NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY LINKS, A MAGAZINE GEARED TOWARDS TEENS WHO HAVE FACED THE LOSS OF A PARENT

Groa-a-a-an.

If that’s your reaction to the idea of Pesach coming up, then this article is for you.

Forget about the cleaning for Pesach. That’s not what you are dreading—although it just may not be your most favorite activity (mine neither; that’s why I start my Pesach cleaning two weeks before Pesach, leaving me with more than enough time a week before Pesach to cook! Thank goodness for maids…). No, your dismay or anxiety is what Pesach means to your family, to you, when your father—or mother—has died; when you may be dealing with a stepparent, stepsiblings; or coping with being alone for yom tov with only one parent.

I’m going to make a list of some of the things teens, young adults, and newly—marrieds may have to face on yom tov. It’s not a comprehensive list, so you can add on as many more problems as you wish. So here goes:

If you live with only one parent:

If you live with a stepparent/stepsiblings

 

Like I said, if I left anything out, fill it in for yourself or you can email me list so I can address it in another article (maybe for Succos?).

But I would like to divide these issues into two categories:

Sometimes, these are issues that many people face around yom tov, even in homes where nobody has died. No family is perfect, and teens feel overworked and underappreciated, parents are tense and not always pleasant to be around, and even biological siblings are bratty or inconsiderate—including those married ones that move in for yom tov like you are a running a hotel, complete with cleaning and babysitting amenities.

If there are problems in the home—both big and small—before yom tov, like some tension between parents, money is tight, siblings don’t get along, or a billion other things that families need to deal with (just ask my kids! They have a zillion complaints about how I run my house…), yom tov simply exacerbates the situation a thousand times over.

These issues are not pretty, but normal.

And the yom tov tensions in the aftermath of a parent’s death and/or a remarriage, although really not fun at all, can also go under the category of normal. A weird normal, but still normal.

Normal would mean that in your case the people involved, like your parent, your sibling(s), your step-parent, and step-siblings, are generally good people who do not want to hurt you. Over all, they have a good track record of having decent relationships with others, functioning well as people, and you can feel they care about you, or want to care about you and make things work. Normal would mean that if you take a step back, even if you don’t like what they are doing, or feel ignored, rejected, overworked, underappreciated, taken advantage of, angry, or sad, you know that you are safe with them and they are doing the best they can under the circumstances.

But the second category is more serious.

It would mean that there are issues that are not normal, and that no child should need to have to deal with. Nobody is allowed to hurt you, or to say cruel things to you. You cannot be given jobs and responsibilities that are beyond your capabilities, or forced into situations that are inappropriate or pushing you beyond comfortable boundaries.

If you feel unheard, unsafe, or overwhelmed; if you feel depressed, anxious, or scared; if you feel something is just not right, then you need to reach out for help. Speak to your parent, call the Links hotline, reach out to a trusted rabbi, rebbetzin, teacher, principal, family member, therapist, or neighbor. I know you may feel that nobody or nothing can help, but you would be surprised how something can. The first step to help is reaching out. (I know that some of you have called me and told me that you have tried to reach out to someone, and that person somehow betrayed your trust. I sympathize with you, but I tell you this: reach out again and again until someone hears you!!! Eventually, you will see, you will find the right person who will listen and help you.)

So let’s go back to your normal family (I know, I know normal is relative! And some relatives are not normal, but like I say, normal is soooooo boring! And quite overrated…). Normal being that you generally feel safe and cared for. But right now with yom tov coming up, you know you will not be a happy camper. Either because of past experiences with Pesach and yom tov, or because there are new situations that are coming up and you absolutely don’t want to have to deal with them.

Now, I am going to tell you the honest-to-goodness truth. I was a lousy teenager to my own parents. I was a selfish newly-married/new mother-with-the-most-adorable-baby-you-have-ever-seen-so-of-course-everyone-should-babysit-him-so-I-can-sleep-late, who had no clue about anything and anybody and was so busy with myself that I could not see two inches in front of my nose.

So, with this confession, I am the last person you would listen to for advice.

You know the joke: a seventeen year old teenager thinks his parent is the absolutely dumbest person in the world and is shocked three years later how his parent has acquired the status of absolutely brilliant in such a short time.

But, as my friends will tell you, I dispense opinions even if no one is listening. So here goes:

It seems a little too easy when I tell you that if you are dealing with situations, or potential situations that come up before or during yom tov, and you know they will be problems for you, then it actually may help to have a talk with the person(s) involved to alleviate some of the hardship.

“Oh, yeah right!” you are thinking. “Try talking to mother about that!”

Yes, darling, I would try talking to your mother about that. Or your father. Or your grandmother. And here’s the thing: maybe it will help and something can be worked out. Or maybe it can’t be, and your parent will explain why, making you feel validated and part of the decision making, somehow making the burden easier to bear.

You are feeling resentful about giving up your room?

Sometimes there are solutions that can be worked out, if you would just think about it. Maybe you need to talk to your married sister about alternate arrangements like sleeping by your grandmother, about only leaving the children to sleep over after the seder instead of everyone moving in. Maybe. Or else, maybe there are no alternatives, but you can make a deal with your mother or sister: I move out and you spend the day in Manhattan with me after yom tov. We play hooky from work, from school!

If you feel you are overworked, reach out to your married siblings and insist they bring something, or at least come one day to cook with you, to clean. Maybe their share needs to be picking up the cost of a cleaning lady one day. Moving in for yom tov is saving them a lot of money. Speak up.

Then there is the emotional stuff: You are a great kid and feel your parent’s pain. Did you try talking to your parent? Do you share your pain with you friends? A mentor? You should.

You want to move out for yom tov instead of staying home? Or the opposite?

Your parent is leaving it up to you and you feel guilty making that decision knowing s/he would be unhappy about that?

Tough decisions. But sometimes, talking this out with an objective person gives you perspective to know what is right in your situation.

Maybe you are dealing with a step parent who does things totally different than your deceased parent did. And it’s really hard for you to watch him make bedikas chametz, to lead a seder; it’s really hard to watch her cook or buy food or use ingredients that are totally unfamiliar, or not according the customs your mother used to keep.

I am so sorry for your pain. It’s seems so unfair that parents die and kids are left to deal with the aftermath. Of course, we need to believe that what Hashem does is for the good, and all that, but we are only human and it is a lifetime of work to reach that madrega; so while we are working on it, we may feel all the emotions that accompany grief, including the feeling of it’s-not-fair!

But here’s what I can tell you. If you are reading this, and you have assessed your situation as going under the normal versus abnormal category of family stressors, then I would encourage you to speak to others to alleviate your pain and to gain perspectives that can help you better cope with painful decisions.

And for situations that may seem hard, or unfair, or uncomfortable (uncomfortable in a normal way—like you have a stepfather leading the seder instead of a father, or a stepbrother comes home from yeshiva for bein hazmanim—not uncomfortable in that something feels wrong to you and you feel unsafe), then you need to think of how you can rise above the situation instead of infecting the house and younger siblings with your attitude and misery.

Often, younger siblings are happy to have the normalcy of having a mother cooking for yom tov even if it’s a stepmother. Sometimes, younger siblings are glad for a father to take them to shul on yom tov, even if it’s a stepfather. Often younger siblings can adjust to a one-parent house if the older sister can be a role model. Sometimes the younger siblings can learn to share their feelings, their grief, their discomfort and frustrations if the older sibling can model for them.

But if the older sibling cannot accept the new situation, if the older sibling grouches, withdraws, argues continuously, or walks around with an anger, resentment, and misery, the whole house gets infected and destroys the yom tov for the younger ones who are open to this new or different experience and how they can make it work.

It puts a responsibility on you, but yes, you can rise to it.

So, in a nutshell, with Pesach around the corner, here’s my advice:

  1. If something feels wrong, in an abnormal way, reach out to make sure the situation can be resolved, or at least the beginnings of a resolution can begin, giving you hope that you are not stuck.

  2. If you are dealing with a difficult situation, reach out to your parent or others who can help you work out viable solutions. Speak up loud and clear!

  3. If there are some decisions you must make that cause you to experience guilt as a result, reach out to a rav who can give you perspective on your role as a daughter and kibud av or em in this context..

  4. If there are things that cannot change, and they are within the realm of normal (like spending all your free time off from school cleaning and babysitting instead of joining your friends shopping who don’t have to do anything at home and have an extended vacation from school from Rosh Chodesh Nissan on) find a way to accept them. Either by getting a reward for your hard work (like getting those art lessons you wanted, or a day out with your father), or working on your middos and attitudes.

 

And there’s the very last situation that I would like to bring to your attention.

There are those girls, teens or young adults, who are the exact opposite of the type I am talking to until now. Until now, I was addressing those reading this who are allowing themselves to feel the full range of feelings that come with difficult situations.

But the second type, who concerns me even more, is the martyr. The girl who absolutely does not want to make her parent feel bad, who shoulders heavy burdens far beyond her capabilities, who takes full responsibility for her younger siblings and her parent, and even her married siblings. She refuses to acknowledge that something is not right, or that she is not the parent, or even that it is unhealthy for her to be a martyr. She does not even recognize the problem of her distorted thinking, even when others point it out to her. Concerned married siblings tell her, her aunts, her neighbor, her teacher, or even her own parent. They notice it because she is high strung, overly anxious, overly cheerful, overly overly!

Am I describing you?

So whoever you are, do what you need to do in order to have a halfway decent kind of yom tov. And allow others around you to do and have the same…

(Now that this article is finished, I have absolutely no excuse to avoid the Pesach cleaning anymore. Are chandeliers really chametzdik???)

 

 

 

 

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