Let’s talk about the F word…

01 Nov 2011 6 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, General, Kvetching Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Every where I go I bump into people who are doing it, on street corners, at the local supermarket, at my kids’ school.

It’s hard to turn around these days and not find somebody asking for money in support of a program or a cause or a trip to the mainland for a championship game. The F word of which I speak has more than four letters. It has 11–FUNDRAISING. But the sound of it is becoming just as distasteful as the vulgar term that usually comes to mind.

I am not unwilling to support a worthy cause. On the contrary. I am an enthusiastic supporter of all causes worthy. I just don’t agree with the  plethora of methods employed to garner my precious support and am not sure that other people’s definitions of worthy match mine.

My husband created an acronym that aptly relates to the title and shares the sentiment. In order to avoid being accused of using profanity, I will spell it out for you: Fundraising Using Children and Kids.

Yesterday I went to the Kapolei Safeway and met a group of cub scouts who were set up next to the entrance. I approached their table without being asked, eager to support an esteemed organization such as theirs. They were selling popcorn. I like popcorn. I was ready to buy. The smallest bag was $10. TEN DOLLARS for a bag of caramel corn? I couldn’t believe it. The one that had nuts was $20. That’s nuts!

That’s what got me thinking about how fundraising has become big business and that too many people besides the actual beneficiary are out there  making money off of my support.

Raise your hand if your kids have had to sell Zippys chili tickets, huli huli chicken tickets or some other kind of tickets for their school or sports team? Then raise your hand again if you ended up buying those tickets, picked up the said chili or chicken and applied it to the next potluck invitation you received.

Or maybe you paid for an entire box of  48 bags of M & M’s because you and your kids ate them over the course of the past month.

I would rather write a check than sell all of those tickets and candy. It is cheaper, so much easier and I can write it off as a charitable donation.

I would also rather support a car wash. That seems like good value for my money and reasonable return for effort.

I wonder how much money each of us spends buying snacks and candy and magazines from every kid that comes knocking on our wallets. What if I applied the money that I spend on your kids to my own and you kept yours to yourself and we all stopped asking everybody to support each other and simply took care of ourselves?

At least these young peddlers  are selling something. I have ranted before about the groups who stand on street corners with scoop nets asking me to drop some cash from my car window so that they can travel to the mainland for “The most amazing opportunity ever.” Usually it is a sports team that has qualified for a national tournament. It looks like begging to me: Children standing on a street corner asking strangers for money so that they can go on a trip to play a game. I say, if you can’t afford it, don’t go.

I also think that these leagues should provide a viable way for their teams to garner support. Find sponsors for these kids. Apply for grants. Give them jobs.

We have come to think of so many luxuries and privileges as necessities for our children and then ask other people to spend money in support of them. Let them concentrate on school and local activities, earn a scholarship for college, get a job and then travel to their heart’s delight.

Please do not misunderstand me. I know that there are many children in our community and beyond that cannot afford even the basic necessities. I am not talking about them. I am the first in line to organize a school supplies drive for these students and to donate money to organizations that feed and clothe and house them. I also think that they deserve the opportunity to participate in extra curricular activities and sports. I am willing to make a donation in support of that too.

I also know only too well that our public schools are under funded and in dire need of support. That is an entirely different blog post.

I just think that our community fundraising efforts have evolved in a  direction that ends up using our children as a means to a somewhat capitalist end and in the process we end up selling ourselves and them a little bit short.

The mother of them all

07 May 2011 Leave a comment

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, General, Mothers and Daughters, Rites of Passage Tags: , , , , ,

In a recent dinner conversation, a friend of mine said that she identifies herself as a runner.  It led to further conversation as to how we each identify ourselves.

My husband said all the right things, “Soldier, husband, father, etc.” I did too. I gave several responses: mother, wife, community volunteer, writer, etc…. I even heard myself saying, “Retired Teacher!”

What I found disconcerting, however, is that in all my complexity, I craved some sort of clear-cut, all-encompassing, simple  label that I could use to brand my entire identity.

It wasn’t until days later when I was thinking back on that particular conversation that I came up with the perfect answer: “Jewish Mother.” I am a Jewish Mother, an identity of which I am exceedingly proud.

I remember the first time somebody referred to me as such. I did not feel so grand. I envisioned the stereotypical Jewish mother who interferes in the lives of her children, feeds the world, is demanding and controlling. Think of Fran Drescher’s mom in the TV show The Nanny.

How could I be seen in relation to that?

When I was a teenager in Southern California’s Orange County in the late 1970’s, we joked about another stereotype: The Jewish American Princess, or JAP for short. That’s how my friends and I referred to some of the  girls  who went to the same Jewish weekend camps as we did.

We saw them through the perspective of another stereotype: spoiled, materialistic, whiny and demanding. Semi-privileged that we were, we only viewed ourselves as borderline.

Borderline seemed okay with me, a bit glamorous, a tad alluring, while still human and reasonable (as reasonable as a teenager could be.)

I took that image  with me to college, Borderline JAP, and wore it pretty well. I taught Hebrew School and continued with the camps. I associated with new Jewish friends and learned more about my faith. I enjoyed a reasonable amount of comfort, but  came nowhere near the ostentatious style of others that I met.

This borderline status was still hanging in the back of my closet almost 20 years later when my friend Mark from L.A. was visiting us in Hawaii. He was the first to call me that name, “Jewish mother.”

Like I said before, my reaction was not so positive. While he did not mean it as an insult in any way, I felt a bit rattled.

I had not worn my college clothes in a very long time.  But  they were still hanging around in the back of my mind as a connection to my past. While I had no illusions that  I would fit into them again some day, I had not thrown them out either.

After the initial shock I realized how much I had changed. It has been a VERY long time since I could even be remotely mistaken for some sort of princess, Jewish American or not.

I had been a mother for longer than I had been in college. I wouldn’t let my daughter near a princess dress or tiara or anything. If I were to be described in any royal terms, “Queen Bee” would be a better choice.

I had to rethink my identity.

I quickly cleaned out my closet and left my memories to yearbooks and photo albums. But I was not quite ready to fit into my new skin. I had not made the full transition to Jewish Mother, even one without the negative stereotype.

That term was reserved for the ladies at the Temple who help with the Oneg Shabbat after services on Friday nights, the Sisterhood President, my own mother. But not me, not yet.

That was several years ago. I am happy to announce that I did grow into my own skin. I have a lovely wardrobe and I wear many hats.

After driving the Hebrew school carpool for years, making latkes for the Temple Chanukkah party, feeding my family plus many of Waianae High School’s journalism students and volunteering to donate matzah for the Sunday school’s model seder, I am pretty sure I have earned the proud status of Jewish Mother.

Yes, I might be a bit overprotective of my two precious daughters and I might care very deeply about the welfare of the ones I love. However, I am not meddlesome or overbearing, more like loving and caring.

A Borderline Jewish Mother is a perfect description.