Defining Normal

by Paula R. Stern
Sivan 13, 5769 / 05 June 09
INN


We are in the three-minute zone; aren't we lucky?


A few years after we arrived in Israel, we were blessed with a baby boy. On the day I left the hospital, I was handed papers to sign. In America, on the day I left the hospital, I was handed a piece of paper with my infant's footprint. This would serve to identify him if he was kidnapped. When my son was born in Israel, there was no paper with a footprint - babies are very rarely stolen in Israel; children are not kidnapped nearly as often. And more likely, if a child disappears it is because a parent accidentally left the child in the car and someone stole that.

So, there was no paper with a footprint, but two strange things did happen as I was being discharged with my new son. The first was that I was handed a check for several hundred dollars (in shekels).

"What's this?" I asked the nurse at the station.

"Bituah Leumi," she answered, National Insurance. The day of discharge, and each month that follows, the government issues a stipend per child to help the parents in raising, clothing and schooling their children. That was nice. In America, I was asked to sign insurance forms indicating the cost, in thousands of dollars, for my hospital stay.
I wasn't sure what to do next, so the nurse told me to go to the room down the hall, "The door is open."

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Paula Stern is also the author of a very fine blog, http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/