Community Views
Editor's Notebook
Success, Failure
And Today's Parent
Our 'Dirty Laundry'
Hangs Us All Up
HARLENE APPELMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHIL JACOBS EDITOR
Summertime and
the living is easy.
And take me out to
the ballgame, too.
It's time for batter
up and all those
other great
sounds. However,
I was recently
struck by the
struggle some parents of young
children were facing for the first
time. Little League has that pow-
er, you know. The power to test
every value we have. It made me
think back over my own strug-
gles as a parent of an athlete.
There I was in the front row of
the bleachers, yelling, "Stick 'em."
My child, wrestling at 135
pounds, was facing another
youngster of equal weight and
equal intensity. They had each
donned their most ferocious
"game faces," and each was de-
termined to win.
As I think about it now, cheer-
ing for my own son was not in-
appropriate. Being supportive
of a sport that offered him
discipline and the oppor-
tunity to compete at his
own weight also seems
reasonable.
think that what
bothers me to-
day, as it both-
ered me then,
was the inten-
sity that I
felt in hop-
ing that he
would win.
It was the
intensity
that I had so
often criticized in oth-
er parents as I watched them ar-
gue with referees about a point
or penalty.
I was jolted back to reality
when one of my son's teammates,
wrestling on another mat, was
the recipient of an uncontrolled
body slam. The young man lay
on the mat, and that agonizing
moment when the crowd was
waiting to see if he could move
his arms and legs was pierced
with a call from the parent of the
boy's opponent: "He's faking, ref.
That kid's a woosie!"
Without missing a beat, I
found myself in a shouting match
with this stranger. "If it were
your kid on the mat, you'd be
singing a different story," I yelled.
Here I was, a well-educated
46-year-old mother of five,
screaming at a wrestling match.
What happened to me scared me.
I was immersed in the frenzy of
athletics. I felt as though I had
lost part of my own humanity. I
was also embarrassed by my re-
action. I regained my composure
Harlene Appelman is the director
of educational services for the
Agency for Jewish Education.
and was quiet for the rest of the
tournament.
Today, when I write about my
experiences with my son the
wrestler, I believe I can share
some valuable insights about
young people and sports.
First, at a difficult time in his
adolescence, we found something
that we could share and talk
about with relatively little con-
flict. That was good.
Second, as soon as I recognized
that he really wanted to succeed
in this sport, I was willing to help
whenever it seemed reasonable.
That was also good because he
could see that I wasn't always his
opposition (a perception that
many teens have about their par-
ents).
Third, it took the incident I de-
scribed above and maybe anoth-
er to help me
stay grounded
and not be-
come con-
sumed by my need for my son to
succeed. That consumption is not
good.
Fourth, I was and still am dis-
turbed at the amount of power
coaches have over high-school
athletes. This is not good. On one
hand, when the coach is a good
role model and really has a grip
on what a student athlete can be,
then he/she can be very helpful
in guiding a teen to reach his/her
potential. However, when the
coach is doing his/her job simply
for ego gratification, then the
whole family is in big trouble.
In a study conducted by Bowl-
ing Green State University, "the
coach's assessment proved to be
the most potent force in a play-
er's self-confidence. It influenced
each youngster's self-esteem in
relation to leadership/popularity
and family/parents."
I'm not certain much can be
done about this. However, I
would strongly advise that you
get to know the coach of your
child's sport or team well. It is a
mistake to assume that your
goals or your child's goals are nec-
essarily those of the coach. It is
extremely important that
whether or not the goals are iden-
tical, that they be clearly defined
and well-understood by everyone
involved.
The other issue that continues
to run through my mind is: Ex-
actly where do athletics fit in the
scheme of Jewish child rearing?
Athletics and physical recreation
were a trademark of the Greek
society into which the Jews at the
time of the Maccabees were as-
similated. As leisure time became
more abundant, some Jews be-
lieved that it should be spent
studying Torah, while others
were excited by the pursuit of
physical fitness (sound familiar?).
During my childhood, athlet-
ics were problematic because
many times they interfered with
Hebrew school. Competition took
place on Shabbat. It would nev-
er have occurred to my parents
to request a scheduling change of
the coach or the recreation de-
partment because of Jewish be-
liefs. I simply wasn't permitted
to play.
Today, with some extra
effort, Jewish youngsters
(even traditional ones)
have the opportuni-
ty to become in-
volved in sports.
Requests for
schedule
changes and
recreational
leagues that
play on Sun-
day are real
options.
The ques-
tion becomes
how important is
it? Do I believe that the pursuit
of athletics should replace Jew-
ish education or Jewish obser-
vance? Absolutely not. However,
I believe that athletic programs
have something positive to offer
young people, and it's worth the
effort to try to juggle one more
thing.
I must admit that my own son
gained self-discipline, confidence
and self-esteem by learning to set
a goal and trying his hardest to
reach it. When he was eliminat-
ed from the tournament that end-
ed his wrestling career sooner
than he, his coaches, or I had
imagined, he made me prouder
than I had been at any of his vic-
tories. He left the gym, pulled
himself together, and reentered,
still the captain of his team with
a job to get done.
What has lasted for both of us
are some memories that we share
in a special way. The lesson that
remains with me alone is how
easy it is to get enmeshed in our
children's successes and failures.
Keeping a balance and a distance
is not a simple task, but one that
must be accomplished. ❑
In 1982, when I
got into the busi-
ness of "Anglo-
Jewish" jour-
nalism, I learned
firsthand what
my editor, Gary
Rosenblatt,
called the 11th
commandment:
"Thou shalt not air thy dirty
laundry."
Jews, I discovered, "never"
gambled, "never" attended AA
meetings, "never" abused their
spouses, weren't divorced,
weren't homosexual, "never"
needed economic aid and were
"never" unemployed.
How was all of this discov-
ered? Simply by reading Jew-
ish newspapers of the time.
There were few stories dis-
cussing the otherwise hidden
problems or the fact that we,
like the society we wanted so
much to emulate, had chal-
lenges to overcome. Nobody, not
even the most religious, was ex-
empt.
Then Jewish newspapers,
much to the dismay of some of
their reading public, began re-
porting what was really hap-
pening out there.
Indeed, Rabbi Avraham
Twerski, a national figure in
the treatment of drug and al-
cohol abuse, reported how sub-
stance abuse was a sad reality
in every part of Jewish life. A
young boy, home from yeshiva,
related how he had to threaten
his father with a baseball bat if
he ever "hit" mom again.
A local temple hosted an AA
meeting. I attended a get-to-
gether there only to learn
through the smoke of the heavy
cigarette users that few in the
room were Jews. The group
leader explained that Jews,
afraid to be seen, attended a
meeting at a church on the oth-
er side of town.
Jewish children drew pic-
tures, showing feelings of guilt,
in peer support groups set up
to help them work out their
roles in their parents' divorces.
Jewish high-school students
recounted how they were shot
at when cocaine deals went
wrong after school.
Displaced homemakers re-
counted how their successful
Jewish husbands left them for
other women, giving them 30
days to take the children and
find another place to live and a
new way to pay for the house-
hold. There are also Jewish
women who don't handle their
share of the parenting in joint-
custody situations.
These were the stories that
we started reporting and
haven't stopped covering.
This is not being brought up
now to beat up on anyone, es-
pecially in a community like
Detroit that provides so many
services for its members.
But this week, we have a sto-
ry on WINDOWS, a JFS fam-
ily-violence prevention pro-
gram. There isn't a week that
goes by where a program help-
ing Jews work out their prob-
lems isn't addressed in a news
story, a calendar ad or even an
ad in this newspaper.
If we check across the coun-
try, we would see that similar
programs are in the public eye.
I can remember when commu-
nity members asked Jewish
newspapers not to write any-
thing that could be slightly con-
strued as negative, because the
gentiles might find out.
We seem to be less concerned
with what others outside the
community are thinking. How-
ever, there is still an unfortu-
nate stigma.
Many of our community
members still won't seek help.
They also believe that Jews
aren't supposed to go hungry,
Jews aren't supposed to lose
their tempers time and again.
So instead of getting help, they
go without decent food and they
resort to behaviors that are un-
necessary.
If this is you, don't do it any-
more. Would it help you to
know that other Jews have dif-
ficulties with substance abuse?
Would it help you to know that
you don't have to get hit any-
more? You can get help, and
you don't have to leave the Jew-
ish community.
Instead of "dirty laundry,"
have a clean conscience. The
stigma that we should forgo
help simply because we're Jew-
ish should be put to rest. Need
a number? Try 559-1500 at
JFS. Have the courage to make
the call. Don't avoid it because
you're Jewish. That should be
the reason you make this call
and get healed. Your commu-
nity needs you; so does your
family. You need you.
Now the other worry. While
we feel freer in the Jewish press
to report on social issues that
air as "dirty laundry," we also
worry that our readers become
numb to the stories. There are
so many great acts of mitzvot
and charity, heroic efforts with-
in the Jewish community to en-
hance the quality of life, that
none of us needs to be beaten
over the head by the negatives.
None of us should feel left
out, though. All of us must have
an opportunity, no matter the
depths of our depression, to
hope that there is quality in life.
We know that there is. ❑