Should teenage girls help out in other people’s homes?

THE TOPIC

Our teenage girls have so many opportunities to help others, between babysitting and school chesed programs. But should they?

THE QUESTION

Should teenage girls help out in other people’s homes?

Teenagers helping in other homes is...

... a hard no for me.

For young teens, that is. And for older teens, it’s a no as well, unless I have a reason to say yes. For example, if we’re talking about close family or friends where I’m fully aware of the home situation.

Yes, there’s something to be said for teaching a teen to earn her own cash, not to mention doing chesed for those in need. I’ll never forget babysitting for a family where the father had weekly chemo treatments. I felt like I was really doing something to help.

But my generation has become more aware of personal safety and the technical aspects of babysitting make me very uncomfortable. We live in Eretz Yisrael, which means my girls have to walk home alone very late at night after a babysitting job, which I’m not comfortable with. When my oldest had a few babysitting jobs as a teen, I found myself schlepping out at midnight to meet her so she wouldn’t have to walk home alone. I quickly put my foot down about late-night babysitting after that.

Besides that, in a neighborhood like mine, where people’s homes are very open, you never know who’s going to pop in or decide to make an appearance at a neighbor’s house, and a young teen may not have the wherewithal to say, “No, you can’t come in.” I don’t like the idea of putting a young teen girl in a vulnerable position like that.

Some families have different standards in reading material, and I see no reason to voluntarily put my daughter in a situation where she has access to books I’d rather she didn’t read.

I’ve found plenty of ways for my girls to do chesed right here in my own house, or for close neighbors and family, and it works perfectly fine for us. I do allow babysitting with a friend or two.

—Blimie, 42

... fast becoming a memory.

Once upon a time, my special-needs daughter had 14 volunteers who’d come to help out with her. We had the Sunday girls, the Monday girls, every day, all the way to the Shabbos afternoon girls. We even had invitations for her to stay over for Shalosh Seudos.

And when the year was over, I’d have a new list of wonderful girls who’d call and ask if maybe they could come to take my daughter out sometime. If a volunteer was getting married, she’d tell me that her replacement couldn’t wait to take over. There’d be hugs and tears when we’d part.

I’d write notes, be sure to buy gifts Chanukah time, Purim, end of year. Compliment. Tell them how much their time meant to us.

And then a few years ago, the offers slowed to a trickle. I got apologies instead. “I’m too busy, it doesn’t work for me this year.” Girls showed up late or didn’t show up at all. We went down from every day to twice a week. We went from receiving phone calls offering help to frantically making them, to giving up.

Okay. No one owes us anything. And maybe as my daughter grows older, she’s become harder to watch than she used to be?

I thought it was us.

But this year, after Pesach, the parents of all the special-needs kids in my daughter’s Friday/Shabbos program waited for the director to extend the program by a few hours as she did every summer to accommodate the longer Friday and Shabbos afternoon. Nothing. A week, two weeks, three. And then she left an unprecedented, apologetic message: “To all the parents who are wondering why we’re still on winter hours… I’ve been working here for eleven years. And it’s a terribly sad thing to say, but it’s literally yeridas hadoros in front of my eyes. It’s becoming harder and harder to find volunteers each year. And asking them to stay for more than three hours is impossible….”

I reached out to her. I reached out to other parents.

I heard story of after story. It’s something that no one can explain. Our girls are wonderful. Their middos are exemplary. They’re academically and socially active. And they’re just so, so busy. They can’t commit. They’re tired in the few spare minutes they own. They need to chill.

I can’t argue with any of it, but I wonder.

What changed?

—Shoshana, 39

... a way to make money.

i remember going to israel with money i earned babysitting, and it was the greatest feeling in the world! I think it’s important to teach kids a work ethic, and the joy you get when you reap the fruits of your labor. I think it’s a huge shame that kids these days really don’t have money they earned on their own the way they used to when I was growing up.

I also like encouraging my kids to work so they have the option to buy all the shtusim they want that I’m surely not buying for them. And you know what? They want that ALO sweatshirt a lot more when I’m the one paying for it. When I say, “Sure, why don’t you use some of your money to buy that,” suddenly they think twice — they don’t need it so badly anymore. This is also great chinuch, teaching them to budget, to not expect your parents to buy everything for you. I’m all in.

—Perri, 35

... something I’m not willing to allow them to do because of the risks in today’s digital world.

I know it used to be normal — we all did it, walked over to someone’s house, played with their kids, came home with a lollipop and a few dollars. But that was a different world. Homes didn’t have iPads lying around, smartphones, and unfiltered computer access. I can’t assume other families have the same standards or safeguards we try to maintain at home. And once my daughter is there, even just for an hour or two, it’s out of my hands. All it takes is one moment of curiosity, and suddenly she’s seen or heard something that can’t be unseen. It’s not about being overprotective — it’s about being realistic. Technology is everywhere, and even good families can have very different norms. I’d rather err on the side of caution than expose my daughter to something that could open doors we’ve worked hard to keep closed. Chesed is beautiful — but not at the cost of our kids’ innocence.

—Deena, 41

... a rite of passage we should allow.

When I was growing up, my father would raise an eyebrow as I’d waltz out of the house on Tuesdays and Fridays (yes, Fridays) to go do chesed at a neighbor with the cutest crew of little kids. “Chesed begins at home,” he’d tell my mother — who nevertheless allowed and encouraged us to go do chesed in the community.

Today, looking back, I cringe. My father, a rebbi, was very involved in kiruv; we typically hosted ten-plus guests each Shabbos. My sister had severe medical and special needs. Did I really leave my mother to go help someone else? On Friday?

“Chesed begins at home.” It sounds good, it’s the mantra we all believe and parrot. But let’s face it: It’s not the reality we live. Our girls have chesed programs and endless volunteer opportunities. Should they? Is this ideal?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Chesed programs are here, they’re our reality, and we need to accept and accommodate them.

That’s what my parents did when we were growing up. All of us happily helped out — at home, yes, but we all participated fully in our school’s chesed program, often in homes less busy than ours, often assisting children with special needs who weren’t our sister.

Was this the right approach? I’d like to think that had my parents insisted that I fill my chesed hours in our house, reminded me that chesed begins at home, I’d have gushed, “Of course! You’re sooo right!” before merrily peeling pounds of potatoes and washing our dishes. But I can’t know what would have happened in this alternate reality (although when I imagine that reality, I make myself as virtuous as possible).

But I can tell you that in the reality I did live, none of us resented my parents’ hosting or my sister with special needs. Instead of feeling encumbered by our reality, we took pride in it. Because our home was not a burden to us, it became instead an ideal to emulate — a gift I am so grateful for as I build my own home.

—Bayla, 37

... something I really rely on.

I was once at a parenting class where the speaker advised women not to allow their daughters to babysit. You don’t know what sort of homes they’re going to be in. If you want them to learn to do chesed, you should do chesed. They can do chesed for family members.

I almost burst into tears. I live in Eretz Yisrael, 6,000 miles away from all of my family. If I can’t get babysitters, I’m stuck. I can’t go to simchas, I can’t go out at night. Most importantly, I can’t go to important appointments. I remember once sitting in a taxi on the way to the emergency room, calling babysitter after babysitter to be told by every mother, “Oh, my daughter’s not available. Oh, she’s going out with friends. Oh, I want her to help me.” I didn’t want to make myself sound like a nebach and beg and say, “Please, my doctor sent me to the emergency room.” But I felt so, so lost. It’s really nice to only do chesed for the family, but that leaves a lot of people in the lurch.

—Leah, 25

... I allow, encourage, and sometimes force (horrors!) my teenage daughters to babysit/do chesed.

I’m among the minority, but I think helping other people is such an important part of growing up. When I was in high school, our school chesed program was a mainstay in Monsey. Every day, hundreds of girls would be dispatched to homes in need, where we’d really, truly help people. I used to go to one family who had multiple children with special needs. There was another family of children with “hidden needs.” I was at times a babysitter, a tutor, a cleaning lady — or all three. I sorted laundry, I scrubbed toilets, I took one family out for pizza in a station wagon whose alignment was off.

Before Pesach, we were required to clean for three solid hours (during the school day), and it was none of the taking kids to a park that my teens do now. It was backbreaking, take-apart-a-moldy refrigerator kind of work.

We’ve become much more knowledgeable about the dangers of entering strangers’ homes, and this knowledge has made us wary. That’s a good thing — I shouldn’t have been trusted with that station wagon, and one child hurt is one child too many. But I’m worried that it has also turned our generation away from doing this type of chesed. We’re rightly wary of dysfunction, and technology standards, and myriad other things that our parents were unaware of in the ’90s, so we don’t, as a rule, encourage our daughters to roll up their sleeves and use elbow grease.

I have a lot of thoughts, but I’ll leave you with this one: When I sent my daughter to help a neighbor, she came home with a new appreciation for language. The dishes in our sink no longer made our house dysfunctional once she’d taken out a garbage that had lingered in the kitchen and spilled into the den for over a week.

—Tzipora, 40

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 961)