Orthodox Jewish Home Birth

[Beeks]

As I wait for wedding details, I was looking through some of Lina's archives. She posted this series of videos from the show A Baby Story, showing an orthodox home birth:

asetapartlife.blogspot.com/2010/10/orthodox-home-birth.html

I was fascinated that the family is obviously pretty modest, but that the mom would allow herself to be shown on TV without her hair covering and with no bottom on (when she was in the birth tub - it looked like her natural hair was showing and she definitely wasn't wearing anything on the bottom and there were flashes of skin).

Also, they mentioned that she'd had her bloody show, but the husband was still touching her after that and even immediately after the birth. I thought that was a nono in orthodox circles. I guess they are just on the more liberal end of orthodoxy?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Imamother had a huge thread on this, including people involved, even the mom, at imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119788&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

Short answer: The mom is MO, and in that long thread she does explain why she was able to do what she does and various decisions she made. It was an interesting thread. (Add www before imamother).

[Beeks]

Oh cool, thanks!

[lizzy]

Imamother had a huge thread on this, including people involved, even the mom, at imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119788&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

Short answer: The mom is MO, and in that long thread she does explain why she was able to do what she does and various decisions she made. It was an interesting thread. (Add www before imamother).

Interesting thread. I get that this was a Jewish mother's board. However, I have a question if you'll permit me. I got the impression from the snarking on Lina here that peppering your blog with random Yiddish was ridiculous. Is it not true for these women because they are authentically Jewish and not fake Jewish? Also, is that a cultural thing or do just some words not translate well to English?

[Chrystal-J]

I clicked on one of the links and found this: Having 4 Babies after 40: Tamar Stone’s Story

jewishmom.com/2011/06/21/having-4-babies-after-40-tamar-stones-story/

First she says:

I had assumed that as I turned 40, my body would surely slow down and give me a break from the endless cycle of pregnancy and nursing which caused mental fog, physical exhaustion, and emotional hurricanes.

But, then she says:

I spent that year angry and depressed, trying not to think about my upcoming birthday. And then a funny thing happened as April 30, 2000 approached, I did the math. I was about to turn 38, not 39!! I had miscalculated, and I learned something from my mistake.

Hashem had given me another chance to turn 39 again. And this time, since I had already gotten the anger and disappointment and frustration out of my system, I intended to enjoy every minute of being 39, and 40, and 41, and…. To be thankful for everything and to see that it really IS all a blessing.

...Did she forget how old she was? Is there a "Hashem" rule that says you can be 39 twice? I don't get it. :?:

[Soldevi]

What does MO mean?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Interesting thread. I get that this was a Jewish mother's board. However, I have a question if you'll permit me. I got the impression from the snarking on Lina here that peppering your blog with random Yiddish was ridiculous. Is it not true for these women because they are authentically Jewish and not fake Jewish? Also, is that a cultural thing or do just some words not translate well to English?

I'm not Jewish and can't speak for them. However, as a bilingual person, I can speak to one aspect.

Imamother is an Orthodox Jewish board (for married women only). I only read their publicly available posts for educational and entertainment value, but I've read there for a long time. Very many (most?) of the posters there are from communities where people do mix languages, essentially code-switching, very frequently. So for them, it's just a natural jargon and slang to use, and the important thing is that they know that their READERSHIP very likely uses that same speaking style. Particularly when it comes to words for religious concepts, most people learned them in those foreign (Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic, etc) jargon to start with, and they all know what it means, and so it's just easier to use the original.

If you lurk around there long enough you'll pick it up by osmosis, and if you get confused, a quick googling usually clears it up (in addition to the context you'll be building up).

Where using random foreign words gets ridiculous and pretentious, at least from my (bilingual!!) point of view, is when people who aren't actually from a background where it would be natural to switch languages start doing it, later in life, and particularly when they know or suspect that their READERSHIP doesn't have that background either, so they're essentially showing off, saying "ooh, look at me, I'm a part of this exclusive group that you probably want to join or are jealous of me for belonging to - I'm so much cultured that way that I just can't HELP but drop all these words here and there..." and then they mess it up on top of it, using those words they so "naturally" dropped in there, wrongly.

Hilarity ensues when someone who actually does know the proper use of the words shows up, in that case.

I haven't read much of Lina's stuff. But on another forum I visit, there's a poster who is BT (baal teshuva, grew up secular but has newly become Orthodox) who used to post in normal English, about normal topics, with normal sensibilities, who all of a sudden became "holier than thou" and now puts Yiddish and Hebrew everywhere, KNOWING that it's confusing for people and yet insisting that "well, gee, I just can't HELP it!," putting the Hebrew in for "heaven forbid" instead of just saying in English "heaven forbid" and all the rest of it, purposely using strange English grammar that makes it look like she comes from a Yiddish background, that sort of thing. That woman (deservedly IMHO) gets laughed at, because it's totally a performance.

Similarly you can find people trying to "naturally" drop Japanese words into posts on cartoon fan boards, hilariously messing it up (that's my other language, so I find this hilarious) and "code-switching" where actual bilingual people just plain don't do it. And it's always in posts where people are trying to say hey, look at me, I'm such an authority on this topic.

But mostly it's about when people purposely try to be opaque in a "cool" way to an audience whom they know won't find their word usage natural.

"MO" is "Modern Orthodox." Basically, Orthodox, but open to mixing it with the secular world, okay with higher education, often pants on women, etc. There's entire debates and threads on what it is, but the starting line is probably "Orthodox but not super fundie."

[lizzy]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot more sense.

[Buzzard]

What does MO mean?

Modern Orthodox