Yisroel Bernath: Tatty Parenting

So I'm taking care of my kids for a change and about 7:30 in the morning I decided that I'm going to have a family meeting so I say to my children this week Tatty is going to be Mommy and Tatty to which my three year old pipes up and says you can't be a Mommy and a Tatty Mommys are for girls and Tattys are for boys OK I can say maybe by Kallah classes you'll figure out something else 7:30 goes by I'm trying to be this really nice Dad everything is just going hunky dory and of course I say, put on your shoes, and no one's putting on their shoes and I say, have breakfast, and no one's having breakfast and I say, please, can someone please and now I'm slowly slowly getting angrier and angrier to the point where I start screaming SHOES! SHOES! PLEASE! NOW! IN THE CAR! SEATBELT! SEATBELT! SEATBELT! COME ON! to which my three year old says there's Mommy we get to school and I put my three year old in her three year old class to colour she's like, Tatty, I'm going to colour and I'm like, bye, have a good time colouring and then I take my other daughter to kindergarten now thanks to a Jewish population explosion post war Beth Rivkah has two classes kindergarten A and kindergarten B and I'm not joking, on the door of kindergarten B it says KGB it's just missing the word "office" every day I take my daughter to the KGB now I understand our grandparents had issues with the KGB but how many generations is this going to go on for? I mean there's this collective history can we finally get over and get rid of this KGB thing? and finally, I'm not going to talk about sending our kids to camps so I get to the door of the classroom and my daughter says, Tatty can you write me a Mitzvah note? now I've been thinking about this Mitzvah note thing for quite a while you know how they usually say dear Morahs Mushkie was so nice to her little brother she didn't knock his eyes out today love, Tatty and actually, that is a Mitzvah it's the Mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel, it's true it is an actual Mitzvah but most of the time, let's face it parents write these Mitzvah notes and half of the stuff they write are not really Mitzvahs it's not actually Mitzvahs now I figured, being the good Chabad Shliach that I am the Rebbe instituted this idea of learning Sefer Hamitzvos every single day so I had this brilliant idea that not only am I actually going to write a proper Mitzvah on my child's Mitzvah notes but I'm also going to take the opportunity to educate the Morah and the girls as well so I say, dear Morahs today Mushkaleh was not over on Lav 289 you shall not murder from Exodus 20:13 a negative commandment forbidding us to murder a fellow human being love, Tatty yesterday I wrote, dear Morahs today Mushkaleh was not oiver on the 42nd prohibition that she should not put on any clothing with a mixture of wool and linen in them as idolatrous priests used to wear and I even added a Derabbanan Lav that since we're worried about her losing her memory Mushkaleh did not put on two garments at the same time as she was getting dressed this morning it would be kosher leshikcha she may lose her memory as well love, Tatty now after a couple of days after a couple of days Morah asked me please, to start sending Mitzvah notes so I said you're lucky I don't do three chapters of Rambam every day. Now, let's talk about dinner I realized the first day that my wife was gone the most practical dinner that I can make for my children Cholent I mean it's got all the nutrients a growing child needs, let's face it it's the beans, it's got the potatoes, it's got the meat and, this is the best part I can put it on in the morning and come back, and voila we're home from school and we have dinner all made the best part about it is after they're finished dinner if you need dinner for tomorrow night yes, you know it put a little more beans, a little more potatoes, a little more meat and voila shebang! There's dinner for tomorrow the second night, when they started complaining about the "lack of variety" that Tatty has in his food making this is a brilliant idea Cholent patties just a Tatty pro tip don't use the barbecue it takes way too much time now, bedtime. let's talk about bedtime with my wife, it's always so organized it's like military precision first, you're going to make your lunch and then you are going to brush your teeth and then you're going to prepare your Negel Vasser and then you'll say Shema and you're going to close your eyes and I don't want to hear a sound! and then there's fighting and there's screaming and it never works the way it's supposed to work not with Tatty no way all you need to do is you press "play" on your favourite Jewish video and you come back six hours later the kids are there exactly where you left them no fuss, no screaming totally fast asleep the best part of the whole thing is that you don't have to dress them the next morning that's my bit for tonight!