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Why do many teachers in bais yaakov schools refer to their students as “future wives and mothers of klal yisroel” but rebbeim in yeshivos don’t refer to their students as “future husbands and fathers of klal yisroel”?
BYLiberal: Because men and women are different and have very different roles in life.
This is anything but a quick question.
Because those women don’t teach the boys.
Based on your username, I would guess that you know the answer, but don’t like it.
Being a wife and mother isn’t as limiting as it sounds. Aside from the importance of being a literal wife and mother which I don’t think you need me to get into, there are many ways of being a “mother” in addition to being an actual mother. For example, a teacher is a type of a mother. If a woman understands her purpose in life, she sees everything she does as part of her role of being a “wife and mother”.
Rabbi Menschem Mannes Mandel TZATZAL, the menahel of Yeshiva of Brooklyn referred to his talmidos in the same way.
Did your teacher refer to you as “the future troll of the CR”?
The girls need to be constantly reminded of their roles in life (because nowadays there are girls that don’t believe that their MAIN role in life is to be a “wife and mother”)…that’s why they would “refer” to them like that.
That being said, after thinking about it, I think I may agree with you on this (even though I am not a BY liberal). It does seem a bit strange to constantly address high school girls as “future wives and mothers”.
First of all, they should be focused on what you are now. Second of all, our main tafkid is being Ovdei Hashem, and being a wife and mother is merely the way we fulfill that role.
A single girl I know was once asked to speak on the topic “The tafkid of a single girl”. She refused to do it since she thought it was ridiculous. She was like, “What do you mean ‘the tafkid of a single girl?’ It’s the same tafkid as any Jew’s – being an Eved Hashem.”
Not everyone is guaranteed the chance to be a wife and a mother, and girls should not be taught as if that is the only thing that matters in life.
I’m so happy – I see that another female finally answered!! Thank you RebYidd!! (even though I can’t see yet what you wrote) I was wondering when that would happen!
A woman’s primary role is generally defined by her being a wife and mother whereas a husband’s primary role is generally not defined by his being a husband and father.
Geordie – I don’t think that’s so nice. She’s not trolling – this is clearly something that bothers her and she is trying to understand it.
” but rebbeim in yeshivos don’t refer to their students as “future husbands and fathers of klal yisroel”?”
Mine do. Granted probably not as much as girls are referred to as “future mother’s” but many of their mussar shmuzzen are about molding us into good bnei torah who can raise a proper torah home. And yes I’m in a pretty mainstream yeshiva.
I think it’s because in frum families, women tend to make much better mothers than men make fathers. In plenty of frum families the father does not wake up with crying children, does not change diapers, does not go shopping for food or clothing, does not cook, clean, or pick up kids from school, or help them with their homework. Instead men are (ideally) spending their time earning or learning, and much of the home-life is organized by the mother. Rebbeim in yeshivos can thus refer to their talmidim as future rabbanom, lamdanim, etc, because for many that is their primary job. Calling them fathers/husbands would just ring hollow.
RY – +1 I see I was right for being happy.
M, your complaints don’t make poorer fathers. What you enumerated is generally part of the duties and job description of being a wife/mother. So the wives being better at those aspects you listed (dialer changing, food/clothing shopping, waking up for crying babies, etc.) is obviously to be expected in as much as it’s generally expected for the husband to be better than his wife at handiwork, moving furniture, being a breadwinner, learning Gemora, etc. Your comment seemingly assumes being a husband has the same duties as being a wife.
Joseph – I don’t know what kind of arrangement you have in your home, but what I see in most frum families is that fathers spend substantially less time with their children than mothers do. This is probably actually true in all families, not just frum, but it’s certainly true in frum ones. I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a thing. Ya, they have different functions and that’s all great. But at the end of the day, mothers tend to spend much more time with the family than do fathers; I assume you agree with this. I was just trying to understand baisyaakovliberal’s observation that Bais Yaakov teachers are more likely to speak to students about being mothers than yeshiva rebbeim are to speak with talmidim about being fathers.
M, of course. That’s why mothers are called the Akeres Habayis. Traditionally the mother would be home all day, putting the kids on the bus, there for them when they came off the bus, cook and feed them their meals and obviously be with the children longer than her husband who is working all day.
That’s a feature of family life, not a bug.
(I don’t think we’re disagreeing, I’m just nitpicking with some of your descriptive verbiage.)
Joseph – I think that you and M are saying the same things. I don’t think she meant what you thought she meant. The misunderstanding is based on her first sentence which was phrased in a way that was misleading.
She does not mean that men are not good fathers. Her whole point is the same as what you had said previously – that the role of a mother is very different from the role of a father. For a woman, her role as mother is much more encompassing than the role of a father is for a man.
From her first sentence in her first post, it was easy to misunderstand and think that she was saying that this is a problem, but from the rest of the post (as well as her second post), it is clear that was not what she meant at all.
M- do you see why it was easy to misunderstand from your first sentence? (“I think it’s because in frum families, women tend to make much better mothers than men make fathers”). That sentence makes it sound like you think it’s a problem. It sounds like you think that men aren’t good fathers, and that’s what Joseph was reacting to.
Joseph – just for the record, I wrote my last post before you wrote yours, but it was posted later (probably because it was longer so it took longer to moderate).
baisyaakovliberal, I apologise for my assumption and accusation above.
Lilmod, Thank you for pointing this out.
I have always found that girls’ education focused on the global, how they can contribute to others, whether it is their families or communities, while boys’ education focused more on their personal development, in learning and mussar- how to have more hasmada, how to daven better, etc. So I think the statement of the OP fits this perspective.
baisyaakovliberal chucks the ball up at the basket:
Why do many teachers in bais yaakov schools refer to their students as “future wives and mothers of klal yisroel” but rebbeim in yeshivos don’t refer to their students as “future husbands and fathers of klal yisroel”?
Joseph grabs the ball and slam dunks it in:
Because men and women are different and have very different roles in life.
Brilliant alley-oop Poe-Troll play!
I don’t get the basketball reference, but I see what you’re trying to do.
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