I'm going to ... um, the store. Yeah, the store.
Discussing mikvah just isn't done. Because of its inheret tie to the resumption of marital relations, the fact that you're going is something shared with your husband and the mikvah lady, and that's it. (Maybe your hostess if you're traveling and staying in someone's house and can't come up with a reasonable explanation for your absence.) One of the problems with all the secrecy surrounding going to the mikvah is that it's really hard to keep secrets from your kids. Although they know nothing of the details, sooner or later they start asking questions. Where is Imma going? Why aren't you taking any of us with you? Imma, you never go anywhere without the baby. Why aren't you taking him/her? I had to start leaving the baby more often, going shopping by myself, going to shiurim (lectures) and not explaining myself every time, so it wouldn't be so strange when I left without any of them.
I make a point of being honest, with myself and with others. So even though I may manage to slip out without telling the kids where I'm going, my husband and I prepare a cover story. Then I call home before I actually come home, and ask if he had to use it. If he told them I was going to the grocery store, I have to actually stop at the grocery store on the way home, and come home with groceries!
We did the same thing once when my parents were visiting. Feeling a little guilty, we asked them to babysit so that my husband and I could go for "a long drive." My leaving by myself would have looked a little strange, but us both leaving, and leaving them with the kids made more sense. When he picked me up after, he insisted on taking that "long drive" (rightfully so, I was just feeling more guilty about how long the whole process was taking, since I couldn't really prepare at home with a house full of guests!) before we went back.
And preparing at home with kids... well, I often wind up borrowing a trick I learned from my kallah teacher the first time I needed to go to mikvah Friday night. "I can't take time to prepare right before Shabbos!" I protested. "So take a long bath in the morning when you get up," she suggested. "Then do all the little things thoroughout the day, and just before Shabbos go take a good shower."
I know, many of you have heard that you can't eat or do anything else once you begin preparation. That's the ideal, but it's not the only way. [Like the people who tell you a hefsek taharah must be done within half an hour of sunset. Ideal, but not the only way. But that's another post.] Anyway, preparing over the course of the whole day gives the preparation more meaning for me, somehow imbues it with more sprirtuality. I'm not sure why, or how, but the whole day becomes more focused, but in a more relaxed way.
TrackBacks
Comments
Yes, it's obvious, but do your kids know that? I'm mainly not explaining myself to my kids, who are just old enough to ask questions and definitely young enough to not get the details! They know what a mikvah is, know its use for toiveling keilim (for the uninitiated, we dip our dishes too, when first purchased) but I just don't feel it's any of their business to describe other uses. I don't feel the need to describe menstrual flow to children under 9, (unless the girls are showing signs of early maturity) nor is it any of their business why we sometimes sleep in one bed and sometimes in two, nor what else we do there! And in front of my parents, well, it's just embarrassing. I don't care about running into other women at the mikvah... so we share a secret. I don't tell my friends because it just doesn't seem appropriate.
I don't have kids, yet, but I'm already trying to figure out how to do the "mikvah thing" without telling them more than they need to or should know.
Funny enough, I have no problem telling good friends - if they want to make a date for a particular night and I say I'm busy that night, I'll tell them it's my mikvah night (woohoo, high-five, you go girl!). But if it's *the* night, I can't say anything. Maybe the advance info is okay because it's just the conversation; we're just talking about it, not actually doing anything.
I can sympathize with not wanting to explain the mechanics of niddah to young children, but I'm not sure I see what's so awful about "Mommy has to go dunk herself in the mikvah; it's something married ladies do once a month because we're Jewish." (That would be for a very young child, of course, and you could scale up the explanation as you're comfortable.) It just seems as though creating elaborate excuses is a lot of extra work for you and your husband!
Well, for starters, I don't go "every month." That would require regular cycles and being neither pregnant nor nursing, on a regular basis. And I don't want my children figuring out when I'm pregnant before I'm ready to share that news, because of reason number three. Secondly, my children would never except that without asking, "why?" and thirdly, they repeat everything they hear! I really don't need the entire preschool knowing that I went to mikvah!
And it's not really an elaborate excuse... if they ask, he says I went to the store, and so I do, on the way home.
I think children today know way too much about everything way too young. I'm a little tired of those parent-type magazines that say you should basically describe the mechanics of sex ("Mommy and Daddy fit together like a puzzle...") to very young children. I don't think they want or need that information that young. Let them keep their innocence as long as possible.
I guess it's hard to explain, but it's a matter of privacy and comfort level. Some people walk around nude in front of their children, and let them into the bathroom with them... We just aren't comfortable with that, so we don't.
I didn't know you're not supposed to eat or do anything else once you begin preparation. There doesn't seem to be consistency in kallah classes and that's frustrating.
I find the whole situation of having to come up with "stories" very frustrating too. So what if people know what we're going to be doing? We have kids, it's obvious that we "do" it at some point!
Cool blog, btw - this is interesting reading.