Question
Dear Rabbi Gruen,
I read your essays and listen to your classes, which are great and helpful, especially as I’m the type of person who gets very stressed about doing things right. In fact, I really got the impression from your shiurim that it’s so important to put tons of effort into raising children the right way, and that no sacrifice is too great.
But a friend of mine keeps telling me that we shouldn’t obsess over anything and that someone who’s calm and relaxed lives a happier life, even if it means that we will inevitably mess up here and there and make mistakes every so often. She claims it’s fine and normal. She says that when a mistake in her parenting is pointed out to her, she doesn’t get flustered, and just reminds herself that she’s only human and it’s fine to make a mistake.
My question is if the idea of investing in chinuch and taking this seriously is a contradiction to living calm and relaxed and allowing oneself to make mistakes along the journey of chinuch habanim.
Thank you
Answer
We’re right after Pesach, a time when there’s been enhanced focus on our children and the importance of instilling the correct values in them. The plain fact is that everyone alive makes mistakes. There’s no one who doesn’t slip up at least once, and we should expect people (including ourselves) to make mistakes. Therefore, there’s no reason to become despondent when things seem to go wrong, nor is there reason to get angry with someone who points out, “Excuse me, but you were wrong about that...”
Instead of getting upset about being called out, we should be focusing on what happened, how it happened, and what happens next — that is, what the outcome is. This is where we see the difference between the wise person and the foolish person. The wise person is, first of all, careful not to make mistakes. If he does slip up, however, even in something minor, and someone points it out, he is grateful for being corrected and immediately takes steps to figure out how he went wrong and what he can do to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
At the very least, we should be ensuring that we don’t repeat the same mistakes we’ve been making in the mitzvah of chinuch. There are times when we seek to cut corners or costs in the short-term, and it’s then that we should remind ourselves that in the long-run, it’s likely to end up more difficult, more complicated, and more expensive.
The foolish person, however, frequently makes big mistakes, serious mistakes that should never be made in the first place. Worse still, he keeps on making the same mistakes, over and over, without learning from what went wrong. Even worse, if anyone points out his mistakes, he makes excuses and justifies himself — and that’s the crux of the problem.
