Having lived in Stamford Hill for the past 35 years — all my life — it was a huge disappointment for me to read Rosa Doherty’s article Charedi women the ultimate multi-taskers (JC February 8)
Doherty wrote about a handful of successful and happy women who already have a voice amongst their friends, families and workplace. Sadly, her cheerful picture of Charedi life could be wounding to the hundreds of other women who are unhappy, oppressed, fearful and silently screaming. She peered into my world wearing rose-tinted glasses and holding a huge paintbrush with which she has painted over and deleted my diverse, multi-coloured community in a blinding sunny yellow.
It is true that some Charedi women are willing, able and happy to juggle work and family within the strict religious confines. However, highlighting the few success stories covers up a diversity of experiences, some of which are deeply distressing. These following examples are based on conversations I have had with family members and friends. As we live in such a closed community, these women are expert at putting up a facade and appearing happy in public. I am sure that, had Doherty — a stranger — interviewed them, they would have not have admitted any of this. Indeed, I cannot reveal my own identity for fear of retaliation.
Meet the masked multitasker, a talented sheitel macher (wig hairdresser), mother of four, who from afar fits the bill as the ultimate multitasker. Her family and friends may or may not have noticed that she is more introverted and irritable then she used to be. They blame her busy life. Her seemingly happy disposition at every simchah ensures that any hint of suspicion is kept firmly undercover. They may never ask and therefore never know that she hides a huge secret; she is a victim of domestic abuse and so are her children. She is too terrified to speak out. As one of nine children herself, she cannot burden her parents with her problems, as they are already highly in demand across their tens of grandchildren. She suffers in silence, camouflaging her pain behind a five star sheitel, a beautiful dress and a smile.
Meet the resentful multitasker, a highly intelligent mother of three, who works behind the counter at a clothes shop. As a 16-year-old student, she aced her nine GCSEs and dreamed of becoming a paediatrician.
However, any discussion with her parents always ended in frustration. They wanted her to attend a seminary, to learn how to become a good wife and mother. She wanted to catch up on the chemistry and biology GCSEs she was prevented from studying at school and which she knew she would need to become a paediatrician.
She also intended to pursue the right A-levels that would guarantee her a place in one of the highly competitive medical schools. However, being a compliant daughter, and not wanting to upset her parents, she reluctantly agreed to attend sem for two years.
In any case, her parents pointed out, an unusual career would separate her from everyone else thereby reducing the shidduch chances her parents had in mind for her. Now, eight years and three children later, she is angry. It is too late and too difficult to realise her dream.
Meet the struggling multitasker, mother of nine children. When her fourth baby was born, she gave up her teaching career as she couldn’t cope with the demands of a job any more. Her husband is now the breadwinner. Yesterday she tried multitasking — she cooked dinner, entertained some of her children all while chatting to a friend on the phone when disaster struck; her toddler fell down all the stairs smashing his new baby teeth against the bannister. Today she’s kept her eight-year-old daughter home from school to help her with the four-year-old who had come down with the flu, her injured toddler and the baby. She barely sees her husband from Shabbos to Shabbos as he works frantically to support his family of 11. Her second oldest child is getting married in two months, and — from her oldest daughter — she already has a grandchild on the way. She cannot juggle everything — wedding preparations, a baby, a toddler, caring for her pregnant daughter, cooking meals, directing the cleaner, entertaining the other children. She breaks down and cries. She’s been crying a lot these days: she is exhausted. She barely sleeps or eats. She cannot tell anyone she is struggling, not even her parents or the doctor. She fears the stigma attached to the diagnosis of depression she expects she’d receive if she were to seek medical help. She knows too that if she were to drop the facade, her children’s shidduchim would suffer. She struggles on, guilt eating away at her as she keeps her daughter home from school one day after another.
What about those women who cannot multitask at all?
Those stuck in their bedroom, too depressed or anxious to leave the confines of their bed?
What about those with a personality or eating disorder who may be suicidal at times or savaged by their own thoughts?
It is time to scratch off the blinding yellow paint, put away those rose-tinted glasses and reveal the hidden anguish the community don’t want outsiders to see.
Let us talk about the good and the bad alongside each other. Let us dig beneath the surface and find out about abuse, poverty, coerced shidduchim, education and mental illness.
Are we truly happy or are we tormented by those things we must suppress? Do men, women and children genuinely have autonomy over their own lives, or are many of them forced to quash and deny their despair, even to themselves?
