You Wouldn't Risk $1,000,000. Why Risk Your Kids? Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen

So, this is a parenting course. But before I teach about parenting, I should really teach you why you should be a parent. It's so much easier not to have kids. You're more independent, you can do what you want, whenever you want, how you want. Why would you be a parent? So, I'll tell you. The world is looking for enjoyment and happiness. That's what we want, enjoyment and happiness. Now, vacations, cars, luxury homes, luxury cars, all those things are great. But we all know that they are a little bit not so genuine, they're not long-lasting, they're not real. However, when you have a child and you have children, that's a lot of work. But afterwards, it's such a good feeling, genuine feeling, you feel accomplished, you feel, "Wow." And that's really the number one thing. You want to be a parent because it's hard, and then you feel all the greatness, all the nachas, all the enjoyment, the pleasure of being a parent. Now, when should I start being a parent? When should I start better still, learning to be a parent? So, once I asked my students this question, made a survey, and I gave them four options. Two years before marriage, just when you get married, when your child is two, or when your child is five. So, I asked my students this question, and the vast majority of students told me when the child is two. Not before, not after. The ideal time to learn about parenting is when the child is two. I, on the other hand, say, "No." The best time to teach parenting is two years before you get married, and if you can, before that, even better. Why is that? So, the truth is that anybody who has a child and children knows that to be a father, to be a mother, you have to be super patient. You have to have so much endurance, so much self-sacrifice. You have to wake up in the middle of the night. You have to be patient. It's so hard being a parent. If you don't work on your midot, if you don't work on yourself, when you become a parent, you're probably going to fail because you haven't trained yourself. You haven't practiced how to be a better person. So, if I only began begin being a parent, learning how to be a parent when I'm when my child is two or five, what happens is that there's so many things I have to work on myself before that by the time I become a parent, it may be too late. Or at least it's late. So, I say, "When should I learn When should I start learning being a parent?" ASAP, as soon as you can. So, if it's if you're 18, 17, 16, depends on whatever circles you're from. As soon as you can. From the very first moment you can work on yourself, work on yourself because once you become more patient, endurance, self-sacrificing person, you will be a better parent. So, the answer is, "When should you start learning to be a parent?" As soon as you can. Some parents who actually hear my classes asked me, "But Rabbi, I already have older kids and my kids are older. I didn't start 2 years before I got married." The answer is, "It's never too late. Better late than never." So, when do we start? As soon as you're mature enough to understand that your actions make a difference. As long as you're mature enough that you you can able to be aware of yourself and work on yourself. And what's the minimum What's the maximum? Never. Always you can do the best you can. Better than ever. If you didn't do well until then, doesn't matter. From now on, you fix it. So good. We all understand more or less that we should be a parent. And we all understand that we have to learn how to be a parent. But my students have told me and this I've told you many, many times, especially when I start talking about parenting, they say, "Rabbi, why do I need to learn to be a parent? Why can't I just wing it? Why can't I just go out, be a parent, and see how it goes?" Good point. So, I told them first of all an analogy, which afterwards was a mistake. But I'll tell you an analogy. I told them, "Listen, does anybody drive without learning how to drive first?" So, looked at my students and I said, "Anybody drive before you learn?" No, you learn first. So, all all my students put up their hands and said, "No, we actually drove without learning." Oh, that was the wrong marshal, the wrong analogy. So, let me change that. So, I said, "Which responsible person would drive without learning?" Ah. Now, nobody put their hand up because if they did, it showed they're irresponsible. So, if you want to be a and you want to be a responsible parent, you have to learn before. Now, but the but still the boys weren't too convinced. So, I said to them, "Okay, if you can't bring them to become to learn about parenting out of responsibility, let's bring it out of money. Money is a super duper uh thing everybody likes. I said, "Let's imagine that your uncle is in a good mood and he gave you $1 million." Wow, $1 million, can you imagine that? And you say, "Okay, I'm going to I'm going to put aside 10K, 10,000, to buy myself all that I want to buy myself, and I'm going to put on the side 990. I want to invest $990,000 to be able to make even more money. Tell me, all of you agree with me that if you nobody would invest almost a a dollars without knowing first. For sure you "What do you mean? I'm either going to ask an expert to do it for me or I'm going to learn the ropes. I'm never going to invest $1 million without knowing." Same thing. Your child your children will be more than a million dollars. Money comes, money goes. Kids come and won't go. So, therefore, if you're going to invest and learn about money, you should you should invest and learn about your children. So, that's the first The second boy that asked me this question many years ago was, "Okay, Rabbi, I agree. I must be a parent and I must learn about it ASAP. But why can't I just copy-paste what my parents did? I'll see what they did with me and I'll copy-paste with my child." So, I said to them, let's call him Joey. Joey, if you want your child to look like you, so then indeed copy-paste your parents. But if you want your child to be better than you, then you're not going to copy-paste, are you? Good. That's number one. Two. Joey, different times, different challenges. I'll give you an example. When I was growing up in the 1980s, I grew up on Karate Kid, Home Alone, and Tetris. Tetris was the was the newest thing, black and white Tetris, Nintendo. So, when I was being raised, I was being raised on TV, VCR, you have to put a big big fat thing into a machine and watch a movie that you had to buy in the store. So, I was raised and if I wanted to buy a movie that was 18 or a little bit not appropriate, I had to go to the store with ID. So, I was raised in a much easier or at least in much more simple time. Nintendo, Tetris, black and white VCR TV. Home Alone. Home Alone, that was the best. You guys are raised on on Facebook, on Snapchat, on Block Blast. You're raised in a completely different generation. Imagine if I tell you, you know something but in my time, my challenge was being addicted to Nintendo Tetris. You say, "Daddy, Abba, come on. Block Blast and Tetris, you can't compare. Tetris and Nintendo, Home Alone is prehistoric compared to what we have now. So, you can't compare Nintendo to Snapchat. You can't, everybody knows that. Your kids, boys and girls, your kids, when you grow up are going to look at Snapchat, Block Blast, and Netflix as prehistoric. They're going to have something so much more. So, if you want to copy-paste your parents, it's not going to happen because your parents raised you on A, your parent raised you on a very simple social media. In 15 years time, the social media will be completely different. You can't copy-paste. You must learn the guidelines and the rules to apply the differences in the generations that's going to be in 20 years time. And finally, the last point where you can't copy-paste, and that is that your father is A, your mother is B. A plus B is C. You are C. But when you get married, you are C, and you're marrying D. C and D is not C. A and B is C. So, what your parents did to make C, that was good, but you're not C. You are You are C, and your wife is going to be D, or vice versa. And then your child's going to be E. You can't apply the same applications of parenting to C that you will do on E. So therefore, my friends, this is the course for you. Parenting in today's times.