Congrats Grad!

As most of you know, I actually graduated! Previously, I had been concerned about passing my classes and contemplated davening for it all to work out. Well, I didn’t end up davening, but I did do some learning, so perhaps in the zechus of the learning I was able to pass my classes and graduate. I would like to thank Leora, Shorty and Auror for their confidence in me!

My love’s family brought over balloons and a teddy bear, saying congratulations.

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May 28th was graduation, and lucky us it rained that day! It was the first time in 23 years that it rained during graduation. They gave us paper towels to wipe our seats with, but we sat there for 2 hours with the rain pouring down on us. Chuck Shumer said there’s now a 2,500 tax credit for graduates and college students earning less than $200,000. He said he won’t be giving a speech because of the rain, that made everyone happy. From those that did speak, it was really cool how they talked about Twitter and Facebook! So different from HS graduation!

My mother got me a graduation teddy bear. She also bought me a cake that says congratulations on it, it was pretty and all. We also went out to eat on Rosh Chodesh and then again on my graduation day!

When I came home from graduation I was reading the program they gave us, and I saw in the back it said the origins for wearing caps and gowns. It said that it originated from the monks and churches. That makes me wonder if it’s okay to wear it.

Now that I’m done with school everyone is asking me what my plan is and what I’m doing next. For the moment I feel as though I just want to relax and do nothing! But no one seems to understand that, they think I need to start working right away. So let the job seeking begin!

First though I plan to learn how to drive and get my license, then I have to study for the CPA. Those are my 2 main goals, I’m not anxious to find a job yet, since so long as I live with my parents I don’t really need to pay for much. But then again it could help to save up money now while I’m not committed to a family and all.

My Torah Filled Weekend

Shabbos I walked with my father and brother to R’ Landaus shul to hear R’ Fishel Shechter give a shiur on Pirkei Avos. I’ve always associated him with the “funny”/annoying voices he used when telling stories to children. But here I heard him speak to adults and thank goodness he used his normal speaking voice. Sunday, I got to see my first hachasos sefer Torah. Monday, I went to a shiur by R’ Veiner on the topic of Shvous.

Shabbos, R’ Fishel Shechter spoke about Pirkei Avos. I agreed with most of what he said. There was one topic though that I did not agree with him about. He made some good points about parents needing to spend more time with their children. He said families should have supper together during the week more often. He said parents should take some time to shmooze with their children. That on Shabbos parents shouldn’t lock themselves in their room for 7 hours and expect their children to keep themselves busy without getting into trouble. He said you have to give them some sort of structure, that children will get bored after a while. He also made a good point about how parents that are divorced will pay millions of dollars to gain visitation rights with their children, and here you have married couples who have their children right there and yet don’t spend any time with them.

There was one thing he spoke about though that I did not agree with, and that was about Internet. He said its very dangerous and all. But yet, I think that hiding things from children isn’t the answer. We live in a society where children can’t be sheltered from the parents. If a child doesn’t have something at home they will go elsewhere to find it. The key is to raise your child with the right values and morals. To instill in them what is right and wrong. To educate them on what is out there, and how we are different and special. If a parent gives their children the right tools, then having internet or not will not make a difference. There’s so many ways to get things done, that internet is not the only route, it is just a means, not an end.

Sunday, I went with my sister to see the hachnasos sefer torah. I always get such a good feeling when I hear Jewish music in the streets. It’s like this is mine, I belong to this. It was cool to see a pretty truck looking thing with a Torah on it and lights and all kinds of flashy things driving through the street with lots of men and children following it.

Monday, R’ Veiner first spoke about Tefillin, how there’s some problem going on. Me not being a man, didn’t pay much attention to it. Although I found it interesting to see all these women peeking down to see what he was talking about. Makes me think they are such tzadeikeses, and reminds me of my HS teachers. Every time I see a women at a shiur that has such a look and is all into learning Torah and all, it reminds me of my HS teachers. It’s interesting, cause no one in my neighborhood is like that, so its like entering two different worlds.

Anyways, he spoke about Shvous how it’s a yom din, that we have to evaluate where we have fallen short in Talmud Torah. He acknowledged that there were women there, and he said this is an obligation on women too. That Talmud Torah is the women’s key into getting into Olam Habbah. He said that through marriage a women has to motivate her husband to learn, but yet she shouldn’t be his mashgiach. But rather it’s important for the guy to have his own Rav, so that she can go to the Rav to push him to learn, so that there are no Shalom Bayis problems.

In theory this might sound good, but I don’t like the way it sounds. To me I think Husband and wife should have good communication to discuss everything with each other. If the wife feels like she has to get a 3rd party involved, then to me it sounds like the marriage doesn’t have a good foundation. But yet I understand the merit of having someone else being “the bad guy”, but yet if the husband knows that the wife tattled on him, then wouldn’t the husband get more upset at the wife? Plus I don’t think the wife should constantly have to push her husband to learn, it makes it into a business relationship. Rather I think if the husband understood the importance of learning then he should want to do it on his own, if he really wants to but yet is getting distracted, then maybe the wife can motivate him and talk nicely to him and get him to learn that way. But overall, I think the husband should want to learn on his own and the wife should just encourage him a bit, but not boss him around and decide how much he has to learn.

He said you should make a project to learn with others, and to start off with just 10 minutes, and that it will grow from there. He said a Rav can’t be on top of every one to learn, so this way if each person found another person to learn with then it would work out better.

Now, after reading all this it might make you think “what’s so important about Torah after all?” Well, here’s the answer, if someone is anchored in Torah then all their other Yetzer Horas fall away. Now it finally makes sense why so much emphasis is put on Limud Torah, because it allows us to be better Jews.

He said that the point isn’t to be learning 24/7, but rather to have that as your priority, of what you wish to be doing. So you see, people don’t have to learn in Kollel to keep the mitzvah of learning Torah. But rather you can work and make a parnassah. The main point is that you want to learn. So that if you have free time, you grab the opportunity to learn, that shows that everything you are doing is really for Torah.

Also, when I think of learning, I always think of men with their gemorahs. But really, that’s not what its all about. Any form of learning counts, whether that’s an artscroll gemorah, or listening to shiurim on an iPod.

Now learning Torah has side benefits too, so that if you are stuck in traffic, or delayed, instead of getting frantic that you are late. You sit there and listen to a shiur or learn something. You save yourself from anxiety, since now you just got an opportunity to learn, so the inconvenience became a convenience.

An important thing to remember is that bad learning experiences in Yeshiva or anywhere else should not turn a person off from learning, but rather they should move on and continue learning.

Here’s one topic I disagreed with. He said that a mall is pritzus so men shouldn’t go there. At first I thought that was radical, and there’s nothing wrong with going to a mall. My naaive way of thinking of it, is that Hashem created men and women who will have a zivug that is right for them, and that is the one they will be attracted to. So that if men see other women, that is not their wife then they should not be attracted by the other lady. That only their wife can attract them which is why they are married. I mean the husband picked that wife out of everybody, so that should mean that she’s the one for him, so that other ladies shouldn’t matter. So it shouldn’t matter if he sees other ladies who “in their haste in the morning forgot to get dressed”, it shouldn’t cause him any bad thoughts, he should be able to ignore it.

Perhaps I’m crazy, and my way of thinking doesn’t make sense. Maybe, it doesn’t work like that, and men do have temptations for other women that they aren’t married to. Well if that’s the way it works, then okay, I agree that men should avoid seening pritzusdik women and avoid going to the mall.

I’m Not A Medical Person

I’ve come to the realization that I am not a medical person. Previously, I had felt faint when my neighbor started telling me about difficulties in her pregnancy. Then other times I would get queasy from seeing people after they had surgery, or anything that made them look different.

Friday night, I was sitting outside and my neighbor comes out, I ask her how she’s feeling, since previously she’s been coughing a lot. Then she tells me a real shocker. At first I thought she said something about a lachter. Then she said she had a lump so she went to the doctor. The doctor said it was a benign tumor. When I heard this I felt faint, it was a good thing I was sitting already, but I wanted to rush into my house. I got really scared when I heard this, and to me it sounded like a big thing, I almost started crying.

But I couldn’t run into my house since my neighbor was talking to me, so I had to listen. So she was telling me how she went to her husband’s aunt that’s a doctor in a hospital in NJ. She told me how they treated her good because of that, that she was treated like gold, and that it was like a family visit. But to me it sounded like she was trying to make the situation sound better than it really is. As though she was covering up how scared she was, by telling me how nicely they treated her, and this made me more sad.

The whole Friday night I was tossing and turning in bed, and couldn’t fall asleep, cause I was really worried about her. I realized I’m not an adult in this way, and think like a child with an overactive imagination. As soon as I hear certain words I get really scared, even though she may be ok, to me it sounds worse.

One thing that really troubles me, is that she said she had the lump since February and just didn’t bother going to the doctor till now. Since she was pregnant and thought it might just be a fat deposit, cause that’s supposed to be a common thing. But I don’t get this, I’m not sure what goes on behind closed bedroom doors, but I would imagine the husband sees the wife? would he not realize that something is wrong with her? why didn’t he make her go to the doctor earlier? or did he not even notice it? She said she can’t get the tumor removed for a while, since she’s in her 6th month, and she’s going to wait till after she has the baby, and after she nurses it. She said the lump will grow bigger over time, but that it will be okay. I’m really scared about this.

As I was thinking about this all, I came to the realization of what I’m scared of. It’s not that I’m scared of special people, but rather I’m scared of the disease or illness that they have. Even after my own mother and sister had surgery, I got nauseous from looking at them, and it took a while for me to adjust to the yellow coloring of the antiseptic, or the swollen look of the face. So when I see sick people, I get scared because it pains me and I feel bad for what their going through. It’s because I don’t know anything about what their going through, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

Davening

Ever since I was a young girl I loved davening. In elementary school one girl a week got to bring home a special decorated siddur, and I always felt so privileged when it was my turn, I cherished that siddur. There was a joy to learning how to daven and davening out loud with the whole class. I loved having kavannah and pointing to the words as I said them.

Once we started learning the meanings of the words, in baer tefilah, I loved it even more. I felt a connection towards the words of davening. They seemed to be such powerful words, especially shemone esrei. When I learned that by Refaeinu you can ask for someone to get better, I was amazed by it. I made sure to daven really well all the time.

At that time though davening was mainly just for school. When I was at home on Shabbos and Sunday I didn’t daven. To me davening was associated with school. Although on shabbos if I would go to shul, I remember my mother telling me about the specialness of mussaf and kesser. Kesser became a special thing. Then I went to sleep away camp going into 6th grade. At that age we weren’t expected to daven much of the Shabbos davening, so we got to go early, while the older girls stayed for leining and other parts of the shabbos davening. Then one summer when I was in camp, my shiur counselor decided it was time we learned how to daven on Shabbos. So she taught us, I still remember her telling us about saying “Kein yehi Ratzon” 3 times towards the end.

Then when I was in High School, I had this great Beier Tefillah teacher, who taught so much on every word, that it was amazing, I truly loved it. By that time we were davening to ourselves in school, and not out loud. At that time lots of stuff were added to the davening that we were never “taught” to daven before. It seemed like too many words to say, and the rest of the class seemed to daven much faster than me, so I cut back on the amount I said. I don’t know how I picked and chose what to daven, perhaps they were bold in my siddur. I still did love my siddur though, I liked how it looked used, to me it made it special. After eighth grade graduating we were given a siddur, but I never got myself to use that one, cause I liked my old one that I was familiar with.

Anyways, once I left High School, the davening ended, I would just daven shabbos when I went to shul. Although in the summer right after High School I did daven for the first time at home, partly because it was a special time, starting college and all. I go to shul every shabbos now, and whenever I go I cherish the chance I have to daven, although I end up going when their up to leining, so I end up just davening mussaf. But I love when I get to hear the chazzan saying the shemone Esrei over. I get such a joy from the words and the way they are said. When he gets up to the words “ ומי דומה לך “ I feel myself soaring with those words. I love yom tovim when there is a long davening, I feel so good after davening.

Being that I love davening so much, it would only make sense that I should daven every day at home, but being that I never davened at home before I just can’t get myself to start. It doesn’t feel natural. In a way I’m jealous of men that get to go to shul for a minyan 3 times a day, cause then they have a set time and place to daven.

Now, what brought all these davening thoughts up? Well, I believe that davening has power, and if you want or need something then you should daven for it. But yet, I’m afraid that if I daven for something then I will jinx it and it won’t happen. That if I ever say out loud that I want something, then I won’t get it. Same with the other way around, if I say I really don’t want something to happen then it will happen.

Like the other day a man came to our class to draw a raffle to pick 2 winners that will get a $200 voucher towards the Becker CPA review courses. For some reason I really didn’t want my name to be picked, because I had missed the midterm since I was sick, and I didn’t want attention to be drawn to myself. So I kept saying to myself, please don’t pick me, Please don’t pick me! Then guess what happened, the guy called out my name, its like I had a feeling that it would happen. So I won the 200 dollars. Which brings me what this is all really about.

So I finished all my finals, and now all I have to do is wait for my grades to see if I passed or not, to see if I will be graduating. I’m really scared that I didn’t pass, and the anxiety is driving me crazy. I wish I can daven to Hashem that it should work out, that I should pass my classes. But yet I’m afraid that if I daven then it will be jinxed. So I’m in a dillemna here.

O, and if I was a guy, and I didn’t pass my classes then I would go to Kollel! But since I’m a girl, that’s not an option.

Dating and Marriage: Better To Be Safe Than Sorry

A friend of mine is having Rabbi Goldberg speak for an event and would like to invite you all to come. The topic will be “Dating & Marriage: Better to Be Safe Than Sorry”. You can look at the picture below for more details. I happen to know Rabbi Goldberg too. I am thinking about going to this event. If any of you decide to go, let me know in the comments and then maybe I’ll show up and get a chance to meet you.

This Week’s Wrap-Up – Busha!

Sunday I went to the dentist thinking I was going to have just a short appointment, that he wasn’t going to do any work on my teeth. But he decided to put a post in my tooth to get ready for my crown. When I saw him bring in a container with small narrow metal looking things I asked him “What are you going to do to me?” and he said he was going to put a screw in my tooth, he asked me if I was nervous. I of course said “yea!”. He didn’t want to start up any trouble, and I felt bad, so I reassured him that I’ll be okay. So he got to work, and he gave me no shot, I was relived! I figured if there’s no shot, that means it won’t hurt. So he did what he did and it was over with and I was fine.

Afterwards I asked my father if the dentist gave him shots before he put a screw in his tooth, and my father said he had gotten 4 shots. So I started to wonder if the dentist had just forgotten to give me the shot before he worked on my tooth. But then my mother explained to me, that because I had a root canal on that tooth, there was no nerve left, so no shot was needed. At that point I felt really grateful for getting a root canal in the past!

Monday, I went to school, and I like my philosophy class, so I raise my hand here and there to comment on what the professor says. So I raised my hand and started speaking and then I realized something strange, I heard my voice in my head, I couldn’t here how it sounded once it was spoken. I thought that was strange, but didn’t make anything of it. Then I went to my next class and was sitting there and realized I had an ache in my ear, and it was throbbing painfully. I waited the hour and forty five minutes for the class to be over and went home. When it was time to go to school again I just didn’t have the strength and my ear was hurting, so I lay in bed. Then my father comes home and sees that I haven’t gone to school, so he realized something must be bothering me. So he tried to make a Dr appointment for that night, but couldn’t get a hold of the doctor. So I took some Motrin to reduce the swelling in my ear and it helped.

Tuesday, my mother finally got a hold of the doctor and made an appointment for me. So at 2:00 I went to the doctor. Now here’s where the Busha stories start coming in. The Dr. took a look at my ear and said I had an ear infection. Then he took the stethoscope and put it my back and asked me to breath, So I was breathing in and out. Then when he brought it to the front, I continued breathing in and out, and then he tells me “your heart beats itself, you don’t need to do that anymore”. I was embarrassed and couldn’t remember my pediatric doctor ever telling me that you don’t have to breath by the front. Anyways, then he said my heart was beating fast, and that for every 10 beats faster it means that my temperature is one degree higher. Which means that I have fever. Then he said he wanted to take some blood tests to make sure that everything is okay. He prescribed me antibiotics and some ear drops.

So I lie back on the examination table, and this lady comes in to take out the blood. She was about to start working on my right hand, and foolish me asks her if she can do my left hand instead. She gave me this mean look and said “what difference does it make?”. So I told her “I’m a righty, and this way I’ll be able to write”. So then she starts laughing at me. She looks at me with bewilderment and says “You think your not going to be able to write after this?”. So then I look sheepish and realized it wasn’t a big deal. So she gets to work, tying a band around my arm, and I turn to face the wall and close my eyes. Then she does her thing, and when its over, I still have my eyes closed and my head turned away. So she says to me “you didn’t even notice it was over, see it wasn’t so bad” and she was laughing some more. I laughed out of busha that I was such a baby. So then she reassured me saying “you should see the men that come in here, they’re really chicken. They squint their eyes close, hold their fist tight as if they will go through the most excruciating pain”.

Then at night I had my robotics class, and we were having a quiz, and I knew my lab partners were counting on me, so even though I wasn’t feeling well, I went to school. I took the quiz, finished quickly, and could have went home. But I figured I’d wait to play it out, so I stayed and did all the lab work. With my head down 75% of the time. At 9:15 my mother picked me up, so I just left the classroom, one of my lab partners asked if I was feeling okay and she offered to give me a ride, but I reassured her I’m fine, and told her that my mother was picking me up. So then I got home and realized it was a mistake to have gone to school, my ear was throbbing and my head was hot, and my teeth were chattering.

As my mother was driving me home in the rain, I realized a cool thing. If you look at the floor of the street at night in the rain you can see a “rainbow cake”. There’s a layer of red, green and yellow, it was really cool.

Wednesday, I had a paper due, and I remember my professor saying that if we can’t make it to class we can e-mail it to her before 10:30. Luckily I had done the paper on Friday (when I wrote the Kibud Av V’Aim post; [the post wasn’t my paper]), So I e-mailed it to her at 9:00 and figured I’d skip my first 2 classes, and try to study for my test that night. That didn’t happen though, cause although I took my antibiotics, it was not helping me, only the Motrin seemed to work- (children’s Motrin at that), and I figured out, it takes an hour for it to kick in, and then it can last for 7 hours. So I timed myself, and so long as I took the Motrin at the right times I was fine. But not up to studying.

I know it’s not mothers day yet, but I’ll put in my little mother’s day thoughts here. My MOTHER is really the best! She stayed home with me the whole day, she gave me my medicine, put in the drops for me, brought me up some bread and soft things that I can eat without chewing. She made delicious soup that was easy for me to swallow. After I had eaten my mother stayed to entertain me for a while, we talked about all kinds of things. She told me stories from when I was a baby, what I was like. It was really fun to hear, even though I wasn’t the best baby. She told me how my twin brother was always the quiet one never crying, and how I would always cry if she would leave me for a second. She told me how she used to have a routine for us in the summer, she would put us in the double carriage and take us for a walk, and we would nap 2 hours, then we would come back home and play 2 hours, then nap again, etc. I love looking at pictures of me or my siblings when we were babies, and watching the videos of us. (Although we don’t have a VCR, so we really have to convert those videos to DVDs!) She brought me a coloring book of flowers and gardens, and we colored together! I found a page of tulips and colored that, I had decided that tulips was my favorite flower.

So I had to skip my night class and miss the midterm. I feel really upset about this, because I had planned on studying really hard for this test and trying to do well so I can boost my grade. But now I lost this opportunity, and my only hope is the final. Which having 6 finals in 3 days, makes it hard to spend quality time on each one and I feel really helpless. I feel as though I will be letting so many people down. I’m supposed to be graduating, and now I’m blowing it all up once again. Unless the professor will understand and not give me a zero for this test I missed.

Any case my philosophy professor was really nice and e-mailed me back saying Thanks for the paper and that I should feel better and all.

Now going to sleep was really hard, because I like sleeping on my right ear, but with it infected, it hurt to lean on it, so I had to sleep on my other side, so I kept tossing and turning and waking up in middle of the night to take some more Motrin.

Thursday, I was starting to feel better, but I could only hear from one ear, luckily I had no class. I came to school to see Mike (Thanks for the card it was really cute), and it was good to get out and see day light, it was a really nice day out.

Then later my other ear started hurting, so I had a follow-up appointment with the doctor, so I went 5:00. I told him the other ear started hurting, and he said I could put some drops into that one too. He said the right ear is starting to look better, that the swelling is going down. He said I should continue the antibiotics for another 5 days. Then he said there might be some side effects from taking the antibiotics, and he named this word. It was a word I never heard of, so me ever the curious one asked him what that was. Then he exclaimed “You really don’t know what that is, I was hoping to get a blush out of you with that one”. Then I realized what the shoresh was, while he explained it partially, without saying the shoresh word. That was a major Busha moment.

At night I decided to make supper, my mother said she had some chop meat that she bought, so I was going to make meatballs, but I like it with cranberry sauce, and none of the stores seem to sell it anymore. So I opened my cookbook to look for a new recipe that involves chop meat. I found a meatloaf recipe, I’ve never had meatloaf before and the ingredients looked okay, so I figured I would make it. It was easy to make, and the recipe said you can put mashed potatoes on top of it before you put it into the oven, so I did that. Afterwards I tasted it, and it was pretty good, although it had a lot of flavor.

Friday, I woke up and realized that my other ear, my left ear, was now swollen and hurting, and my right ear was almost cleared up. My mother guessed that the fluid must have just gone to the other ear instead of drying up. So here I was thinking that over the weekend I should be feeling better, but then it looks like it’s just going to be starting all over again.

I’m starting to wonder, if maybe my ear got infected from the dentist chair. It’s strange that the day after I went to the dentist I got an ear infection, when my ears have always been so good in the past. I know by Dr’s offices they have these wax paper looking things they roll out. But by the dentist they don’t have anything covering the chair, so maybe when I head my head laying on it sideways for my dentist to work on it, maybe it got infected there.

Related Posts: Embarrassing Babysitting Moments, Kindness of Mothers, The Wife The Inspirer, Close an Ear What do You Hear?

Any case, that was one long wrap up of my Busha filled week, have a Good Shabbos all!

Kibud Av V’Aim

Philosophy issue #3 (issue 1 here, issue 2 here)

Here’s a question I have never thought about before:

What do grown children owe their parents?

Jane English claims children owe their parents nothing. That it’s only out of friendship that children will give to their parents. So if there’s a good connection, then the children will want to help their parents just like helping anyone else they care about. English says it’s because an obligation can only exist when there is a contract. Since parents had children without the children’s consent, then it is not a contract, so there is no debt to be paid back. Rather the parents have done a favor.

Christina Sommers, on the other hand, claims that children owe their parents respect no matter what. If parents provide the basics to their children when they are young, then the children at least owe the basics back to their parents. Aristotle says parents gave the children the gift of life and that is the greatest gift of all, without parents they wouldn’t exist, so children owe their parents for that.

Emanuel Kant’s theory is concerned with the motives and intentions of a person rather than the consequences that come out of it. Since a person has control over their intentions but not the consequences. Kant breaks down our actions into two categories, the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative. The hypothetical imperatives are the desire-based motives that have nothing to do with morality. Therefore, if a person wants something then they do the action to obtain what they want. The categorical imperative on the other hand, does have to do with morality; they are reason-based motives, for which a person is morally responsible. Therefore, a person ought to do something no matter if they want to do it or not.

An important part of Kant’s theory is, to “act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.

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Now here’s where my Jewish opinion comes in.

I think Children to owe their parents, so I disagree with Jane English. I agree with Christina Sommers that children owe their parents respect, after all it is called “Kibud”. I remember learning Hilchas Kibud Av V’Aim a while ago. Where it was discussed whether a child has to pay for something the parent wants. Example: if the parent asks the child to do something for them, and the child would have to pay a fare for transportation, then the parent should pay for the transportation, unless the child is able to walk and avoid the fare.

Now with Kant’s theory on motives, it reminds me of “Kavannah” and how Hashem decides if a person should get “schar or Onesh”. From what I remember, Hashem punishes a person only if they had the intention to do bad. However, Hashem gives reward to people for good, no matter if they had the good intention or not.

Now about Kant’s two different imperatives, Kant says there are some actions that have nothing to do with Morality. But if you look at it the Jewish way, everything can be connected to morality. Even the simple act of eating or sleeping becomes moral if you have a moral intention. An example being, a mother sleeps with the intention of having energy to raise her children. With the intention she has elevated her action to become a holy one, and not a mundane one.

About acting only by actions that you can rule on others, sounds like “do not do unto others that which you wouldn’t want done to you”. It makes sense, however, in Jewish law we know there is no absolute rule, there are always exceptions and Kal V’Chomers. Even in the case of lying, there are times when you are supposed to lie. Hashem lied to Avraham for the sake of Shalom Bayis. I once heard that if the wife broke a vase by mistake, and her husband will get angry at her for it, then she is allowed to say the child broke it, so that the husband shouldn’t get angry at her. This is assuming that the husband will not get angry at the child, since he would understand that children tend to be more clumsy and break things easily.