Large families are revered and respected in Israeli society. People who have fewer children are sometimes looked at askance. The government helps by supplementing the income of large families. These benefits are increased and decreased according to whim or need for funding, but the concept remains.
Although children may exhibit distracting behavior and make noise in public environments, they are accepted to a degree that is hard to find in any other country. What was that about "children should be seen and not heard?"
These schoolchildren are revered. They come to shul to play. They might lie down in shul and kick their legs up in the air. The congregants accept this, and they delicately and carefully walk around them.
Local child-rearing behaviors are sometimes difficult to understand. Parents in the Meah Shearim section of Jerusalem act insulted when they are told that it is dangerous for their children to play in the adjacent busy thoroughfares. Since they revere their children, the parents somehow cannot understand the danger that might lurk out there.
It would be fascinating to contrast the way that children are accepted in Israel with the way they are accepted in countries abroad. Anybody interested in doing some research about it?
There may be a historical reason for this reverence. The second-, third-, or fourth-generation Holocaust survivor syndrome includes an intense desire to replenish the Jewish population, despite the losses in Israeli wars. That reasoning helps to place children at the top of the social hierarchy, and it may explain why many Israelis dote on their children.
It may also explain why Carl Rogers' Client-centered therapy seems to have had a much greater impact on Israelis than some other forms of psychology. The concept has moved down to "child-centered everything."
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