If you have young children do you fast?

mommy3b2c

Tue, Mar 19 2024, 9:36 pm

amother Crimson wrote:

I feel like this poll should also ask if you are chassidish and wouldn't fast even if you didn't have small children.

I am not chassisish . My youngest is 8 and I only fast on Tisha bav and Yom Kippur

the world's best mom

Tue, Mar 19 2024, 9:56 pm

I clicked the wrong thing by mistake, because I understood it as when I am nursing. (Mommy brain at its best.) I am now nursing and I do not fast while nursing, but I do fast otherwise. I did not ask a shaila.

OddoneOut1

Wed, Mar 20 2024, 5:13 am

amother Daisy wrote:

This makes me so jealous! I'm a horrible faster, fasting feels to me like having the flu in terms of weakness, strong headaches and ice cold hands and feet. I have children under 10 and I have to go to work on Thursday on top of that. Our rav holds women have to fast if not pregnant or nursing.
Sometimes I wonder if the fast counts as a mitzvah at all, as so many get a heter or have a custom to opt out.

On the other hand, maybe serves me right that I have to fast. We hold relatively lenient, MO type, on tzniut. So being doomed to be machmir in other areas maybe evens it out. Kind of, having to fast is the price for open sandals in the summer, who knows? Just musing.

Can you ask your rav if you can break your fast once you are feeling flu-like (like you mentiond). I am pretty sure that anyone (man or woman) is supposed to break a minor fast at the point they feel this way. Yom kippur and Tisha B'av are the major fasts that you are supposed to stay in bed and do nothing as to not break a fast, but from what I recall of the halacha, does not apply to minor fasts...
Definitely worth asking about if you have such a hard time