We Are Crown Heights’ Invisible Women

By a Mom

We are the divorced women in Crown Heights.

Quiet, unobtrusive and mindful. We don’t get the compassionate glances widows get, nor the trips to Spain or Cancun. In some people’s eyes we ‘caused’ our misfortune. Who even thinks of marrying someone dysfunctional or disturbed? Let alone having so many kids with him or her.

Where were your parents who allowed such a match? We were supposed to predict the future. Had we predicted correctly we would never have married who we did, therefore it must be our fault and must live with the consequences…We are invisible.

We are the children of divorced parents. We don’t get the compassion orphans get, yet we are in the category of being orphaned from absentee fathers or worse. Fathers who make our lives quite difficult. We have scars you don’t see. Scars from witnessing so much while being so young and crying ourselves to sleep because of our parents’ split.

We are the children of divorced parents. We want to be like everyone else from intact families but we aren’t, we are different. Our parents are different. They don’t get along or worse, don’t even communicate. Our mothers struggle financially putting bread on the table and paying outrageous camp fees and tuition fees of which they get no breaks. Winters are cold, we don’t have enough winter clothing, coats, and boots. Our mothers are told to fight for our tuitions in court or ‘go fundraise’ they are told. The fathers are barely contacted.

Many of us divorcees are out-of-towners. Some are balei teshuva without much family support.

Our pain is invisible to the naked eye. We look like everyone else but we’re not. We suffer quietly, especially when we’re alone at night. Shabbos and yom tovs, when families are all together… the pain is intensified.

Many people have ongoing personal battles. Physical or psychological, with religion or financial. We seem to have a ‘package deal’ with a bit of everything included. Yet we’re quiet. No one sees us or hears us.

Moms who are the main breadwinners need parnasah. And need it now. Our full-time jobs aren’t enough for our medium to large families. And our children feel the pinch. Year after year. We don’t like taking handouts or tzedakah checks, but we must. We don’t like to talk about how much we lack and it’s not another check we’re looking for. We want to be financially independent yet it seems like a dream that cannot materialize. We are like the women whose husband has been arrested in communist Russia and she is left with a bunch of little kids to feed and protect just that our husbands aren’t in a Russian gulag, we are divorced.

We would like to get remarried but don’t get any or few ‘not shayach’ shidduch offers. Are there zero decent divorced or widowed men out there?

When it comes to parnassah, people give us a hard time asking for discounts and not hiring us altogether for our services because we’re charging ‘too much.’ Do you realize, my dear friend, how painful this is for us? And how blessed from Hashem you will be if you are zoche to be the Keli through which Hashem blesses us?

We the divorced ones. Have much life experience. We have learned what no school can teach. We may be invisible to you, and life may have brought us to our knees, but we are strong, courageous and look at life straight in the face, overcoming challenges day by day.

Our faith is stronger than ever. We speak directly to Hashem and constantly ask him, as a third partner, to guide and protect us, heal our kids and ourselves.

Then there are the angels. Few and dispersed but the angels who do see our pain. And they invite us for shabbos and yom tov and they help with camps and tuitions and they talk to us and invite us into their beautiful families. Ashreichem. Ashreichem, Ashreichem. They know how to ask the magical question, not how are you? (vague) but: ‘What do you need now? What can I do?’

So next time you see a single mom, a divorcee, or her kids. Smile, reach out. Ask, what’s going on. Offer her a (well paying) job if you have one, she will work hard and do a great job, don’t ask for discounts, feel her pain and her joy because you can be her Angel for today and you can become so much richer in the process.

In honor of all the moms out there, the quiet heroes, the courageous ones, raising the next generation discreetly, forging ahead. You are admired, valued, and loved.