Since when does doing a Chessed come with pay?

SRS

Mon, Aug 08 2016, 3:47 am

My suggestion to the OP would be figure out how to best function in your community, even if you need to lean on others for the rest of this pregnancy. Do you need to learn to drive? Maybe ask someone to teach you and ask a group of women if they will take you out for road time? If you really need someone to take your child, talk to the school and see if they can arrange an exchange where someone takes your child in the morning and you do something for them that needs done. I have one neighbor that leaned on me and would bring me challah or soup before Shabbos and that really was the best because she could sense that I needed that for the arrangement to work.

Until you've driven a carpool, especially a less than perfect one, you might just imagine that a person pulls to the side and the child jumps in and off you go. But it isn't like that at all. Waiting, calling, texting, seat belt issues, grumpy children issues. Wow, I'm enjoying being carpool free this summer!

Chayalle

Mon, Aug 08 2016, 11:35 am

amother wrote:

I disagree with this, and on one hand agree with the OP. But, don't call it car pool, call it what it is. I need some one to do a chesed for me for the next 3 months, until I have the baby, can't afford to pay, but will be happy to reciprocate the favor any way I can.

I'm all for Chessed, just explaining why it's hard for people in a carpool to do Chessed - often it means excluding someone who would be participating in the carpool, and more driving for the people involved. And agree with your point - say you need a Chessed - not that you want to join a carpool.

I happen to have been in this situation - in my neighborhood there's a woman who doesn't drive, and the rest of us have to split up into two carpools in order to accommodate a child whose mother is not contributing to the carpool. There are some people who feel rather resentful, and feel that the husband should pitch in. Whatever, it's a situation where personally I'm not sure I'd send my child with the husband, so I leave it at that.....

On this topic, I have a close relative whose child R"L was going for treatment over the summer while battling a tough illness..... I remember how she told me last summer, that just before the summer her neighbors handed her a "carpool schedule" where they had worked out - without her having requested it - both of her kids' different daycamp schedules, with pick-up and drop-off, all taken care off. The Chessed astounded and touched her, giving her tremendous chizuk in an ongoing difficult situation.

debsey

Mon, Aug 08 2016, 12:43 pm

Chayalle wrote:

On this topic, I have a close relative whose child R"L was going for treatment over the summer while battling a tough illness..... I remember how she told me last summer, that just before the summer her neighbors handed her a "carpool schedule" where they had worked out - without her having requested it - both of her kids' different daycamp schedules, with pick-up and drop-off, all taken care off. The Chessed astounded and touched her, giving her tremendous chizuk in an ongoing difficult situation.

wow.....

heidi

Mon, Aug 08 2016, 1:34 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I'm sorry, but I don't see the connection between the two stories. Number one is a woman in a situation that she brought upon herself-- she chose to put the child in that school. It is her responsibility to get him there and back.
Number two is an obvious and beautiful chessed.
I am always willing to bring food to people in need, help with driving or watching children for people in a crisis. I truly am grateful to be in the position to give and not chas v'shalom have to take.
But I can't understand why it would be my "chessed" responsibility to get someone's kid to school every day.

Chayalle

Mon, Aug 08 2016, 1:42 pm

Heidi I'm not saying there's a connection between the two. I'm just sharing that people do do Chessed - like a neighborhood banding together for an entire summer to take two siblings of an ill child to daycamp (I could tell you a few more things that neighborhood does, that just blows me away every time I hear it - Mi K'amcha Yisrael....fresh Challos for Shabbos - they could buy, you know, but it's so nice....). They do Chessed with no reimbursement (not in this world, anyway), with their whole hearts. The OP seemed to be upset that people don't do Chessed, I say Chessed is alive and well.

But in some situations there's resentment - I think it's when the situation is ongoing and it seems like the parents themselves could be doing something. The thing is we don't really know what's going on by someone else, and why they can't take the responsibility upon themselves. Should the child not go to school because the parents can't/won't take them?