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My son came home from camp today and told my wife of the day’s big event. “Two girls got married,” he said. In pursuing the matter, we learned all about the practice at girl’s camps of staging mock weddings with girls serving as chasson, kallah, and mesader kiddushin. The color has yet to return to my face. I can’t tell you if I would have been as appalled had the State of New York along with several others not legalized same sex marriage this year. I can’t tell you if I would have been as appalled had a certain institution in the Bronx not ordained the first woman rabbi this year. What I can tell you is what my Rav told me when I hurriedly phoned him today. Given these recent developments, staged weddings with girls acting out all the roles is no longer acceptable. Proof of the danger is in what my son took from the event: two girls got married. He didn’t say that he saw a chassanah. He saw two girls getting married. Let us not say that what small children see doesn’t matter. As Rav Yaakov Weinberg z’tl of Baltimore often pointed out, it matters more. How do I get this experience out of my son’s head? Can somebody tell me?
Without commenting on whether or not I think these mock weddings will have a detrimental effect, I will just say that one way to make sure something stays in your kids head for a very long time is to make a big deal of it.
How old is your son? I sometimes tell my older son (still very young) about when he meets his kallah how he will choose someone with good midos etc… Reinforce repeatedly the concept of healthy normal relationships by pointing them out and talking about them. The more you linger on a subject the more it remains in the head.
Much ado about nothing.
whats the big deal? They were acting out a jewish wedding with a chassan and kallah and of course a mesader kidushin. They were not trying to immitate any of the crazyness going on. can’t a little girl act the “tatty” part?
Kids being kids, my son thinks he’s going to marry mommy…my wife and I are nit concerned….nor should you
“we must differentiate ourselves from the Goyim”
goyim don’t do all-female mock weddings…
You’re absolutely right! We should make sure that at all day camp mock weddings only a girl can be the kallah and only boys can be chosson and misader kiddushin!
ROTFL!! Good one ItcheSrulik!
Chill. It was a mock wedding.
i think this is one of the most difficult topics ever posted. the first time i read the OP my reaction was to just type chill. then i thought more and realized that today maybe its not safe to chill. then i read it again and thought”AHHHH!!” big sakonoh. then i thought “chill it was a mock wedding”. in conclusion this doesnt appear to be a standard troll post. i would say it requires hadrachah from a real, experienced moreh derech or mechaneh. not the 30 year old shnuk round table kind, a real rosh yeshiva.
I agree 100%. From now on Rabbonim must insist that all camps be co-ed. Way to many problems with these same gender camps.
My students during the year every Friday are the shabbos Imma and Abba (girls) for shabbos party. Should this be stopped as well?
I don’t think so!!
This is the most pathetic thread i’ve ever read! No disrespect, but ‘concerned parent2’ you need to see someone fast. Good luck in your future parenting -you’re gonna need it.
I was belatedly also bothered by the title of this thread. THIS is what you refer to as tumah? Seriously?
I have adult children, both boys and girls. The girls had mock weddings in their schools and the boys in theirs. Yes the boys wore dresses….so what!
They are all well adjusted in every sense of the word…kids have always played make believe and always will. Use some common sense.
CP2, your job as a parent is to explain things to a child. Therefore explain how it was make believe. Following your logic, camps can only have plays where ALL the character are the same gender as the campers. I am in my 50s, and we had mock weddings when I went to camp. We all grew up ok.
For your childrens sake, relax a bit and learn to parent.
till I saw all these comments I thought the OP was joking. Oh my – big deal. THe kids have a great time – no one will think that way. Chill
CP2 –
2 Advil will make it all go away. It doesn’t need to be exactly Advil, the generic brands are just fine.
concerned – how did your son know about what happened in a girls’ camp?
popa – i actually agree with you! 🙂
itchesrulik – very good LOL
apushutayid – totally
So this means that in all preschools, from now on there can’t be any Shabbos mommy and totty in a class that’s only girls or boys.
What about Girls’ high school plays? Should they get Yeshiva bochurim to play the male parts?
Hey – good way to make shidduchim. Now we solved 2 problems! 🙂
To Concerned Parent 2:
I’m not certain how old your son is,
but it could be explained to him that only a male and a female can get married;
and that it was not 2 girls getting married, but 2 girls just acting out the roles in a play, the same way that girls sometimes perform a male role in a play, even if it’s not a mock wedding.
2 points, Gefen!
CP2 I understand your points, and even though a lot of us grew up with mock weddings and are b’h fine now, gay weddings in NY State were not allowed then. So I do think it’s a cause for concern and little children will remember the wedding, and perhaps see a picture of two girls getting married in the newspaper, and being in an all girls school this could lead to something problematic. Everyone who is just saying ‘chill’ is obviously not thinking very deep into this, doesn’t have kids, and just likes to belittle people.
just me – thanks 🙂
Mazel Tov!
“Everyone who is just saying ‘chill’ is obviously not thinking very deep into this, doesn’t have kids, and just likes to belittle people.”
or maybe you’re just overthinking it and blowing something completely innocent out of proportion…or did that thought never occur to you
OP, so true! A couple of years ago I saw a similiar thing and I went home and vomited. There was this mock wedding and it was a 10 year old boy and a 10 year old girl!!!!!!!! There’s no Tefisas Kiddushin!!!! An there wasn’t even a Kesubah, which may be DiRabban but EXTREMELY important. And the chassan wasn’t Koneh the ring, it was just given to him. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH And worst of all…. THERE WERE NO AIDIM!!!!!! AIN DAVAR SHEBIERVAH PACHOS MISHNAIM. I was so sick I couldn’t daven maariv. My rebbi said that under no circumstance should I go back there as they have the din of a Rodef to my neshama.
Chill is right! One participant is dressed as the chosson and one as the kallah.
I would even stage a mock same-gender wedding next Purim with a siddur kedushin full of puns and satire as a way of mocking how low NY has sunk – but I am not in NY.
I have five kids, I have thought this out clearly, I HATE to deliberately belittle anyone, and try to avoid doing that. I am still saying “chill.”
Bar Shattya, it is increasingly clear you love yanking our chains.
Three points in support of the original post:
1) There’s a difference between kids inventing a game on their own and adults imposing one on them. Some posts here are confusing the two. If a bunch of girls invent a wedding game from their own imagination then we can call it harmless. This is different. Here it’s not just kids having fun. It’s adults designing the fun and putting a stamp of approval on it.
2) Some of the posts seem to operate from the presumption that it doesn’t matter much what happens when children are small. This might stem in part from our getting distracted by their cuteness. I am reminded of the foolish people who dress up little girls in clothing that is provocative on adults and ignore the harm they are doing because the kids look so cute. However, you can argue that little things matter more when the kids are small.
3) What makes this worse is that they had a little boy watching the girls. It wouldn’t be as bad if only girls were involved.
Sure it’s tuma. What would you say if a coach were to teach a child to genuflect (trace a cross on his chest) when he steps up to the plate in Yiddleleague? Do we minimize it by saying it’s something that Latin baseball players do, ie it’s a baseball thing? “Chill.” Perhaps the mock weddings weren’t tuma before people associated them with true gay marriage. But now that the association is easy to make, it is tuma.
And worse tuma are the rude and brazen remarks that one finds all over the postings here.
Owl, you are making an innappropriate comparison. Not only is is not even apples and oranges, it is more like apples and airplanes. Not even remotely comparable.
Sigh
Owl and ConcernedParent2 are one…
If you are truly worried about your kids marrying gay or intermarrying, keep them happy to be part of klal yisrael. Once they leave, all is hefker. Mock weddings in camp are not the problem here.
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