing.
Rebecca Masinter 44:11
Where do you go? Yeah. So I think it's important to understand that I believe gentle parenting is people see it as a reaction to perhaps the way they perceived they were raised, which would have been authoritative, or dad says, and therefore you must do, who cares how you feel about it type thing. And I think that looking at parenting as an either or either you're an authoritative parent who has rules and boundaries and consequences, or you're an understanding parent who is empathetic is completely missing the point, because this extreme and that extreme are both unhealthy. What we need is to have both. I it's very important for me to understand you, for me to understand what you're capable of at this stage in your life. You know very often parents have expectations that are. Are not realistic. Your child is literally, physically, emotionally, intellectually, not capable. If you don't, we have to know that, but once you know that, then you still have to parent them with firmness, with consequences, with routines, with structure. It can't be one or the other. It has to be a blending of both. Does that answer your question?
Daniel Lapin 45:24
Well, I'm struck by the fact that that's back again, correct? God? Yes, it is, because an essential dichotomy built into ancient Jewish wisdom is that God is a God of judgment, but he's also a God of mercy and compassion, absolutely.
Rebecca Masinter 45:42
So I let me give you an example, actually, that there are so many examples, and any parent will deal with this, but one of my kids, as we were getting closer and closer to Passover, which some of your listeners may know, is a very busy time for a Jewish wife and mother, because we have to remove all leavened products from the house more than you'd think, way more cleaning top to bottom, spring cleaning on steroids. And I had a child who literally could not walk without touching everything, and he didn't eat with a fork and knife nicely either all the time. So at the end of every meal, this kid was covered in food. His hands were covered in food. And the CLO as we got closer to Passover, I would always say to the kids, we're going straight to the bathroom to go wash our hands after a meal, the bathroom was right next to our kitchen. You may remember that from that home to get to the bathroom, you walked past counters sticking out at you. Yes, and I knew this kid was going to touch those counters. Now, if I was only focused on behavior, I could say to him, do not touch the counters. He will touch the counters. I could get frustrated, I could get upset, maybe I would yell, maybe I would punish, you know, things could really deteriorate, or I could stop and take a step back and say, You know what this child is? Very tactile. He touches everything. He can't help himself. He doesn't even know when he's doing it. He's not aware of it. This is a deep, instinctive way that God has created him. And so what I used to do to him when it was after meal time, I would say to him, honey, put your hands on your head. We're walking to the bathroom like this, because I could wash dirty hair better than I could deal with the dirty counter. That may not make sense to all of you, but it was true, and that gave him something tactile to hold on to. It gave him something to touch, to pull, to do whatever. So I was understanding his nature, but that did not mean I was willing to be walked all over and have my clean for Passover kitchen messed up by a little kid.
Daniel Lapin 47:49
Got it. Yeah, certainly, when these sort of things crop up and people consult with you, is it usually in person, or is it over zoom or online? I mean, how do people, generally speaking, reach you and present a particular problem to you if they if they're a client of yours, how does that work?
Rebecca Masinter 48:12
either in person, if they're in Baltimore, or by zoom? And zoom works very well. Now we've all become very accustomed to it. Years ago, I used to think you couldn't have productive meetings about sensitive topics over zoom. It's just not the case anymore. We've all gotten acclimated.
Daniel Lapin 48:28
How often, when shall we say a mother consults you? How often do you say, look, I think we need to schedule another meeting with your husband present as well.
Rebecca Masinter 48:41
And I should add, there have been times that my husband has joined too. We've done a four, you know, two on two. And I'm very grateful to him. This is not his profession. He works very hard to support our family, and yet he still sometimes does come and join couple counseling because it has to be joint.
Daniel Lapin 49:02
like some of the time, can can the mother adequately communicate that to her husband? To with you feeling fairly confident that will happen? Or do you sometimes say, Look, we're going to need a couple sessions.
Rebecca Masinter 49:18
It's a great question, and perhaps very, very often, I would like to suggest a couple session. However, as you know, there is no benefit in meeting with someone if they don't want to meet with you, if they don't want to be there, if they don't see a value in it, correct? And so sometimes they it is the husbands who reach out to me, and then it's very easy to say, you and your wife, let's get together. Yeah, but if it's a wife reaching out, I do not know what their marriage is like. I don't know what their relationship is like. I don't I don't know their dynamics, and so I'm very cautious. I do not introduce you know the oh, let's bring your husband on board. Until I've done quite a bit more of you know how? Do you think this will work with your husband? What? How does he feel? Are you okay? And they might say, Yes, I'm going to go home and tell this to him. They might say, you know, maybe we'll, we'll spend a couple's date night watching your parenting as partners video and see what comes out of that. And sometimes it has happened that a wife has come to talk to me, and it has been clear to me that the marriage needs so much. The Parenting problems are a symptom of a marriage difficulty which is above my pay grade, and they should not come and meet with me. They need to go to a higher source.
Daniel Lapin 50:34
Interesting. I was going to ask you that actually, because I do 5f coaching, so I have a limited number of clients and just a little while ago, a gentleman was talking to me and he explained certain aspects of the dynamic and, and I've not met his wife at all, but I immediately realized that this has to have consequences in the children. What is this? And so I said to him, by the way, do either of your sons or your daughter behave in this particular fashion? And he was shocked. He said, Yeah, how do you know? And I said, well, because it's an outcome of the interaction between you and your wife, you probably have it in reverse sometimes, where a parent brings a problem to you, and you say to yourself, as I think you were saying, in order to fix this, we have to first of all fix up something with your spouse.
Rebecca Masinter 51:50
with your marriage, with your
Daniel Lapin 51:52
marriage, yeah, that does happen. Yeah.
Rebecca Masinter 51:55
And in general, I think that investing in your marriage, investing in a healthy relationship, is going to be one of the best things you can do to raise your children well and to have good children. If there was, you know, one thing parents said, Well, what should I focus on? You got to build your marriage. Yeah, because then the parent, the parenting, the children are just a natural outgrowth of that. And that also comes from biblical sources, of course, where we have the rebellious and wayward son, and he is one of the descriptors of his he doesn't listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and ancient Jewish wisdom says, right there, that's the problem. They didn't have one voice.
Daniel Lapin 52:33
separate voices. That's right.
Rebecca Masinter 52:34
You work on one voice. You're not going to have a child that's that resistant to growing up with you,
Daniel Lapin 52:42
practically speaking with as busy as you are, you're a homeschooling mom. You're running a coaching business for parenting. You're very involved in your community. I don't remember too many Shabbat tables, either Friday night or Shabbat lunch, where we've been with you, and it's just been family. You're almost always inviting people in from the community, particularly people you feel need a little bit of help and guidance with all of that's going on.
Daniel Lapin 53:23
How do you make sure that your marriage doesn't get neglected, that as focused as you are, and I know what a remarkable mother you are, the results are in already your children are old enough for us to know how do you make sure you're also working on the marriage?
Rebecca Masinter 53:48
That's a really great question, and I know you are, I am. I just we are, before I answer that directly, I think it's important to explain that my view of a balanced life is not that any given day is balanced. I hope this doesn't conflict with your 5f teachings. On any one given day, I do not live a balanced life. Meaning it's not that one portion of my day is devoted to myself and one portion to my marriage and one portion to my work. No What I try over a period of time and assuming that I'm in a relatively stable period of life that there's not something particularly challenging, I personally think of it as a week. If over the course of a week, I've had time with my husband and time by myself, and time homeschooling and time giving to the community, and then I feel I'm in balance. So are there some stages of life where my husband and I put much more time into building our relationship? Yes, are there other times where we're really coasting because things are really crazy and we can't give it what we want to Yes. And is it also true that over the course of a week, are we conscious to make sure that we are. Taking time just to go for walks, not, not a big deal. Just he's going to walk the dog. I don't like the dog, but I will go with him, because that's my time to walk with Him, and the dog happens to be there. Getting the dog was a joint decision. Though. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I didn't. I was not. I was the motivating force there, and we also try very hard to check in with each other regularly throughout the day, just to let the other one know I'm thinking of you. You're on my mind. So it doesn't mean that we have time to have in depth conversations every day. We don't. We're both really busy, but to know that I'm not living my life and he's living his life, but that we're making an effort to check in multiple times a day, between the time he leaves in the morning and the time he'll come back at night.
Daniel Lapin 55:46
Really very practical is very supportive, very, very helpful. You, as I mentioned earlier, you trained academically as a biologist, and yet you're in the field of parenting education. Where did that come from? At what point did you say to yourself, hey, I'm really good at this. I could help a lot of other people. Did people start knocking on your door when they saw your children? I mean, how did this begin?
Rebecca Masinter 56:15
That's yeah, well, to start with, you probably remember this, but when I went for my biology degree, everybody else in my group was either pre med or they wanted to swim with dolphins. They were marine biology. That's those were the two groups. You were either a swim with dolphin person or you were a pre med person. And then there was me, and I actually wanted to teach science, right? My goal was actually education, yeah. My goal was never science. My goal was I wanted to teach children. And if you recall, I started doing a joint education degree, and after a couple courses, I said, This is absolute garbage. I can learn better on my own, which, thank God I did. And I took my major over to biology, and that was fantastic. But my passion really was always child development, child growth, intellectual curiosity and blossoming and unfolding. So it wasn't a jump from the science to parenting that that was my path. And as far as sharing it, definitely people started coming and asking. The reality of being a mom of young kids, especially a home school mom of young kids, is that I had no time to give over to other people in an organized, prepared format, because I was living it like the whole day long. So what I started doing is actually recording very short, just two or three minute parenting thoughts on a WhatsApp group and if someone wanted to join, they joined. And there was very little preparation for me. I because I thought to myself, if I wait and only teach parenting, by the time my kids are growing and out of the house, the world is changing so fast I will be archaic, yes, so I can't wait, but I didn't have time to do more. So I started with very, very brief, just two, three minute, quick thoughts. And that grew and grew. There are hundreds of women who are part of that chat now. And because I've been doing that for five years now, I actually have a wealth of prepared material. So now, when I sit down and write my weekly article for Mother's guidance, I'm not starting from scratch. I've, I've done hundreds and hundreds of little sound bites, yeah, and it's easier, and I'm still in process. This is my business. Is very much something that I fit in. Five minutes here, 30 minutes here, it's a small part of my weekly life. Because, as you said, there are a lot of other things in mind in my life, as there are in every mother's
Daniel Lapin 58:44
right? Gosh, well, we're we got to start winding this down. And then I still want to keep you here for a bit longer, because I want to record the special bonus podcast for Happy Warrior members. That'll be great. Okay, and on that one, I'm going to ask you to list all the mistakes. I mean, I made raising that would be, I don't go there, yeah.
Rebecca Masinter 59:08
I think that's another important piece. There's no benefit. Everybody can look back and see what their parents did wrong, because they're human, and part of being a human being is making mistakes. It is irrelevant. It is absolutely irrelevant. You pick up and you start taking responsibility for your life and doing what you need to do.
Daniel Lapin 59:27
There's a wonderful scene in a silly movie, silly but fun movie from years ago. The movie was called Gumball rally, and it was about a sort of amateur car race across the country. And one of the one of the drivers, was in Italian, I forget, who played him with a very heavy Italian accent, and and they're about getting ready to go. And if I remember correctly, it's been a while, but the his navigator, the guy in the passenger seat, is saying, so what is. Everything's got to be right. And the Italian driver says something like, let me tell you the secret of Italian driving, and he reaches up to the rear view mirror, kicks it off the window. What's up behind me doesn't matter?
Rebecca Masinter 1:00:16
Which brings us full circle to the beginning of the podcast, because if you're parenting from fear, you are always second guessing yourself. You are always feeling I did that wrong. I shouldn't have done that. Whereas I come and say you're human, you're going to get it wrong, you are going to speak in the wrong tone of voice to your child, you are going to misunderstand a situation. You're going to get it wrong. You're human. Okay, fine, and
Daniel Lapin 1:00:40
in that rear view mirror are your mistakes and your parents mistake. Break it off and toss it away. What's behind doesn't matter. Yeah, got it got to move forward, right? Well, that is, that is what we're going to do. We got to do it again sometime, because I there's lots and lots of questions. We never even got to but mothersguidance.com is the website mothersguidance.com and this is our daughter, Rebecca, but to you, she is Mrs. Masinter - mothersguides.com is her location. And thank you very much. Rebecca.
Rebecca Masinter 1:01:22
Thank you. This was fun.
Daniel Lapin 1:01:24
Well, it's, it's amazing. It's, if you can imagine, for me, it feels incredible. And until next week, it is time for me to wish you a week of moving onwards and upwards with your five F's, with your family, your finances, your faith, your fitness and your friendships. God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
