Baby girl kiddush | Imamother

finallyamommy

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 1:28 pm

I once heard of a gadol who told a girl's parents that the reason she was having trouble - I think it was in finding a shidduch - was because they had never made a kiddush for her. They made her a kiddush then, when she was grown already, and then everything was okay, but I don't remember who the gadol was.

pesek zman

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 1:32 pm

esheschayil wrote:

I've heard of this too. The woman I know of actually hasn't yet gotten married but also had a kiddish when she was about 21

yamz

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 1:44 pm

The reason you make a kiddush for a baby girl is to celebrate her birth and to thank Hashem for bestowing such a bracha upon you! This is the formal way to publicly express your gratitude and joy and give others the opportunity to share in your Simcha. Goodness, people make a kiddush in shul for lots of other less momentous occasions! You can make the kiddush as grand or as simple as you like or can afford, just like the seuda following a bris (you can serve rolls with homemade egg salad or you can have a fully catered hot buffet). That said, if having a baby girl is "no big deal" to you, or you just don't feel like it, then don't make a kiddush. The sky will not fall. There are no halachic requirements and no official rules, except maybe community expectations.

spring13

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 4:04 pm

It's a nice idea. There's so much hoopla around the birth of a boy (shalom zachar, bris, maybe pidyon haben) that a girl's birth can seem anticlimactic or even insignificant in comparison. And quite frankly, that's really unfair to girls. They should be celebrated as well, even if there are no halachic ramifications or requirements at play.

I have a few friends who have had baby boys very recently. And I had to explain to my daughters that DH was going to a shalom zachar (I managed to get to one as well) and that I was taking one of them to a bris, and that these are parties for new baby boys. They're little, but they're not stupid: they understood that this meant that new baby girls don't have these things, and that this is in some way unfair. I want them to know that they are valued, that any future sisters would be valued, that friends' daughters are valued. Making a kiddush, either at home or at shul, is a good way to do that. And it should be done right away, not 21 years later when the parents start worrying about shidduchim. Frankly, if my parents had tried to pull that (a pity/desperation kiddush), I'd probably have stopped speaking to them for a while.

I made a kiddush for each of my girls as soon as I could organize it after their births. I didn't go all out, but it was more than just an extra pan of kugel; they were clearly meant to mark the birth of a daughter.

bluebird

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 4:15 pm

esheschayil wrote:

Not the source for it, but this happened on an episode of Srugim. Smile

One of the women wasn't getting married and a mekubal(?) told her it was because her parents must not have made a kiddush for her. So she set about throwing herself one at a shul where no one knew her. It did not go well. Wink

This is just an amusing little anecdote. I am not claiming it's a source of having a kiddush for a baby girl, LOL.

Last edited by bluebird on Sat, Nov 07 2015, 9:30 pm; edited 2 times in total

dee's mommy

Mon, Oct 26 2015, 6:04 pm

In my community, the kiddushes for baby girls are just as festive as the brisim. Often there is cholent and kugels as well as salads, fruit and cakes. Friends help out and volunteer to help make the various things, and also set up and make the occasion look really nice.

Just as with a bris, the rabbi speaks nice things about the family, and often the father will speak about the name given to the daughter, give brachos and express his hopes for his daughter, and possibly give a d'var Torah. (If grandparents are present, often they do the same.)

These kiddushim are not necessarily done right away. Quite often it happens quite sometime later sometimes a couple of months later. I know of one family who waited about six months, because the baby girl was born in the middle of winter (which is really nasty where I live) and it would have been too difficult for them to get to shul, as well as many other families. In addition, it gave them a more convenient time for out of town family members to join the simcha.

Last edited by dee's mommy on Mon, Oct 26 2015, 6:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

imasoftov

Tue, Oct 27 2015, 7:00 am

miami85 wrote:

There is a real inyan to make a kiddush. Can't bring a source, but its not "just" a nice thing to do, but there's no need to do it right away, lavishly, or on shabbos (during the week its called a kibbud)

How does one find out if an inyan is real or not in the absence of sources?

amother

Babyblue

Tue, Oct 27 2015, 8:52 am

I have several daughters. For some we made a kiddush and for some we didn't (it was just a matter of if it worked out or not). After one of my births we were talking about it one yom tov at my parent's house. My father was showing my husband in a sefer that the godol who wrote the sefer says he doesn't know where the minhag of having a kiddush comes from. There is no source for it and it was never done in his father's house (unfortunately I don't remember what sefer it was in or what godol said it). I think it has become a minhag that most people follow, because as others have said it is a nice way to celebrate the birth of a girl. It doesn't have to be on Shabbos. I have several family members who have done Sunday or Motzei Shabbos events because they wanted family to be there and there was no way for everyone to come for a shabbos.

simchat

Tue, Oct 27 2015, 9:46 am

I think it's a nice idea to celebrate the birth of a daughter and thank Hashem.
Apart from that, regarding what's been said about shidduchim, I have heard of that and actually know a couple of girls who were having a hard time and their families made a kiddush in their honour and they did get engaged.... One of them is my cousin.
Now, I'm not a huge believer in segulos and superstition etc, but it's an easy way to avoid unpleasantness later on - re what a pp said about being angry at her parents if they would have done this for her as an adult. The way I see it, you have nothing to lose and really don't have to go all out - why not donate some soda to your shul's next kiddush in your daughter's honour, for example?

imasoftov

Wed, Oct 28 2015, 7:34 am

simchat wrote:

Trying to design the experiment for this one but I'm not sure how to have a control group. Maybe let's have two - in addition to the girls who never had a kiddush and we make one for them now, we also have some girls in the same demographic who did have a kiddush made for them as babies but do it again. And the third group gets a kiddush where they say we just want to remind people that we've got a single daughter.

simchat

Wed, Oct 28 2015, 10:19 am

imasoftov wrote:

As I said, I'm not a big believer in hocus pocus, however when it's an easy way to avoid potential trouble - the trouble here being, maybe down the line the parents would be desperate to try and the by then adult daughter, mortified... Plus it's more or less an event celebrated in most circles I believe, doesn't have to be a huge deal if that is OP's preference and my biggest reason - who doesn't to celebrate the miracle of a birth of a daughter? All I'm saying is, why not?

imasoftov

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 3:53 am

simchat wrote:

I didn't ask anyone in my experiment not to make a kiddush.

sunny90

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 9:23 am

Just out of curiosity, is it still a "kiddush" if it's not on Shabbos? Here people make a "simchat bat" sometime during the week, but I feel like thats maybe just asking for gifts.
Like I said OOC, I have 3 boys and pregnant with my fourth kid bH and if it's a girl you bet I'll be going all out. But was wondering if its specifically better to make it on Shabbos with an actual kiddush so it's a seudas mitzvah or not.
FTR, we are Sephardi and it wasn't my parents minhag to make a kiddush for girls, they made a party on the sixth day after we were born. So far the first two of us have found our zivugim bH.
Side note: personally my favorite thing about having a girl (not that I have experience) is that you don't have to show up at a party 8 days after when you feel exhausted, fat, hormonal and gross and be social. I love that you can wait a month or two and feel like a human being at the party.

Ruchel

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 3:07 pm

We do the naming at Torah, on a day they take it out, and not on shabbes because it would mean baby staying home.
We do a buffet or whatever after. It's not halachically a kiddush, and our rabanim don't hold it makes you unmarried, bh. I mean I'm sure this girl had a problem and it was solved with kiddush, but most unkiddushed girls don't.

spring13

Thu, Oct 29 2015, 5:52 pm

sunny90 wrote:

Just out of curiosity, is it still a "kiddush" if it's not on Shabbos? Here people make a "simchat bat" sometime during the week, but I feel like thats maybe just asking for gifts.

No, it's not gift-grubbing any more than having a shalom zachar and a vacht nacht and a bris and a pidyon haben is gift grubbing.

Note: unless you're serving bread a kiddush isn't a seudas mitzvah, it's just an occasion, no matter what it's for.

Quote:

Side note: personally my favorite thing about having a girl (not that I have experience) is that you don't have to show up at a party 8 days after when you feel exhausted, fat, hormonal and gross and be social. I love that you can wait a month or two and feel like a human being at the party.

Yeah, it's a perk Smile

But the problem with no set timeframe is that some people put it off indefinitely. And throwing a party for a baby 7 months after the birth is pretty anticlimactic!