Hanukkah, fun for everyone?
There's always one sad kid, one with no parents at kindergarten's Hanukkah party. For him I pray
1
Every Hanukkah I am greeted by your sad eyes. I attend the Hanukkah party of one of my children and I meet you, the child whose parents did not come. The child who watches the other children with covetous eyes and sees them showing things to their parents as he sits alone next to the kindergarten teacher with a face so sad that it breaks your heart.
2
The reasons for this punishment I know extremely well. It happens, sometimes there’s a screw up and the parents just can’t make it and really one doesn’t have to overreact. In Africa for example there are children who are starving to death. But suddenly none of that is important when I look at you, eyes welling up with tears, waiting for your late parents, the same parents who don’t have the time to be with you when you so need to see them.
I always make a point of watching you at the Hanukkah parties instead of looking after my own children. My hands copy the gestures of your hands, I mumble the same songs that you sing and my throat tightens together with yours when you stand alone and see all your playmates dancing with their parents.
3
I cannot take my eyes off of you. I cannot stop thinking about your parents. They surely justify this absence with all kinds of conciliatory explanations. They know very well how to explain their no show at the party. They had a different party to attend. They had a very important meeting at work. (Something that they are not doing for themselves, you see, oh no. They work hard to ensure the future of their children.)
They had a very bad week in any case and they don’t remember their parents coming to their parties when they were in kindergarten. What is with this generation? What do they want from us anyway? All children should have what you have. Just yesterday they bought you a fancy car with a remote control. Tomorrow maybe they’ll take you to Ikea. They have a fabulous play area for kids.
4
Your eyes are full of innocence. From your body language it is clear that you are not mad. You are too young to be angry. You aren’t critical either but there is sadness. You don’t know how to tell yourself that this pain you feel is real and justified. You don’t know how to explain that this is not right, that you are entitled to be with your parents like the rest of the kids in the kindergarten.
Your parents are everything for you. They are the ones who tell you what is permitted and what is forbidden. They are the ones who set the rules and they are the ones who don’t show up at your party even though they are the only ones who are absent. You believe that that is the way it needs to be.
5
We are parents already. We grew up, found work, got an education but each one of us has a bit of you inside - the small child who wonders if anyone cares. Each one of us has some of that longing for help, for support and understanding. There’s a small child hiding in each of us sitting at the Hanukkah party waiting to see if our parents will also arrive.
6
I have been in therapy long enough to understand there’s a kind of transference going on here. My identity is linked to yours in that I find myself in you. But psychology doesn’t always have meaning in my opinion. Let’s say that I am guilty of transference. So what. Does that mean you are not miserable? Does that mean your parents are excused from attending the party?
It means that at these moments that you and the thousands of children sharing your experience longingly watch as the other children put on a holiday play for their proud parents, are asking themselves who is there for them?
7
My darling boy, forlorn and forgotten. You and those like you can be found in thousands of kindergartens all over the country suffering quietly, silently accepting your fate. If you could, all the abandoned children like you would plan their own party in kindergarten where you would draw up a petition and read it aloud in a strong voice:
Dearest Parents, It is important to us that you see our dance performance. We have worked on it for two weeks. For you it’s a small thing. You see it as something unimportant. After all, there is a threat from Iran, someone has to make a living, and adults have a lot of problems. But for us the party is everything.
For us the dance and song we rehearsed are the most important things there are. We worked on it together with the rest of the kids just for you just so that you would get excited. The dance was created in your honor, and we need your approval, your involvement, and your smile. We need you.
8
Precious child, I wish you could read this column. I wish you could read this and understand you have a right to be angry. I am writing you anyway. Even though you don’t yet know how to read we hope that your parents, who didn’t bother to show up at your Hanukkah party, will read this column and next year or at the next kindergarten party they will show up, both of them maybe with grandma and will give you that little thing you are asking for, their attention.
9
Contrary to what one may think, a columnist can do very little to change reality. He can advise the prime minister, write about social problems or point out all kinds of regional annoyances and injustices but the reality doesn’t much change because of a column no matter how well it’s written.
But if there is something that justifies the effort, it is this: Something that seems minor is really a big deal. I cannot replace the defense minister and I cannot solve Israel’s poverty problems but if because of this column, your parents, dear child, will be at he Hanukkah party and prevent you from the deep sorrow, then there is a dividend to my investment.
If because of this column, even one parent takes the trouble to show up at his child’s kindergarten party next year then I have a reason to get up in the morning.
10
A small child with happy eyes, that is all I ask.
Good God
I don’t understand, young Mr. Daum, why you are not a goalkeeper for the national soccer league. After all, you are good enough to let the kicked balls sail through and I have no doubt you would demand less money.
