Cradle Snatchers

-
I don't know much about my little brother. I don't know anything at all, in fact. You see, he wasn't born, wasn't conceived, doesn't exist. I'm the youngest.

But I do know one thing about him. And that's that if I had one, he'd be getting married now. Yes, right about now my little brother would be announcing his engagement to the world.

What makes me so sure? Well that's what little brothers do, apparently. It's all that my friends' little brothers have been doing, the whole flock of them.

"Isn't he 18?" I ask, when I heard of yet another engagement.

She looks insulted. "No, he's 19. His birthday was ages ago."

"Oh." I say. "I'm sorry. I still think of him as 5, and getting in the way when we played house".

They are mainly 19. A few of them, the older ones, have waited it out till the ripe old age of 20. They span across society, from National-Religious to Litvak to Chassidic.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really. I shouldn't call them babies. I also started dating when I was nineteen.

But I never went out with a 19 year old boy, it never even came up. And if a 20 year old had been suggested to me, I would have laughed. Even 21 I considered childish. I still do. Let's face it, men mature much later than women.

Boys getting married in their teens, that used to be because they were hitching up with their high school girlfriends. Not because they were Shidduch dating.

So what is this new trend, of teenage grooms? Is it only in Israel, or has it reached across the Atlantic too?

I've got to admit, I understand the girls, the brides, in a way. Grab the men when they are young.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connection over Kiruv

-
I asked a girl for directions today, and we ended up chatting through the rest of our shared ten minute walk from the train station. I felt happy. Not because I saved a soul, not because I helped a secular Jew see the light, but because I made a friend. Just like Yeshivish Harry says perfectly in his post on being friends with secular Jews , relating to other Jews shouldn't be all about Kiruv, it should be about conection, and caring. Hopefully, the next time that my ten-minute-friend thinks of Chareidim, she won't think of the men throwing stones in the Meah Shearim, but of a girl who's a lot like her inside, even if she is dressed a bit differently. And you know what, even if that doesn't happen, even if our conversation changes nothing about the way she views religious Jews, it doesn't matter. Because for a few minutes, two Jewish girls were friends. And I bet that when we were smiling, God was too.
Read more

Mikvah Madness

-
It was too late. I was naked when I found out the truth. I clutched the towel around me and stared at her in horror. I was trapped. Only I could make such a stupid mistake. I missed all the clues- the sandy path that was longer than I remembered; the sign post for the Mikvah Keilim I didn't recall; the type of women inside- I should have known something was wrong when I saw the women. Nine of them, lined up in a row, one empty chair in the middle that they seemed to have saved for me, ready to interrogate me; the questions- how long I'd been married, how many times I'd been here before; the blessings that I wouldn't need to be back the next month. "I've been married six years and this is my fifth time at the Mikvah" one woman proudly told me. I tried to do the math in my head, while the other women congratulated her. The woman sitting behind the till wore a thick turban. She wasn't Simcha, the Mikvah attendant I'd come back here for. I'd
Read more

A Girl's Guide to Tznius Shopping in Jerusalem

-
Warning: Men should stop reading this right about now. So you're in Jerusalem, the holy city. And you want to be holy, and dress modestly. But you don't want to look holy . You want to look good . Never fear. I'm a secret Shopaholic. And arriving home loaded with shopping bags tonight, I suddenly felt like sharing my accrued wisdom with the world. This is going to be an exceedingly shallow post. 100% Chitzoniyus and Gashmiyut. My only defence is that a girl in Shidduchim has got to be well dressed! Frum stores I'm not so into shopping at Frum stores. Something about the idea of being dressed exactly the same as every girl in Bnai Brak and Sanhedria Murchevet gives me the shivers. But if you're aiming for a Frum-yet-classy look for a Simcha, where you want Tante Baila to approve of you and suggest a fine Bochur for a Shidduch, then check out One-of-a-Kind (Location: Go down Rechov Haturim, which is off Malchei Yisroel, and then turn either left or right, I
Read more