–What movie would you like to see?
–Well, I must look at the reviews before giving you an answer
–Remember we must make plans before tomorrow afternoon when I have to contact a
baby-sitter.
–Sure, I’ll do my best, but you don’t appreciate how many factors must be considered.

Finally, you get a response. Yes, I looked at reviews online and have narrowed the choice to three movies. I need to talk with a friend who saw one, and I’d like to get her opinion. Be back to you soon.

What’s going on here? You could argue that your friend is cautious and she certainly is. Caution is no capital crime. In fact, it’s admirable. But it is also probable that your friend’s parents raised her to be cautious. But dig just a bit deeper.

The easiest way to create indecisiveness in childhood is for the parents to usurp decision making. And make decisions that a child could rightly make for itself. You’ve met such parents. They make it clear to all and sundry that as mothers and father they intend to make the family decisions and leave their children out of the process. Parents are parents and children are children. One makes decisions and the other doesn’t.

But is this any way of preparing children to make their own decisions, an essential ability as they become adolescents? A parent who doesn’t allow a child to participate in decisions making will create timid, shy, and indecisive progeny. Timidity, shyness and indecisiveness will haunt a kid from childhood through adolescence into adulthood. Such children may think of themselves a cautious but in truth have little confidence in their own abilities to make judgments.

Unfortunately, all too many discover a screwed-up pattern of decision making in their upbringing. And guess who is responsible. Usually a strong (some say tyrannical) parent. If a child is really unlucky there are not one but two tyrants buried in the past.

My newest book, “A Simple Formula for Raising Happy Children”, was in the making for many years. The kernel of this book, I must admit, was negative. I started watching parents with their young children, and in too many cases, what I saw astounded me. I witnessed what appeared to be rotten parents. You know the type: I’m the parent and my kids are the children. I know best; they know nothing. Of course, they mean to be good parents, but that, in their views, requires dictating good behavior, demanding obedience, and making sure that their kids grow up to be adults exactly like them.

OK, I said to myself. A parent has a right to define his/her parenting. But then I began to think that while children depend upon their parents for love, food, clothing and health, they are also a part of a larger social system, and someday they will leave the attention of their parents and venture forth into the world, someday to repeat the parenting experience on their own.

My rabbinical career allowed me to minister to families from birth to the grave. That gave me perspective to evaluate what became of the children from these “bad parents.” And what I saw, I didn’t like. These bad parents, with all their good intentions, created individuals lacking self-esteem, decisiveness and, most importantly, good judgment.

No surprise, if a parent doesn’t let a child participate in decision making, it’s logical that his/her child will grow into adulthood without the skill and experience in the critical life-sustaining process of making judgments. An ill-advised Mommy and Daddy will steal from their children growth years in which they learn to make good decisions. By the time they reach adulthood, it’s too late. Again no surprise, children of bad parents are ill-equipped for decision making and therefore make costly life mistakes. And costly mistakes don’t lead to happiness.

This is no recipe for raising happy children. When I discovered what was going wrong, it was easy to see what was necessary to improve the child rearing process. And oh yes, there are also many wonderful parents, who “get it.” They share decision making with their kids, and yes, these kids generally become happy and successful adults.

Buy A Simple Formula for Raising Happy Children in PAPERBACK.

Buy A Simple Formula for Raising Happy Children on KINDLE.

Dr. Roger Herst

Rabbi Herst is in Israel for the next few weeks researching his upcoming book, the 6th installment in the Rabbi Gabrielle series.  He will be checking in with daily updates, revealing his research process.  Here is the third:

Nazareth, Israel. An Arab city inside Israel, 60% Muslim, 40% Christian. Questioning whether it would be helpful to involve an Israeli Arab in the story. The status of Israeli Arabs is particularly filled with conflict of identity. I’m learning of the complexity of Israeli’s relationship with the West Bank. In one section they collect taxes, according to the Oslo Agreement, and if they would cease and place that responsibility on the PLO. But that will encourage Hamas to make a stab at such revenues. The PLO is completely dependent upon such tax payments in order to survive, and Israel needs the PLO, not Hama in the West Bank. Question in my mind, to bring back from Gabby’s Tempest the Israel border policeman, rather than use a Canadian sergeant.

Dr Roger Herst

Today I wrestled with my upcoming villain while visiting Jaffa, where in 1948 many Arabs fled to Gaza, where they still remain. Had lunch with an Arab Christian woman who explained how identity in the Middle East is governed by 1) religion 2)Arab, non-Arab, Jew and 3) nation of governance — in that order. While happy with conditions in her life she claimed no identity with Muslim Arabs. A delicate road to weave. A writer in Israel cannot ignore the color of the stones which outlast individual people. History usurps itself here. Events blur, while people must continue their daily lives, and that means bringing up children. I think I have now devised a credible villain for Gabby 6. A Palestinian who lives in his culture, tries to break from it to accomplish something big, but is unsuccessful.  The trick is to create a sympathetic character who does something evil.

Dr Roger Herst

Rabbi Herst is in Israel for the next few weeks researching his upcoming book, the 6th installment in the Rabbi Gabrielle series.  He will be checking in with daily updates, revealing his research process.  Here is the first, from Tel Aviv:

The job is to scope out a workable plot. Gabby left us (in the 5th novel) in Jerusalem with her steady friend, Itamar Arad, Director of Israel Antiquities. So the natural thing is for her to get embroiled in Israeli politics, and that means the Palestinian issues. So geographically, I’m pointed to the West Bank or Palestine, where I’d head in 2 weeks. For the time being, I’m in Tel Aviv, a cosmopolitan, cafe culture city on the shore of the Mediterranean. It’s easy to find diversion here, but not inspiration. I had time alone, so yesterday I walked the sunny beaches, and pondered my major issue with the 6th Gabby book. Who will be the major villain? That is to say, who will prevent Gabby from doing what she wants. A good villain makes a good story. He/she must be motivated well, and the reader must understand the conflict of character that makes him/her into a antagonist. Tough problem at the beginning, but once solved the rest of the story will fall into place.

Until tomorrow….Rabbi Roger Herst.

Now an interesting question — have we passed the tipping point? Are entitlements politically impossible to modify, control or eliminate? With a growing host of assistance programs, is it possible to turn back? Medicaid just got bigger by 40,000,000 new subscribers and that’s before the already insured have figured out how to incorporate this assistance program into their lives. And what’s more, because of a sluggish economy and a generous immigration policy, the elderly and impoverished are steadily growing. Of course, the first knee-jerk response is the tax the wealthy more to help pay for the increased costs. And that makes sense, but unfortunately the wealthy don’t have enough money to pay for the deficit and, equally important, given the tax code, the wealthy use expensive, clever accountants to figure out how to reduce whatever new taxes are imposed. Tax avoidance/reduction is a national sport. Thank you H&R Block.

How do we pay for this heartfelt largess? Partly by taxation and partly by increased debt. We just borrow and borrow to pay. And since such a substantial proportion of our people are dependent upon government help, we can’t reduce services or, Heaven Forbid, remove them altogether. Especially, when we live in a democracy where the electorate will throw out of office any representative who mentions diminishing what are now considered essential services. So, where are we? There’s only one alternative — to borrow more and keep borrowing until there’s no lender left standing.

Have we passed the tipping point? Are there too many citizens dependent upon government help to affect any significant change? Probably, but capitalism is cruel and self-correcting. Eventually a system is no longer viable and change occurs not by disciplined reason, but by default.

But the debt game doesn’t quite work like that. Sure, taxes will rise and young taxpayers will have to pay. But the way our children will notice it most is in comparison with their parents’ standard of living. Those burdened with Dad’s debts will enjoy less material benefits than the preceding generation. The three car family will become a two car family, and the the two car family will be reduced to one. Cheaper trips and fewer computers. Belt tightening all the way around.

The American dream usually implies that each generation will live a bit better than the previous one. Children will be richer than their parents. They will make more money and have more stuff in their lives, enjoy more freedom for leisure and travel, and, of course, manageable mortgages and little or no school debt. These days there is considerable doubt this dream will continue.

Young people today say that the dream is already tarnished. Good paying jobs are scarce and housing too expensive. Many return from college to live with their parents. Marriages and child bearing are postponed for economic reasons. There is growing tension between the generations; young wage-earners are unhappy at having to pay heavy taxes to support the elderly, when they don’t see themselves benefiting from this generous system in the future.

There is one bright spot in this dismal picture. When we say “living standard” we imply a level of well being as well as material wealth. Modern medicine has increased life expectancy such that it is no longer unusual to live into the nineties and even beyond. For every illness medicine has a remedy, though there are still incurable diseases around. So while future generations of young Americans will probably have to pay for the debts of their fathers with a lower standard of living, they can be assured that their lives will be relatively free of imperiling diseases and that they will be able to live at a diminished economic level for a long lifetime. And this is important because even in this debt-ridden age, rich men who are ill do not live good lives. Poor people with good health at least have an opportunity to better themselves economically.

Of course, some people and some governments seem to get away with “kicking the can down the road” and borrowing money to pay for their indulgences. The US government is the world’s champion at the borrowing game. The the problem with this scheme is that the borrower eventually becomes enslaved to the lender. And sometimes, when just one needs to borrow more, the lender says no. Hello China, Japan and Germany!

Then what?

People watching at Starbucks is a pleasure. You find two elderly ladies sipping coffee and one asks the other, “What Starbucks are we in? This one, or the one down the street?”

And then there’s the job interview. A young woman, dressed to the nines and very well coifed, serious and attentive to a young man, obviously younger than she, in casual clothing. He’s asking questions and she answering, all within easy eavesdropping distance. Why isn’t she be interviewed in an office? Perhaps the young man doesn’t really have an office? Or that this meeting was arranged to convenience both parties on neutral territory. Notice, he’s not taking her to lunch, so his investment in the interview is little more than a latte. No rent. No overhead.

And there’s the young young women in jeans on a conference call to at least three other people around the country. She doesn’t mind invading my sound space, so I must listen to a full meeting. Now she’s walking around Starbucks, treating those at the counter and those entrenched in lounge chairs to this meeting. No notice of a cute baby who has just dropped his scone on the floor and looks to his attractive mother to provide him with crumbs from the floor.

In San Francisco, you can’t get a seat in Starbucks. Asian students of all ages are diligently occupied in homework — not reading novels, but serious stuff, physics, chemistry, algebra. No conversation here to overhead. I take it it is more convenient at Starbucks than in the school/university library. And let’s not forget the aroma of brewing coffee. I don’t drink coffee myself but that aroma is definitely stimulating.

While on the subject of self-improvement. In the corner, out of traffic, there’s a Spanish speaking group, no individual among them fluent, but struggling to use Spanish. For help, the members often refer to Salvadorian employees who seem honored to find Norteamericanos attempting to speak in their native tongue. A good mood here — the ambiance is excellent and nobody is paying over $4 to enjoy it.

“Meet you at Starbucks,” “Perfect.” Everybody knows where the closest cafe is located. Getting togethers for coffee is a limited commitment of time and can usually be squeezed into a full day. And with free wi-fi, the computer buffs are busy communicating with friends at other Starbucks in distant cities. Hey, this might be better than home!

How did we manage for so long without cafes? We really do need a third place outside the home and workplace. Howard Schultz for president!

As a rabbi I must battle with my own personal problems, but also participate in the troubles of those I served. When people come to see me I can usually tell what is bothering them by their age. Students were troubled by family and especially their extended family of peers. Later in career building years, middle age people are annoyed by problems in the workplace–competition, politics, lack of recognition and not being in the right place at the right time. And lastly, after we achieve a plateau in our careers, our health begins to take its toll.

Three things usually constitute happiness: family, career and health. Now everybody knows it’s tough to succeed in all three at the same time. Usually we find ourself doing well in two, but not three of life’s tribeca. When family and occupation are stable, and our health fails, it is health that makes us miserable. When health and family are okay and we’re having work problems, we’re unhappy, grumpy and feeling terrible. And when career and health are in check, and we face a divorce or problems with a child, our mental condition suffers. Of the tribeca, the one that isn’t working at given moment is the one that irritates. There is a tendency to forget the good and focus upon the bad, even though we know statistically that few others in our cyclical travels achieve success in all three of the tribeca.

Our troubles are often age appropriate, such as health for the elderly, career for those in middle age and family in youth through adulthood. When life seems to cascade around us, it’s somewhat helpful to consider this tibeca and keep matters in perspective.