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Not a zero-sum game

August 21, 2009 by

I have been thinking lately about families and what makes them so important for the individuals in them. Of course there’s love and affection. Of course there is respect and consideration. And there also is loyalty. When I wrote a couple of days ago about competition and how it is unhealthy in the context of a family, I didn’t talk about one very important concept: the zero-sum game.

The zero-sum game, briefly is: A situation or interaction in which one participant’s gains result only from another’s equivalent losses. Source: here

Unfortunately, most of us go through life thinking it’s a zero-sum game. That’s why people are so competitive. “I can only win if the other guy loses.”

When my children were young, we had a book of cooperative games. Instead of “King of the Hill” where one person gets to the top of the hill and pushes all of the others down, the book recommended a game where as many people as possible get to the top of the hill and they cooperate to see how many they can hold up there. Games which foster cooperation also foster healthy relationships. Games like “Red Rover” where everyone is on the winning team help children understand that there doesn’t have to be a loser.

When family member achieve personal or professional expertise, other family members need to not just be happy for them, but to rejoice in it for themselves. Every strength of every member of the family only increases the others’ strength. As my children excel in areas I can’t even touch or understand, I feel personally enriched. I share in their happiness. And, fortunately, that is how they feel about each other.

Shel Silverstein said it well:

Yonatan and his little sister Naomi Elisheva

Yonatan and his little sister Naomi Elisheva

Hug O’ War

a poem by the late Shel Silverstein
[Author of A Light in the Attic]

I will not play at tug o’ war

I’d rather play at hug o’ war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses

And everyone grins

And everyone cuddles

And everyone wins.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Ramblings, Relationships Tagged With: , , , ,

Pomegranates 2

August 17, 2009 by

I had so many lovely comments about the pomegranates that I was stunned. A few people commented that they had never seen what they look like growing on a tree. Since we harvested only some of them, I have included some pictures of the fruit laden tree in our garden.

Here is a view of the garden:

A view of the garden

A view of the garden

When we bought our house, I never realized how much pleasure I would get from that garden. We have only a small patch of grass, but yesterday it served as a base for the inflatable swimming pool I bought before I moved into the house. Yesterday was the first time I used it. Kinneret, 2 years old, enjoyed playing in the pool, emptying water from cup to cup and having my husband and me and her pouring the cups of water on her back, her head, and her chest. She giggled and laughed and splashed. It was idyllic– and it took place in the shade of the pomegranate tree.

The tree arching over the path

The tree arching over the path

And here are a couple of the growing pomegranates

Still ripening

Still ripening

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Ramblings Tagged With: , ,

Your enemy is my enemy

August 13, 2009 by

When I wrote about competition a couple of days ago, I was really writing about human relationships, particularly those among family and friends because competition is unhealthy in the context of friendship and intimate relationships– except as modified by Virginia Satir (if you haven’t already, see Competition).

But today, in thinking about close relationships I want to talk about loyalty. Loyalty is one of the most important elements of a relationship. Loyalty means that a friend or loved one will choose to support and defend their loved one no matter what. It means that we can always count on that other person to be there for us and stand up for us. It means that if we have been hurt or wronged, that other person will understand and feel the hurt and want to help us.

Early in our marriage, my husband, a loving and kind person, made sure that any time I felt hurt or slighted, I would know that the other person really was kind and good and that I was too sensitive. I found that hurtful– more hurtful than what the stranger had done to me. I wanted him to tell me that it wasn’t right that this person was insensitive or unkind to me. I didn’t want to hear why the other person was right and I was overly sensitive. To me, that was treason. His job as my husband and my best friend was to hear me and feel my pain and to take my side. I wasn’t asking him to retaliate. I wasn’t asking him to talk to the other person. I just wanted to be understood.

Fortunately, he’s gotten a lot better (though not 100%), but it is something I taught my children as well. The world can be a cruel and unkind place. There are people who unknowingly and knowingly hurt others. The people we rely on and love need to be with us. They don’t need to be our moral compass that informs us that no one really wants to do wrong or that the other person was busy/sick/preoccupied/annoyed etc. etc. We don’t want to hear excuses for why the other person was right and we were wrong. What we want to hear is, “No one has the right to hurt you like that; I love you; you are a good and worthwhile person.”

That’s loyalty. And that’s what we need to do as family members or close friends.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Pomegranates

August 10, 2009 by

When we moved to Israel, we bought a home with a garden. But homes with gardens here come with an unbuilt area filled with dirt– not soil, but dirt. From there, you are on your own. After living in our home for a year, I contacted a gardener to come and design a garden for us, put in all of the irrigation hoses (we do drip irrigation), and plant it. He asked what I wanted in the garden. I told him that I wanted something that was easy to maintain and that did not require a lot of water since we live in a water poor area of the world. He asked me if there were any specific trees I wanted and I told him that I wanted an olive tree, a lemon tree, a palm tree, and a pomegranate tree. He planted all those and more.

Each year we have watched our pomegranate tree bloom and then watched most of the blossoms fall to the ground. The most fruit we have ever had was 6 pomegranates. But somehow, for some unknown reason, this year, the tree is full of luscious looking pomegranates.

I have always loved the way they looked. When we were in Spain several years ago, we visited Granada whose name means pomegranate. While there, I bought a gold pendant in the shape of a pomegranate with a wedge cut out that had red stones inside. It was one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. Unfortunately, it was stolen. But I still have my tree and these beautiful round fruits to enjoy.

The first batch of pomegranates from our tree

The first batch of pomegranates from our tree

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings Tagged With: ,

If this is Monday, it must be Oz

August 10, 2009 by

I am enjoying watching people post themed photos on blogs, and Mondays are “Mellow Yellow.” What could be more mellow than a trip to Oz?

Last summer we drove across the US (I blogged every day or two so you can read about it on the postings from last June and July) and one of the places we passed through was Liberal, Kansas, home of the land of Oz. In the complex there are artifacts and furnishing from the late 1800s and early 1900s as well as a house constructed to look like Dorothy’s and a large enclosed area with sets to look like Oz.

A documentary film was made about this attraction showing the young women who play Dorothy and lead people through Oz and how their aspirations to see the wider word mirror hers. I would love to see the film someday.

Here’s Dorothy telling us about her house (note her anachronistic ruby red slippers):

Dorothy at home

Dorothy at home

and here is the famed Yellow Brick Road (this time marked with the names of people who donated money for the building and upkeep of Oz.)

The Yellow Brick Road

The Yellow Brick Road

MellowYellowBadge

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With:

Competition

August 9, 2009 by

I haven’t posted in a while on anything therapy/growth related and it’s about time. For the last two days I have been thinking of competition. Competition seems to be hard-wired in human beings. Even very little children want to be able to do something better than their sibling. They want to be thought smarter, prettier, cuter. They say things like “I can hold my breath longer than you can” or “my picture is nicer.”

It makes sense that we compare ourselves to others. There has to be some yardstick for performance, else how would we know if a performance were better or worse than average. We looked at Susan Boyle and we compared her to other women her age, other women singers, and before she began to sing, we expected that she would be laughable. Her appearance was thought to be substandard and people expected that her performance would be too. Everyone was surprised when she opened her mouth to sing and her singing was beautiful. In our minds, we compared it to the type of singing a normal person does and it was much better and then we held it up to a higher standard and she met or surpassed it. Comparisons help us make judgments.

However, competition turns out to be inappropriate and even harmful in many circumstances. In relationships with siblings and spouses, competition leads to devaluing behavior, sabotage, and ridicule. In families, we are on the same team. We need to be happy when any of our team members scores a basket! We need to help them maximize their performance just as we strive to do our own best. Saying “great job” and “wow, you did it!” when someone else has achieved something costs nothing and helps to build good will and feelings of security.

We all accept the concept of sibling rivalry as natural. Parents struggle to help each of their children to feel loved and valued, but there is always an echo of that rivalry. However, even worse is the situation when people have been programmed from early childhood to be comparing themselves to all others around them. The result is either always feeling wanting and inadequate or feeling superior (often without reason).

There are sometimes good results from striving for the kind of excellence that would lead people to see one as superior. People go to school and study for years to become the most knowledgeable, the recognized authority. People design research studies to achieve benefits for the public at large, but also because they want others to recognize their achievement and superiority.

But when competition enters family life, it is often destructive. When husband and wife each strive to be the one who is right all the time or the one who knows best, both of them suffer. When children are compared to one another in a way that lessens the value of one, that is destructive not only to the child’s ego, but to the sibling relationship– a relationship that often is the most satisfying lifelong relationship a person has.

Virginia Satir, a talented and much loved family therapist once told a couple that their competition was not a bad thing. The bad thing was what they were competing about. She suggested they compete to see who in the couple be the most loving, the most caring, the most forgiving, the most supportive, the most helpful. It’s the kind of competition that families need. It’s the kind of competition the world needs.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,

Some smiles

August 9, 2009 by

Here’s a photo of the children and their Saba on the Greek Island of Kos. It was a beautiful sunny day and the children loved walking through the colorful market area and exploring.

Six of our grandchildren and their Saba (grandfather)

Six of our grandchildren and their Saba (grandfather)

The cruise was a wonderful adventure.

Filed Under: Family life, Travel Tagged With: , , ,

Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv

August 2, 2009 by

This is a photo I took on a warm day last month when my sister and I were walking through the Neve Tzedek area of Tel Aviv. On that day, she and I probably covered a few miles of Tel Aviv on foot, but we were together and so it was fun. Neve Tzedek is the first neighborhood of Tel Aviv and was actually thought of as part of Jaffa in the beginning. Tel Aviv is, of course, celebrating its 100th birthday this year! For a long time, Neve Tzedek was neglected, but in the last 15 years or so, it is being gentrified and homes are being restored. Now it is a very “in” place to live. This is one of the back alleys.

Shadows in the alley. Neve Tedek

Shadows in the alley. Neve Tedek

Here is another picture from that walk:

Open door, Neve Tzedek

Open door, Neve Tzedek

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings Tagged With: , ,

The threes

July 30, 2009 by

The other night when I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I began to think about how old I am and how impossible it was for me to believe that I am not still in my thirties. And then I did a little exercise with myself that I found interesting. I imagined myself and my situation at every age that ended in 3.

3– At three years old I lived in Philadelphia with my parents. We lived in an apartment over a store space where my father fashioned items out of plastic. He made plexiglass forms that he painted and mounted on wooden platforms and wired as lamps. In a little over a year, he would be convinced that there was no future in plastics and to join my mother’s family in the floor covering business.

13– This was the year of my bat mitzvah. How happy I was! I had waited a long time and finally it was here. My parents and grandparents were excited too. I remember standing on the pulpit wearing a white robe over the totally inappropraite dress my mother had gotten me and little satin kippah with a tassel that my grandfather had made for me and taking part in the service. I remember when everyone turned around with the last verse of L’cha Dodi, my parents who were sitting in the front row and hadn’t been to shul much, didn’t know to turn around. I never mentioned it to them.

23– By now I was married and had a sweet little boy. In the just over two years my husband and I were married at that point, we had moved three times. I was now living in Somerset New Jersey on Sweetbriar Lane. The address itself seemed idyllic. The congregation he served there was not. Just before Rosh HaShana, I found out that I was pregnant and we called our parents to wish them a happy new year and to tell them that we had a wonderful surprise in store.

33 — We were now living in Germany and there were five children, the youngest born there, now 5 months old and just getting over her colic. We had done some traveling in the country, some volksmarches, and generally enjoyed living there. We had just returned from a month-long visit to Israel!

43– After living in Georgia, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma, we finally moved about an hour and a half from Philadelphia. By then, my father had already passed away and he was not able to enjoy our proximity. Our oldest son was in the Israel Army and our older daughter was also in Israel. A son who was studying in the US was away at Yeshiva in Israel for the year, another son was studying in New York and we had only our youngest at home with us. I was studying at the University of Pennsylvania for a doctorate in social work even though I had been trained, licensed, credentialed, and working as a marriage and family therapist. It felt like I was squandering the family fortune on tuition. Well, actually, I was.

53– I had moved to Israel 3 years earlier and I had moved into our current home, the 18th since we got married, about three months earlier. What a joy it was to be in Israel, close to all of my children and grandchildren (there were 9 by then) and waiting with great anticipation for the day when my husband would join me.

63 — Now there are 29 grandchildren, my home is just about the way I want it to be (OK, we could use cleaning help), and I get a special thrill out of tour guiding to China and Vietnam/Cambodia! Who knew how many turns my life would take, how much would happen over the years. Stay tuned for more updates!

Filed Under: China, Family life, Israel, Parenting, Ramblings Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Helpful hints for reputation management from the mother of someone who does it for money

July 26, 2009 by

I was reading an article about the arrest of several mayors, politicians, rabbis, and other people today on charges of corruption and international money laundering, and I thought, “this has got to be a disaster for everyone involved.” And then I thought about who could possibly benefit from this mess.

So for those who would rather not have to pay to have their reputations managed, here are a few helpful hints:

1. If you want to get rich, learn something well and work hard.

2. If you are thinking of getting involved in a business deal and the other person seems to be the kind of person who would cut corners, run the other way.

3. If you’re not sure if it’s legal, it probably isn’t.

4. If you don’t look good in handcuffs, obey the law.

5. If you enjoy walking down the street without people pointing at you and commenting on your behavior, stay legal and inconspicuous.

6. Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want featured on the front page of your local newspaper.

And if you don’t follow my advice, get in touch with my son

Filed Under: Ramblings, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,
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