musings for momma
by Sharon Rosen

tick tock

“Would you and your daughter be interested in joining National Charity League?” a neighbor I like called and asked a month ago. I was dumbstruck (a rare occurrence).

“You mean the debutante party thing where the girls wear fancy white dresses when they’re seniors in high school?” I finally managed to ask. I sounded inarticulate and impolite, even to myself.

“The Senior Presents party is a part of NCL but it comes at the end of six years of the girls performing hours of charity work supervised by their moms. The girls are called Ticktockers and the mothers, Las Patronas.”

Ticktockers set off an alarm bell in my memory. I had friends in junior high and high school who participated in Ticktockers, none of whom were Jewish. In 1970’s Palos Verdes, Jewish girls weren’t invited to be Ticktockers. Obviously, in new millennium San Diego, times had changed for the better. Still, I felt wary.

“I’ll talk to my daughter and think about it,” I told my neighbor. At first, I was tempted to reject the NCL membership invitation outright. As flattered as I felt for my daughter and myself to be recruited, Groucho Marx’s famous quote came to mind: “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.” Yet, I felt obligated to discuss the NCL invitation with my daughter. She seemed interested but less than enthusiastic about taking on a new endeavor. All three of my daughters and I are involved in Girl Scouts. Did we need another commitment? I felt concerned that my oldest daughter might be overwhelmed by starting junior high, preparing for her bat mitzvah, her team sports, etc. Shouldn’t kids have down time once in awhile to reflect and have creative thoughts?

My neighbor called again, “Have you thought NCL over? I have an application for you. I can also bring a member directory over so you can see who else is in it.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to keep an open mind. I was curious to see how many Jewish mother/daughters were involved. When she showed me the list, I recognized a few Jewish families and the names of some good, solid moms I liked and respected. The application listed the number of volunteer hours required and charities involved. I was impressed. This was a serious commitment – not just ball gowns and fancy hair-dos.

“You’ll have to get two personal reference letters from members and be voted into membership,” my neighbor explained.

“Just like a college sorority,” I said. I’d suspected NCL of being slightly elitist. This troubled me.

I must confess that I was a sorority girl in college, a Tri Delta. When I called my parents from Berkeley to tell them I’d pledged, my father said, “My G-d how things have changed. When I was at ‘SC [the University of Southern California] they wouldn’t allow a Jewish boy like me on the Tri Delta lawn, let alone inside the house.” In 1980’s Berkeley, times had changed relative to 1950’s Los Angeles. Although my sorority bore shadows of its elitist, goyische past, I made life-long friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

So why does the notion of a pseudo-sorority for my daughter trouble me? Mainly, because I was a young woman when I joined a sorority. She is a twelve-year-old girl. If she wants to pledge a sorority in college, I’ll encourage her to follow her heart. But what’s the rush to join up now? Shouldn’t the junior high and high school years allow for exploration of identity, creativity and spontaneity?

While I appreciate the charity work NCL performs, I believe that we have many other avenues for doing good deeds. The bat mitzvah year requires a supervised mitzvah project. Girl scouting also strongly encourages community service. I’m confident about my girls’ commitment to tzedakah.

So what am I concerned about? In the words of Van Morrison, I’m worried that “precious time is ticking away.” My daughters are already growing up faster than I could’ve ever imagined. Part of NCL’s mission is to make girls into young ladies. Ticktockers learn how to style their hair and apply make-up, put on fashion shows and have teas. All things we did in my college sorority – lovely, sophisticated and ladylike.

But as the clock tick-tocks, I’m already aware that I must gracefully allow my girls to grow up. I’m just not in any rush to turn them into young ladies before their time. How about just allowing them to be young?

For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.