Kvetch or Kvell: How Can I Decide?

For many of us who are Jewish, we are on a never-ending quest to constantly give our parents something to be able to kvell about to their friends, or the stranger in an elevator. (“I just saw my granddaughter. Do you want to see a photograph? I have one right here on my phone.”)

We definitely don’t want them to kvetch about us, or how we raise our children, because it does sting.

Even though my two bubbies passed away, more than 15 years ago, they are my moral compass. Every single day, since their deaths, there’s been a constant voice in the back of my head that asks, “would my bubbies kvell” if I did this? Or, would they “kvetch”?

Sadly, both my bubbies passed away before they even knew I was pregnant with my first child. I was engaged but unmarried, doing the “first comes love, then comes baby, then possibly comes marriage.” Normal today, but two decades ago? Not so much. When I wrote I was pregnant for National Post, more than 200 readers cancelled their subscriptions, because I was knocked up, but not married.

My oh-so-cute 90-year old Zaida’s response to me being an unwed pregnant career woman was shocking!

He was kvelling that he’d be a great-grandfather mostly, I think, because he happened to know someone else who didn’t get married and had a baby, thus making him assume this was becoming a norm.

Kvelling and kvetching can seem almost like a competitive sport sometimes. And I love every second hearing either.

I think my parents were prouder that I had “landed” a lawyer, softening the blow of not being married, with no real plans to get married. At least they could tell her friends that I was with a really nice lawyer, though we would separate three years later, crushing my parents because they liked him so much. I only could imagine the kvetching to their friends, because divorce back then wasn’t exactly the norm either.

(I’ve never seen my parents kvell, over my books, or any other accomplishment, so much as they kvelled over the fact I had unprotected sex, drunk, thus conceiving my first born.)

Would my bubbies, and my parents, kvetch that I can’t seem to make a relationship last longer than a tin of mints? Would my bubbies understand getting divorced, twice? Would my bubbies kvetch or kvell that even in my mid-40s, I am domestically, navigationally, and relationship challenged?

My bubbies had such different personalities; one who I was closer to, traditional, and hosted weekly Friday night dinners, with much love. And she gave me a cookie for the ride home! Would she kvell or kvetch that I chose to be a career girl who wouldn’t know the first thing about making roast beef, or that I can’t put a damn duvet sheet on?

My other bubbie? She was super independent, a trait passed down to me. It wasn’t unusual for her to call and say, “I’m in Florida now,” without telling my parents, or anyone, beforehand. She, too, was a single mother who raised three boys, working to pay the bills, just like me.

She, too, had three main companions, two she did marry (both died) and a third who she spent her last decade with. Would she kvell because I was so much like her? Or would she kvetch, “learn from my mistakes!”

Part of what makes bubbies, and some Jewish adults, so awesome, is the hilariousness I find whether they are kvelling or kvetching!

Pre-pandemic I couldn’t help but listen to a table of four beautiful bubbies at United Bakery, all were kvetching about their daughters-in-laws, and how they will never pass on their jewelry to them. When my lunch date asked me something, I responded, “Shhh! I’m eavesdropping.” I wanted to pull up a chair, and ask these kvetching bubbies, if I could join!