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So,on shabbos,my daughter and I,who is 10,went to shul mincha time,in order that we should be on time and have a good seat for the megilla which was read right after havdalla. All was fine,except at the end of maariv,she had to go to the bathroom,so she left her seat. Her coat was on the seat. An older lady,I’d say around mid-60s came to sit. I told her my daughter was sitting here,she just went out for a minute. There was another seat right next to that seat,but it was facing a wall. I told her she can sit there,as I wanted to share megillas with my daughter. She made a face,like she really didn’t want to sit facing a wall,but she did. After like 30 seconds,she gets up and puts herself on my daughters seat. I told her again that someone is coming,she said when they come,she will get up. So my daughter came back,and this lady refused to get up. She said my daughter should face the wall. I explained that I needed to share a megilla with her,as she is not so good at Hebrew reading and I wanted her to follow along. She responded that she is a member of this shul and I can’t just reserve seats,this is not a hotel. I said I am not reserving seats,she’s here,she just went to the bathroom for a min,she say she’s not movingmshe doesnt care, mind you,my husband was the Baal koreh,so I had every right to be there! So I put my kid on her lap! The lady said she doesn’t want her on her lap,so I said,if you don’t like t,you have an empty seat right there,this is her seat. But she wouldn’t budge. So they all heard megilla like that.
Now,what would you have done? The women next to me all agreed that it was my daughters seat and this person was just being rude and stubborn. I couldn’t really say more as my husband began the megilla and I needed to pay attention. The second he was done,she ran out. She didn’t wait for the brooches after. She just bolted. I know she’s older then I am,so that in itself demands respect,but she did take a seat that wasn’t hers. What does this teach my young daughter about fairness? What should I have done? How would you all have handled this situation?
I thimk u handled it cutely. And sometimes older ppl act that way 4 attention.. like kids who need love..
Isn’t there an issue preparing on Shabbos for something occurring after Shabbos? Would going to there Shabbos mincha time to hear megilla on Motzei Shabbos be a problem?
I gather there was not much time to look out for another seat, so there is not much to do. Could you have offered her your seat while you sit between her and your daughter?
Well, this is really very upsetting. I don’t think you should carry a grudge on that person though. She’s been rude and acted senseless. That is totally not your problem. HER behavior was unacceptable. Since you know she was in the wrong, I’d say you should forget abt it and move on. Really, I think you should pity her. She’ll end up suffering from such behavior.
“So I put my kid on her lap!”
am I understanding this correctly: you put your 10 year old daughter on this 65 y.o. woman’s lap?! :-O
haleivi thats a good idea!
IMHO it wasn’t a good idea to put your daughter on the woman’s lap. But otherwise, everything you did seemed like the right thing to do.
Was there room/time to fit in an extra chair?
i absoluetly LOVE how you handeled it!! i dont know if i would have had the guts to do that being that i dont really assert myself in situations where ill always be wrong no matter how right i am, but i would definatly think of doing that!! IM PROUD OF YOU!!!
I laughed so hard when i read this but to be honest I am apalled at the lack of derech eretz on all sides. Yes the woman was absolutely totally wrong!!!but that doesn’t allow you to show equally reprehesible behavior. You missed a huge chinuch opportunity that might come back and bite you later on in a big way. How can you teach your daughter to behave like that. You needed to validate your daughter’s right to the seat but teach your daughter to show good middos in all situations including those where you are mistreated for being right. You may have acheived your short term goal but I feel you ignored your long term goal of being mechanech your daughter. As Halevai said you could have offered to change seats with her and had your daughter sit in the less desirable seat. It is hard to believe that the three of you thought you were being mekayaim a mitzvah through such behavior. I am sorry to come down on you like such a ton of bricks but I think it needed to be said. MODS, if you think I am being too harsh or that this will insult someone then please don’t post, maybe you can forward it to her email privately.
This woman is definitely either not totally normal, or she’s going through a very big crisis in life now. Therefore she didn’t act logically.
This is not the way people usually behave.
I think you should have picked up the back of the chair and dumped her off.
She was being a bully and relying on her age to pull it off. There is no reason why you need to play along with it.
popa i think you are being a little more than a bit over the top.
popa i think you are being a little more than a bit over the top.
Well, I don’t. I think that we should not let bullies use their weaknesses to bully us with.
She can’t use her disability as a way to control people and not allow them to respond.
by reacting like that you show that your middos are no better, reacting makes you happy for the minute, walking away teaches you to be a better person.
I disagree.
If my middos were no better, I would be going around bullying people.
Since I don’t, and I only don’t allow others to bully me, my middos are better.
I don’t believe that good middos means you let people walk all over you.
In many shuls the regulers in the ezras nashim (usely middle aged women) react hostile to the younger people invading THEIR shul during megila reading or tkias shofer. So just like there is a gabbai by the men so sould there be a gabbaite by the women to welcome the unregulers, give them a siddur and make sure they have a seat.
PBA – You’re wrong! If you react to someone obnoxiously even when they are wrong is bad middos. Two wrongs don’t make a Right! This is true esp. in this case when there is a viable solution, ie- EstherHamalka could have moved to her daughter’s seat and given the 60 y.o. her seat. Would the other Esther Hamalka that you were reading about in the megilla acted this way?
This is not about wrongs making a right.
This is not about revenge.
It is about living normally and not allowing people to bully you.
popa i cant sleep u wanna get some starbucks?
PBA – Well there are different ways to do that. In this case she should have offered her own seat. While giving in, she could make a comment about her behavior. “It’s not right for us to have to move because you don’t like facing a wall!
goq- me neither, cyu bring me back something?
sure thing s20 u name it
I don’t think so.
If you give in to bullies, they just bully you further and more.
The only way to respond is with force.
If this older woman was just being mean,or insensitive, then I would agree that you should just give in. But she is being purposely manipulative and using her rank to do so.
So you throw the rank in her face.
I’m asleep already, but yet I can post while sleeping.
PBA – No she wasn’t. She just didn’t like the seat facing the wall. She felt she deserved the best seat in the house due to her age. And the ten y.o. should give her seat for this older lady, esp. when everybody could have been happy in this scenario.
Thanx goq! actually, maybe make it pizza?
PB- Bad logic, and incorrect. Please do some more reaserch before becoming an educator of any kind.
popa, How was she being purposely manipulative and using her rank, as opposed to simply being mean or insensitive?
I think she was wrong, but I don’t think your response was appropriate. Sometimes you just have to accept that though the other person is not acting properly, they’re not about to change that so you have to give in. I personally would have said once or twice that this is my daughter’s seat and she’s coming right back, but if the woman would have insisted on sitting there, I would have moved somewhere else or put my daughter on my own lap. To put her on this older woman’s lap was somewhat chutzpadik and immature, IMO, despite the fact that she was in the wrong.
Just my .02.
how cum I cant figure out how to spell research? aaaaaaah its driving me crazy someone correct me please..
Because she took the seat telling the mother that she would move, intending that the mother would be too embarrassed to make a stink and throw out an old lady.
And she was right, the mother didn’t have the guts to throw her out.
She didn’t even make any pretense of right.
She just used force to accomplish her goals, using her weakness to make sure that the other party wouldn’t use force in return.
You just try pulling that on me.
I would have picked her up and thrown her down a staircase.
s2021: what do you mean by research?
Thank You Mods!!!!!
PB-Anything? Therapy maybe? Before u have kids? Or become the caretaker of ur elderly mother?
the woman might be a crackpot or just a mean bitter woman, you won’t change her and at the end you go home with a 10 year old that learned the lesson that all that talk about middos is just that, talk. the lesson the 10 year old learned will probably outlive the older woman and not in a positive sense. At the end you were all stubbborn, no one one and not one got the zechus of overcoming their yetzer hara. Popa, you are forgetting the particulars of this story. they were all there to do a mitzva, the daughter’s chiyuv is only for chinuch, what chinuch did she get? Esther’s reaction here is similar to someone who is crossing a street on a green and a car goes through on the red. Most people will jump out of the way even though they have the right of way because no one wants to be “dead right”. We all have to learn the lesson that sometimes it just doesn’t pay to fight. Esther had the opportunity to show her daughter that we show kovod to zekainim even when they don’t deserve it, simply because they are older. We actually have a mitzah to stand up for an older person like it or not. No question the woman acted wrongly but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Ok, I usually do not agree with popa, but he/she is 100% correct. This older lady was in the young girls seat without permission. The girl had her coat on the chair so for all intents and purposes the girl has baylos on the chair while there in shul.
Having good midos does not mean to allow someone to step all over you. If the older women had no seat and the mother saw that, she should offer her daughter’s seat to the older woman. That is showing good midos. However, in this case, there were extra seats and this older woman decided to occupy an already occupied seat. That is bad middos and it is the responsibility of the mother to educate her daughter that people will not tolerate bad middos. There is no chiyuv to be a chosid shotah.
I agree with Mother in Israel. If your daughter is so small why couldnt she sit on YOUR lap. I am sure she wouldve loved that, how often does a 10 yr old get to sit on Mommy’s lap. There is a certain respect you need to have for older pple even if they are wrong. What is the lesson you taught your daughter by putting her on a strangers lap against that persons will?
I was once by a wedding and there were not enough places for the women to sit. So the a family memeber sat a bunch of women by the kid’s table since the kids were running around anyways. Along came an 8 yr old girl that wanted her seat and one for her sister she started crying and asking ladies to get up. The mother came to the table and made all the ladies get up for the kids. She said its not fair to the kids not to have seats by the wedding. I thought it was wrong of the mother. You teach your kids that adults sit first. SHe can pull over a chair next to herself and have her kids sit by her table. IMHO.
How un beliveable this is…..the question “How would you react?”. The simplest way to have handle it was to tell her that the seat was your daugthers, once she became stubborn, you should have offered to switc seats and have your daughter face the wall.
This was a great opportunity to teach your daughter that there are times that even though we are in the “right’, the right thing to do is show derech eretz to others. What you have shown your daughter is simply that when I am right, I am right and nothing is more important than that! Our generation (I am in my 40’s with enough chiildren to observe this) is becoming the ME FIRST generation. What I need, How I feel, I come first etc. is becoming the norm.
The woman was in her 60’s….for goodness sake coudlnt you just give her the seat??? And to the poster that insists that you were simply standing up for your rights is probably the same guy that makes a U-Turn in middle of traffic on Avenue J because he saw a spot on the other side of the street.
I disagree with what you did. Yes, the lady was wrong. But in my opinion, you were just as bad…
I am not reading through all the responses yet, because I wanted to put in my own two cents. I am very close to the age group of that woman, and speaking strictly as an older person, I think you might have been right in terms of “you got there first and specifically told the woman that this was where your daughter was sitting.” HOWEVER – when you see you are dealing with an older person who is clearly NOT conforming to societal niceties, it is obvious there is something wrong with her thinking, especially if she did everything exactly as you described. You had a golden opportunity offered to you to teach your daughter about derech eretz for the older person, even when that older person does not act properly. Perhaps it was physically uncomfortable for the woman to sit by the wall. I have orthopedic issues that make sitting in some positions for a long period of time, very problematic for me, so I always use aisle seats in shul. Or perhaps she was just an obnoxious, difficult woman. Either way, you missed the mark, IMO.
I think putting your daughter on the woman’s lap was extremely demeaning to your daughter and really an inappropriate response, to say the least. The two of you ladies were jockying for power,and you being the much younger, might have found some type of compromise, i.e., sitting in the middle, as someone else suggested. Sometimes you can win a battle and lose the war. I think this was one of those situations.
P.S. I just read through the other responses. Either Popa is yanking our chains, or he was bullied a lot once upon a time. Either way, Pops, your response IS over the top.
if i was the mom i would have had my daughter on my own lap. not on the other womans lap.
I agree with most female posters here, it was not the right response.
Popa: Even if this woman deserved to be “thrown down the stairs”, why should her ten year-old be put up to this task? The girl learnt a behavior, but who says she’ll understand when to apply it and when not to.
___
To be fair, the OP came before Mincha, was probably waiting for an hour and half +. Thirst and hunger also sets in. To have all that effort and waiting be disposed because of some obnoxious oldie, is a very difficult nisoyon
I almost sat on someone’s lap myself!
I had left my jacket on the chair and my Megillah on the table so that it should have been obvious that seat was taken. I returned after three minutes and found someone sitting there and my Megillah open. There were no empty seats, so I just asked if I could share her Megillah. She said, “Sure, but hopefully the person it belongs to won’t come.” I smiled and said, “Here’s an extra Megillah. She lets you keep the seat.”
This wasn’t a power struggle as she would’ve relinquished the seat. I just feel good that I let it go.
mewho – I’m with you. A 45 pound child belongs on a mother’s lap, instead of confronting a 65 year old and making a commotion in shul.
I’d want my daughter to see that when dealing with difficult adults (whom you don’t know, and therefore have no responsiblility or ability to change), it’s usually best to let them have it their way, if possible.
So either (as HaLeivi said) you could have asked her to take your seat, and you’d sit between her and your daughter.
Or, if she still refused, I’d put my daughter on MY lap.
Look, she’s obviously got issues. Why play along? Try to handle it gracefully and respectfully.
Personally, I think it’s quite rude to put your daughter on her lap. Of course, she was rude for not budging, but why stoop to her level? I’d even wish her a freilichen purim before leaving.
here u go s2021 large pie with mushrooms and peppers enjoy careful its hot
I know I am going a tad off topic, but what I find interesting is that most 10 year old girls will not tolerate sitting on a strangers lap-especially a stranger that they dont trust/know or who is acting in a more hostile manner. I would have thought the girl would have resisted sitting on this ladys lap even for a few seconds, never mind the whole megillah reading…
My ten-year old wouldn’t be caught dead sitting on MY lap in public, but there are all types of kids.
Yay Thank you goq!! Yum- perfect timing!
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