Dad and Mom as Matrimonial Managers

Have you recently attended someone’s wedding?  There stands the veiled bride with her lace brocade dress rustling gently with every move – and all you see is the vision of your unmarried daughter’s face beneath the sheer veil.  Does the somber groom invite you to imagine your own bachelor son in his place? And do you wonder – when will it be my child’s turn to join the ranks of the happily married?

Or perhaps you are one of those parents who secretly anticipates feelings of grief welling up inside on the day your child will marry. You may think to yourself, what will my life be like with an empty [emptier] house?  Will I feel betrayed or bereft when my child clings to another?

One of the first steps in preparing your child for marriage is your own honest evaluation of what your child’s marriage means to you. If you are the type who can’t get your child out of the house fast enough, might you be applying pressure or persuasion inappropriately? Or if you already rue the day you’ll have to ‘part’ from your beloved son or daughter, might you be (unconsciously) dismissive of potential marriage candidates?

Say you’re at a balanced calm place regarding your child potentially changing his / her marital status; what about your child? Do you see him or her as someone who is qualified and prepared to team up with a spouse towards building a healthy family? Or is your child focused on ‘self’ as if shopping at the mall in search of the perfect fit?

Have you ever heard daters utter phrases that make you wonder what their perception of marriage is? For example; “Is he as smart as me?,” “I don’t want to hear of a girl older than ____.”  (Where the age stipulated is at least five years younger than the young man.) Or; “He doesn’t have a degree?  Not even a bachelors? Not interested in a loser!” How about: “If she can’t make time to go out on Succot ‘cuz she’s busy with her family, then clearly marriage is not that important to her” – are comments that raise concerns about how this person sees themselves with relation to others. Demonstrations of entitlement, unreasonable expectations, criticalness, judgment, rigidity, and the like make us question the dater’s marital acumen.

And in the world of equality, double income and pre-nups, is your son aware of his responsibility under Jewish law of ‘she’er, ksut, v’onah lo sigara’; on the most basic level explained as ‘sustenance, clothing and conjugal obligations [from man to wife] must not be diminished’? If his wife contributes her salary or one of the fathers helps support while the ambitious groom completes med-school – they are volunteers to whom the young man must express a hearty ‘thank you’ – but he is really, according to Jewish law, the one obligated to support his wife.

What’s your role as parents towards preparing your child for marriage? There are basically two stages in this process.  

The first began long ago when you received your newly-born babe to your welcoming arms.  As soon as that child felt you cradling him or her, your kiss, the sweet nectary stuff you fed him – it was the very beginning of self-discovery in this world. And as he grew and you held your child’s hand when he teetered on his little feet, or you fashioned her silky fine hair into soft ponytails, or your instructions about when to respond with a clear ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ were integrated; your child learned about his / her body, appearance, how to accompany someone towards a goal, to consider the feelings of another outside of himself, to be obedient – and more.

You’ve been preparing your child for meaningful relationships from the beginning.

Then there’s stage II – assessing what notions or misconceptions your child may have imbibed, or where s/he may be ‘stuck’ due to foreign values or confusing messages. And there’s more, because there may be traumas along the way, hurtful interactions, or bad social media. The multidimensional world of contemporary relationships can make Jewish marriage look murky.

Although no blog can do justice to all the details that can come up in the process of a parent preparing a child for the enduring relationship of Jewish marriage, we’ll review some of your first stepping stones:

1. Do be aware of the impact of your own emotional process while endeavoring to help your child towards marriage.

2. Consider if your child is emotionally healthy to build a home with another; have they developed a proper balance between ‘me and we’?

3. Has your child’s social and personal development been healthy and balanced where they:

   • Integrated overt and subtle messages of valuing self and others, 

   • Learned how to express themselves appropriately, 

   • Take pleasure in supporting and giving to others,

   • Have incorporated appropriate boundaries?

4. Has your child been educated in the rudiments of Jewish marriage?  It is recommended that your child’s chatan or kallah teacher be someone who is not just giving over a pre-marital curriculum, but someone who wishes to escort your child through a custom-made marital process– towards an enduring relationship.

A child carries parts of his parents’ life energy (nefesh).  This indelible inheritance is so significant, that your input may be irreplaceable as your child undertakes to build the most meaningful human relationship of all. Utilizing your parental leverage with wisdom can be a huge advantage as your child seeks to build a home of his or her own.

1. Consider the passage of Breishis 2:24; …al ken ya’azov ish es aviv v’es imo v’davak b’ishto; “A man shall therefore leave his father and his mother and be united with his wife…’  One of the many meanings of this passage is to highlight the process of some measure of detachment from parents and bonding with one’s wife on account of marriage.

2.  Talmud Nidah 31:1 There are 3 partners in the creation of a person, The Almighty, his father and his mother.   

Miriam Miller Msc. is available for the following: guidance for parents seeking to assist a child towards marriage, kallah teacher – particularly for a kallah with a more complex background – family therapy, including individual and couples counseling.  She is the co-author of A Boy Named 68818; Feldheim Publishers.  To find out more, see www.Miriammiller.net or https://theplace.org.il/miriam-miller.  Contact her at Likrat.Nisuin@gmail.com .