Question:
I am married with three children. We are baalei teshuva for 10 years, and my husband is wavering. So is my 16-year-old daughter. She’s breaking all the modesty codes, smokes, and doesn’t care much for mitzvos. I want to throw her out or throw everything out. The standard response of “have patience and be friendly and attentive” doesn’t work. I’m fed up, I’ve tried everything, and it’s only getting worse. All day long she’s busy with boys and cigarettes and who knows what. It’s driving me crazy. What can I do?
Response:
Dear Questioner,
Thank you very much for your question. Your pain is evident in every word. Aside from the pain, I also recognize the deep responsibility you accept for your family’s teshuva process. This is also the core of the response I wish to offer.
You write that you have been frum for ten years. Your husband is wavering, and your 16-year-old is ever further removed. As you see it, you are making continued progress in your own teshuva process, and you feel a sense of responsibility to ensure that the other members of your family are likewise moving ahead.
Dear mother: Parents are only responsible for their children’s choices up to a certain point. The cut off is around the age of 12-13, though for each child it will be somewhat different – when the child takes his own responsibility and is considered an adult. We then trust him to lean on everything we gave him at a younger age and develop – to grow upon the foundation that we provided. Now, at an adult age, parents can no longer make choices on behalf of their children.
If parents can’t choose for their adult children, what is left for them to do? Daven, of course. The gates of prayer are never sealed; prayers to Hashem do not return in vain. And know that Hashem is waiting for your tefillos. Your relationship with Him does not depend on the spiritual state of your family members. It is between you and your Maker. “You are children of Hashem, your God” – always children, sometimes wayward, sometimes disobedient, but always children.
An ostensible fine line, which is actually a deep chasm, divides between prayer out of humility and prayer out of failure. A humble prayer is one in which you turn to Hashem and tell Him: “Lord of the world, this is your daughter; help me raise her.” A “crisis prayer,” davening that derives from failure, can be the opposite. It can be rooted in pride, in refusal to submit to circumstances. “I didn’t succeed with this daughter; she is not what I expected her to be. Make her what I want her to be.”
Children are not the property of their parents. A parent cannot put a child into a hatch he designed for him. The child has his choices, his decisions, and the path that Hashem designed for him.
Beyond prayer, it remains up to parents to set clear boundaries in their own home. This is our home, and we, the parents, decide the dress code, the type of friends who can come, and so on. The fact that your daughter needs to dress a certain way at home respects the family hierarchy. While not arrogating her choice, It also reminds your daughter that her behavior is inappropriate.
Finally, I want to offer some advice for how to maintain a close relationship with your daughter: by sharing. More specifically, by sharing home experiences. If she leaves the house in the morning and comes back in the evening, think about some things that happened at home during the day and tell her about them when she returns. The stories can be simple and even uninteresting, but in your daughter’s eyes they are a thread connecting her and the family. The neighbor broke her leg; I dropped a cup of coffee and everything spilled; grocery prices are so high that I drove to a faraway store.
A deeper form of sharing family identity is consultation. When she comes back in the evening, ask your daughter: “New neighbors just arrived and I want to bake them a cake. Should I choose a chocolate or a fruit cake?” “I wanted to cook soup for lunch. What do you suggest?” Your daughter will feel that she’s significant to you – not just an object that did or didn’t do teshuva but a person whose opinion is important to you (even when, for whatever reason, you can’t act on it).
Place yourself in your daughter’s place and feel the sweet feeling of “I’m needed. I’m important to them just the way I am.” This feeling, which you can give her, will empower her to rise.
I wish you great success and much joy in the process,
Tamar Pfeffer
