It blows my mind as a convert from Anglo to Orthodox Judaism how much Jews invest in their kids and in their families and in their kin and in their group.
Anglos don’t make such dramatic in-group/out-group distinctions and they don’t live through their kids.
A Jewish friend took off work to go to a UCLA orientation all day for his incoming freshman kid. “Huh?” I said. “I don’t get it. Why would you need orientation for your kid going off to college? I guess I don’t get high investment parenting.”
Friend: “Gentile parents send their kids off at age 18 with a can of beer and a can of spam and a good luck.”
Miriam:
I went to orientation by myself for Uni along with every other college kid whose parents said “you’re an adult now, time to face life on your own”. The ones who had their parents with them were usually the ESL students. As a school administrator, I have had parents call me and told me “I am doing all the applications for my kid, because I don’t want him to worry about payment, loans etc”. I’ve had students boast “my mom and dad do all the applications for me”. Great, are they going to fill out your job applications to? Anyways….I don’t agree that gentile parents send their kids with a can of beer. I believe every parent knows their kids and knows when they can let go. At 18, they need to start learning to do things on their own.
* Sheryl Sandberg wrote an inspirational work memoir “Lean In.” I might title my inspirational work memoir, “Stepping to the side.”
* Secular Jew tells me: “You’re a Grade A shnorrer. If you had payas and a black hat, you could cheat, lie and steal and take welfare with the best of them. As far as making slick business deals, however, you’ll always be a goy.”
* Friend: “Why would Bill Cosby drug girls to have sex with them? He probably could have had sex with half of them just because of who he was.”
Luke: “Drugging them was more expeditious. He didn’t have to beat around the bush.”
* I was having a nice conversation with a white girl this morning and some disheveled sweaty foreigner from south of the border came by with a restaurant flyer and interrupted us to pitch all the glories of the non-kosher Thai restaurant.
Miriam:
I wish I could have seen your face when it happened. Speaking of foreigners, I had a dream that I got a job working in the border. There were hundreds of people waiting in line to enter the US. I was going to take a picture to send it to you. I guess these are the type of dreams your readers end up having.
* My Mexican just corrected my Spanish.
I replied, “Thank you. You’re making me a better Mexican.”
* I had a dream this morning that I went out and about, wheeling and dealing and improving myself in downtown LA skyscrapers and feeling really good about myself until everything I said and did in that job hunting got recorded and typed up in a report that exposed all of my false pretensions, delusions of grandeur and Fordian deceit.
Paul Ciotti: “But then you took a catnap and all your Fordian deceit of the morning got canceled out by your afternoon’s Lukian honesty.”
