"Warm, witty, and wise, Alicia Jo Rabins offers essential
advice to parents. Her interpretation of ancient stories suffuses family
struggles-both mundane and profound-with beauty and wonder." --Vanessa Hua,
author of Forbidden City.
"Alicia Jo Rabins has given parents a gift of insight,
solace, solidarity, and care in this exquisite volume of spiritual nourishment.
This book is a blessing for anyone in the trenches of life with littles." --Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author of Nurture the Wow and On
Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.
Do you ever have days when you feel like the least orga-nized
par-ent at drop-off? When you're cer-tain that if you hear the word ?"why"
from your tod-dler one more time you'll scream? When you just want to dis-ap-pear
into a dark, qui-et room and hide from the chaos hap-pen-ing in your home?
Or even con-sid-er whether hav-ing kids was a good idea?
These are the sorts of ques-tions that Ali-cia Jo Rabins
asks and answers in her new book, Even God Had Bad Par-ent-ing Days, while
using Jew-ish wis-dom?-?gleaned from the Torah, midrashim, Tal-mud, and oth-er
ancient texts?-?to explore the not-so-Insta-gram-wor-thy ele-ments of twen-ty-first
cen-tu-ry par-ent-ing. An accom-plished artist, per-former, writer, and Torah
teacher, Rabins has craft-ed a deeply relat-able, com-fort-ing guide for
any-one who ever feels over-whelmed by par-ent-hood. Writ-ing of the High Hol-i-day
songs that so often paint God as the ulti-mate patient and lov-ing par-ent-fig-ure,
she says, ?"I con-fess that this idea of act-ing with infi-nite com-pas-sion
feels firm-ly beyond my reach. And that's why, from a parent's per-spec-tive,
I actu-al-ly find it com-fort-ing to remem-ber that God?-?as described in
the Torah?-?is impa-tient, imper-fect, and some-times down-right pis-sy," such
as when Korah is jeal-ous of Moses and Aaron's lead-er-ship roles. ?"Does
God calm-ly say, ?'Tell me more about what you're feel-ing'? No, God does
not. Instead God opens up a giant hole in the ground" that swal-lows him
whole. The point, of course, is not to advo-cate for crap-py par-ent-ing, but
to help par-ents and care-givers feel less alone in moments when rais-ing
a child is hard and patience wears thin.
One of the book's strengths is that it is orga-nized into
short, the-mat-ic chap-ters?-?most of them only three or four pages long?-?that
are quick reads, acces-si-ble to even the most sleep-deprived, time-strapped
par-ent. Rabins cou-ples her own tri-umphs and chal-lenges with Jew-ish teach-ings,
a cre-ative deci-sion that pro-vides com-fort with-out com-ing across as
patron-iz-ing or false-ly opti-mistic. For instance, Even God Had Bad Parenting Days does
not shy away from mat-ters like the author's post-par-tum depres-sion, lone-li-ness,
and finan-cial strain. This authen-tic-i-ty sets Even God Had Bad Parenting Days apart from
oth-er par-ent-ing books. It reads as though it has been writ-ten by an expe-ri-enced
mom friend who's seen it all, who lis-tens with-out judg-ment, and who always
offers the best response to life's dif-fi-cul-ties?-?even if that response is
just to rub your back and say she under-stands. Par-ent-ing can feel like
a lone-ly, stress-ful endeav-or, but Even God Had Bad Parenting Days will make any par-ent
or care-giv-er feel seen, under-stood, and more inti-mate-ly con-nect-ed to Jew-ish
teachings. --Leah Grisham, The Jewish Book Council
