Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parenting Class 44 Love Your Children! Express Your Love to Them! 3

First, it's important to emphasize that just hanging around in the environment of the street gives a young person the sense of having a good time. Again, when you are home and someone is criticizing you, it's one of the worst feelings. When you are on the street and no one is criticizing, at least you feel calm. Yes, you're wasting your time. It might be cold, but at least you don't have the emotional stress of someone criticizing you. Being in in an atmosphere that is all about catering to every base pleasure enables him to feel as though he's a part of it, even if he cannot participate tangibly. Even if he doesn't have money, but he's around people and even if they don't share any money with him, but he sees what they're doing and he's enjoying the view. When one of the kids was asked this question, he answered, "You can live it up without buy without buying anything. Even before I had the guts to actually join the gang, I would sit at home for hours and imagine hitting the town. At the beginning, I barely had enough money for a pizza. But when I did buy one, I would sit with it in the shop for 2 hours with one slice. For me, this was the life. So, that's number one. Even without money, just being outside is better than being in a a a hate-feeling environment. Second, the streets of offer many temptations that don't require money. Plenty of urges can be satisfied, at least in the initial stages, by just looking around. These urges are very powerful a very powerful magnet in their own right. And their strength is enhanced by the general atmosphere of obsessive pleasure-seeking that characterises characterises the streets. Just looking at what people are doing, how people are enjoying themselves, the cars they're driving, what they're wearing, what they're singing, how they're behaving already gives certain pleasure to the yetzer hara to the evil inclination. The street also satisfies another basic emotional need. Though less known and less highlighted than others, it constitutes one of the most significant attractions. And the following letter illustrates this point clearly. I don't believe the stuff that my father wrote in his letter about loving me. First of all, I'm not stupid. And I know you told him to write it. He would never write that that on his own. Besides, it can't be for real. My whole life he never loved me. And now all of a sudden he does? He's writing it because he's embarrassed that I ran away. So he wants me to come back. Maybe he has some other reasons, too, but I don't care because he never really cared about me. He would smile at me when he could show off my good marks and when I helped out a lot. Once or twice he even gave me a hug and kiss. But most of the time he treated me just like another guy. Not like his son. He would also get mad and hit me when I went to my aunt's house because they were not so religious. But I would go anyway because she smiled at me. My aunt smiled at me. She was always happy when I came and she always hugged me even though I wasn't her son. She did it even when I hadn't done something good. When we moved away and I couldn't go to her anymore, I cried a lot. I used to cry before that, too, but only at night when no one saw because my father would get mad if he saw me crying for nothing. But when we moved, I couldn't hold it in. And I cried in the daytime, too. I once told my mother that I cried because no one cared about me and I wished I could die so that at least they would cry and be sad that I was dead. My mother told my father and he called me over and said that if I wanted him to love me, I should be good and behave. But I couldn't always be good. Also, I was always scared that if I wasn't good, they would hate me. I think that even when I was good and he would hug me and give me stuff, I didn't really believe that he loved me. I saw with my friends and with my aunt that if you really love someone, it doesn't always have to be good and and and he doesn't have to earn it. Unconditional love is what shows our children that we love them. That's why I don't feel bad for my father at all. I don't care about him. I'm just mad at him and keep wishing that bad things will happen to him. I feel a little bad for my mother because I think she did love me a little. But she didn't get involved because she didn't want to fight with my father. So, it's her fault, too, because she shouldn't have listened to him. I don't want to insult you, but I don't believe what you said that my father cried. I don't think he has the heart to cry. Even if he did, it's not because he misses me, but because he's really embarrassed. You also said that you don't get why I hang out with these kids, that I'm much better than them. That also shows that you really don't get it. They may do bad things, but they like me. And they're happy when I am with them. Besides, it's better than being in my lousy house. This letter demonstrates that the street offers a substitute for every child's need to feel loved and accepted. If parents show the child that he's not good enough, "You don't fit into our family. We come from a good of lot and you are embarrassing us or we have such good reputation in the community and you're lowering us down." The child sees that all they care is about themselves. They don't care about him. The bad crowd accepts the child as he is without conditions, except for the expectation to misbehave. In this crowd, the child feels that his emotional relationships, as poor and pathetic as they may be, are stable. They don't depend on being good, and they aren't jeopardized by his failures. In addition, the last words of the letter, "It's better than being in my lousy house," shows that a child is liable to an end up in the street, even if he has no expectation, even if he can't get anything out of it. Feelings of loneliness, rejection, and alienation hurt more at home than in the street. At home, he has expectations. When they aren't met, he feels the lack acutely. He wants his parents to love him and accept him. And if they don't, it hurts him terribly. But out in the street, he has no expectations or demands. When he goes out, he doesn't expect people to love him or respect him, and even if they do a little bit, that's already more than his expectation. Our children expect us to love them. And if we give them anything less than love, they're terribly disappointed. And they will go to the street and their friends. And that little love that their friends show them, it might be 10 times less than parents show him, but because it's unexpected, it is appreciated. Hanging out in the street helps him escape and suppress the feelings engendered by his disappointed expectations. That's why many kids will spend time in the streets by themselves go doing nothing but wander aimlessly. Just sitting on a bench. You wonder what what are they doing? Why don't they come home? It's warm. They can eat. They can read a book. What is it in the street? They prefer the loneliness of the street to the feelings of rejection and estrangement that are their constant fear at home. And this may explain why there are homeless people. Being on a street in the cold in the hot, being hungry being uncomfortable are all better than feeling unloved. To sum up, we can classify the lure of the street in three main categories. Number one, tempt- temptation. That's the most obvious one. The street offers all kinds of temptations, some of which require money, some of which are satisfied by just looking. And some of which are achieved merely by feeling like a part of it all. Number two, the crowd. The negative crowd in the street always available in one form of an- or another provides the child with some basic emotional needs. And number three, escape. The street provides an escape from the atmosphere at home that makes him feel hated. And the main lesson to be learned from this is as follows. An atmosphere of alienation undermines the child's ability to contend with the temptations of the street. But that's not all. An atmosphere of alienation is actually the main cause of the child's desire to escape from his home into the embrace of street life. We actually pushing our streets our children to the street by not loving them. A child [snorts] who wasn't privileged to enjoy a warm, loving, and supportive home atmosphere not only lacks immunization against the disease, he's actually being infected with one of the main causes of the disease itself. We will stop here by the grace of Hashem. In in 2 weeks, we will resume and we will do a brief review and finish this uh section. And we will learn how to express the affection and love um constantly and openly. Thank you for joining me. Have a great night.