The Outcome

One day, you’ll be staring the results of your parenting in the face, and you’ll be smiling. I know, because I just had that moment.

This past Tuesday, Jon and I moved our son, Gabe, into his college dorm room and watched him launch into adulthood.

I’ve long believed that kids only get one childhood, and that parents and teachers should fill it with meaningful moments, profound learning and significant memories. Jon and I thoughtfully made every major parenting decision, including Jewish day school for Gabe. So, I speak from experience when I say that by choosing Mirowitz, you are working to shape your children into future young adults who will:

• add to the diversity of their community because they know who they are.
• know from experience that their words have power, and use them to make the world better.
• feel a sense of purpose and ability to affect change.
• know what it feels like to be in an ideal community, one that inspires its members to treat others with respect and compassion.
• Last week, I heard the Torah portion chanted four times. I empathized with Moses as he was told he would not be allowed to enter the promised land with the Children of Israel. All of his efforts freeing the slaves, leading them from Egypt, shlepping through the desert, putting up with a community of whiners…all THAT, and he doesn’t even get to enter the land with them. But that’s the way it is with parenting. We guide them, nurture them, help them develop into confident, capable, considerate young men and women, and then we have to let them be leaders without us.
• When it came down to that last tearful goodbye (my tears, not his) and a final attempt to repeat all of the lectures we’ve ever given him into a few parting words, I kissed my boy goodbye and watched him walk into his dorm and towards his future, the promised land we’ve been raising him for all of these years.  As he walked away alone, I looked back on the choices Jon and I made in shaping his childhood. He was ready for this moment, and believe with confidence that his day school experience set him on the trajectory.I returned Thursday with even more passion (if that’s possible) for the holy work we do at Mirowitz every day…because now I know for certain that one day, not all that long from now, you are going to watch your child walk into a dorm room. You may be teary, not because you are worried, but because you are so satisfied with the young adult who once upon a time stood under a tallis at Simchat Gan. I am ever dedicated to ensuring that when that day comes, you say to yourself, “Sending my child to Mirowitz was the best decision I ever made.”Don’t believe me? Ask Patty Bloom, Aura Kavadlo, and the other alumni parents whose children are starting college this year! They will concur.