Dear Dr. Respler,
I am writing to you about my parents who constantly contradict what I say to my children and interfere with the way my wife and I are raising them. My in-laws, on the other hand, are very supportive. That may be because we try very hard to model their method of parenting.
My parents live near us and are very involved with our children. My in-laws work and do not live as close. In fact, my parents bought us a house near them. Honestly, at the time we were so thrilled we did not realize that it came with strings attached.
My mother is always criticizing my wife who is a wonderful mother. We have five beautiful children and my wife hardly ever screams at them. She is loving and very understanding. As I said, my mother has a different view on how to best raise children. My parents are nervous people. They are children of Holocaust survivors and believe that children should be seen and not heard. They believe that we are wrong for not using corporal punishment.
Personally I wish that I had a mother like my wife. I struggle with low self-esteem, which my wife tries to bolster with her enormous love and sensitivity. I believe that my low self-confidence comes from having parents who would never compliment me and always criticized.
As we are very close to my in-laws, we asked them for advice. They are younger than my parents, but have great respect for them and feel it is not their place to get involved. They have suggested that we speak to my parents about the situation.
The heart of the problem may be that our children prefer to spend time with my in-laws and my parents are jealous of that close relationship.
I have spoken to my parents numerous times and made it clear that I do not want them to interfere. I know they love our children and do not want to hurt them. I did speak with a rav and he stressed how important it was that we respect them, even though we are not obligated to follow their advice.
Dr. Respler, can you help us with this challenging situation?
Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
It appears that your parents need to control you in some manner and are choosing to do it by criticizing the way you raise your children. Often those who criticize are insecure people who need to control others in order to bolster their own self-esteem. It is also possible, as you said, that your parents are jealous of your relationship with your in-laws and are trying to make themselves necessary. Can you respectfully respond to your parents by saying, “Mommy and Daddy, I understand that you don’t agree with our child-rearing techniques, but we would appreciate if you would respect our methods and not criticize us. It feel hurt when you criticize the way that we raise our children.” You can also remind them that it is not healthy for children to see this disagreement.
As hard as it is to watch our children make what we believe are mistakes, the only time a grandparent should intervene in his or her child’s parental techniques is if there are clear examples of abuse or neglect taking place.
I support your efforts to be respectful and loving to your parents by not severing the important bond between them and the grandchildren. However, you most tell them in a respectful tone that their meddling in the way you raise your children is inappropriate and that you hope to never be faced with the possibility of severing their bond with you. I would hope that if your parents realize how serious you are they will back off. In any event, you and your wife must continue to work as a unit in the successful chinuch you are giving your children.
A note with respect to hitting. Corporal punishment is not something I believe in. There are times, with young children, when a small tap may be the best way to help them understand something is dangerous. But that’s it. Taking out one’s frustration on a child is against halacha; it is absolutely forbidden to hit a child out of anger. There were Gedolim who hit their children gently when they were not angry as a chinuch tool, however, I would venture to say that none of us are on that level.
I would like to end with a beautiful story about Rav Shlomo Carlebach that I heard from Project Derech. Rav Carlebach was a rav in Germany and had eight sons who all grew up to be rabbonim. Whenever one of his sons was late to minyan he was punished by receiving toast without jam. When that happened, Rav Carlebach himself would not put jam on his toast to show the child that he felt his pain and was denying himself the pleasure as well. This is a level of child-rearing we should all aspire to. If we can withdraw a small privilege and share the pain with our child, there is less of chance that he or she will be angry with us and ultimately it will bring him or her to have a greater regard for us.
I wish you hatzlocha in raising your children!