Can't Hide Sickness In Other Languages

by David Kilimnick

Thoughts from a Waiting Room #13

You can't hide the bad news from kids anymore. Their Hebrew is too good. And whose fault is it. Yours. You sent them to Jewish day school, you sent them to Israel. Some of you made Aliyah and moved to Israel. And you wonder why you have to load up on sugar cereal every time you go to the supermarket.

Parents Try to Hide Stuff
Going shopping. You don’t want them to know. Otherwise, you’re picking up ice pops and Frosted Flakes again.
Parents try to hide information from their kids. That is the goal of parenting. You don’t want your kids to know stuff. Otherwise, you have to start explaining to the little critters why you brought them into this world. And you can't explain that. You're still trying to figure out why Frosted Flakes are so bad. Thus, you hide everything. "We're going camping tomorrow." "When are we going to let the kids know?" "Never." "Won't they figure it out once we're there?" "No."

We're Trying to Hide the Sickness
We're trying to hide the stuff about their Bubby’s condition. Figured, that's what we can do to help. We don't have much say as to the medical treatment, but we can hide stuff from the nephews and nieces. The problem is their Hebrew. The Jewish day schools are teaching too good.
I tried talking in Hebrew about Bubby. It was over in a second. "I know what 'Tiguva' means, I learned it in school." He then went off on a whole rant with the word. No concern for his Bubby, he was just so proud of himself for knowing the word "Tiguva." I had never seen such happiness to a conversation about somebody in the ICU for three weeks.
I have no idea what Tiguva means. I just used it because it sounded Hebrew. I think I was talking about some vacation I went on. I don't know. It was Hebrew. I truly didn't understand what I was saying. I just got involved in the moment. Heard everybody else talking Hebrew. Thought "there's illness, and you don't use English when somebody's sick." I am thinking English is an Eyin Hara. And I don't want to bring the evil eye when kids are around.

Their Hebrew
Their Hebrew is better than mine. My Hebrew is too basic to hide stuff from kids. I can’t Echad Ha’Am my Hebrew. I can’t pull out Navi Prophet words, that are now considered modern poetry if somebody uses it in their writing. People are amazed when somebody uses the Biblical "Vav." The way that letter that changes the future to past tense is mesmerizing. If you can’t understand my transliteration of the Hebrew letter, you're also lacking basic parenting skills. How do you plan to hide stuff from your kids if you can't transliterate?!

Jewish Day Schools Have Ruined Parenting
They’ve got to stop bringing these Israelis to American schools, teaching Hebrew. It is killing parenting. You can’t hide sickness from kids. "'Choleh.' That means sick. I know. I learned it. I'm awesome." No care about who is sick, just happy and prideful they know the word.
They know Hebrew, yet they're not saying Tehillim for their Bubby. They learned the word Tehillim in school, but they can't say the prayers.
And then they're teaching the kids a third language. Now, you can’t hide from them in French. Forget Spanish. They know that too. If I'm going to parent, I am learning Norwegian. They don't teach that in school.

Even if They Did Bad in School
They know something is up, even if they don't speak the language. They know, they hear Hebrew, it's serious. "Mom and dad are talking a language in grammatically incorrect form, somebody is ill."
You speak any language other than local dialect, they know it's not good. "Mom and dad are talking Portuguese again. Somebody must've passed away this time." “Anytime mom and dad talk Portuguese, something bad happens. I’m starting to see a pattern. I think grandpa just had a heart attack. And I think Portuguese is quite ominous.” “How do you know?” “They switched from English to Portuguese. Mid-sentence." 

Now the Kids Think Your Native Language is an Angry Tongue
You speak to your kids in Russian all the time, they are asking, "Why is Russian such an angry language?" Because your mom talks to you in Russian. And your mom doesn't like you.
You think French is the language of love. That's until you hear mom. Mom uses French to scream, because she's French.
I hear a woman speaking Spanish, I know she's mad at her husband. In English she's all kind with her, "Oh Honey. Jue are sweet." Might throw in a Mi Amor. She switches to Spanish, she starts talking fast speed, something went wrong. Dad's in trouble and kids are taking out the trash.
Jews, we used to have Yiddish. Got out our anger among the kids in Yiddish. And everybody knew who the Putz was.

Next time something bad happens, just say "Shalom Koolam Hakol LTova" when you get home. The kids will know, it is Hebrew, something bad is going on. No need to yell. “Mom and dad are talking with messed up grammar again. Something is wrong.” 
Or you can just tell the little ones, "Somebody died. There is death in the world. You don't have too long in this place. That's why you've got to put more effort into the Siddur party."

Conclusion
You want to really protect your kids. You want to hide information from the kids. You want to parent right. Stop teaching them Hebrew. Keep your kids uneducated.
Don't send kids to Jewish day school. Definitely don't teach them languages. Focus their education on English. Nobody uses English to hide news from their kids.
Me and my wife are going to learn sign language. It's harder to yell in sing language. And I want my kids to know that sign language is a language of love.

If you don’t care about protecting your kids, move to Israel. They will definitely know something is wrong when you try talking in Hebrew with your messed up vocabulary. They will realize how dumb mom and dad are, when they can't order Falafel like a normal person.
It's easier to keep your kids dumb in America.

And I am stuck trying to figure out why my sister-in-law is trying to teach her kids French.

***Thoughts From a Waiting Room are thoughts revisited from 2019-2020 in 2026 form. LRefuah Sheleyma LKol HaCholim and shared laughter with their family and friends, bZchut Avi HaRav Yeshaya Ben Yechezkel HaLevi ZT"L vImi HaRabbanit Necha Bat Chayim Zeydel A"H LAliyat Nishmatam.