Parenting by the Book
Parashas Toldos
"The children agitated within her." 25:22.
When Rivkah was expecting, her twin sons reacted differently to different stimuli. According to the Midrash (cited by Rashi), Yaakov became active when Rivkah would pass the Torah academy, and Esav reacted when she passed a temple of idol worship. God told her that she was to give birth to twins.
The fact that babies are influenced even before birth has been proven by scientific studies that have tested unborn children’s reaction to different stimuli such as food, music, the voices of their parents, even their mother’s emotional reactions. In the first chapter of Shoftim, Shimshon’s mother is told that she is not to eat grapes or drink wine because her child would be a nazir from birth. This indicates that a woman's actions can have an effect on her unborn child.
Parenthood doesn’t begin at birth; it begins even before conception. Certainly the emotional, physical and spiritual state of the mother affects her unborn children. It is important for a woman to take care of herself when she’s expecting. If she eats non-kosher food, it could affect the child, as would alcohol or nicotine. It influences her child if she listens to rock music or divrei Torah (actually babies like rock music but divrei Torah are better for them). It’s important that a mother is in a positive frame of mind as much as possible. A fetus hears his mother praying and singing or yelling and crying. One may ask, if this is true, why did Rivkah give birth to two completely different children?
The children’s reactions answer the question. Esav reacted when Rivkah passed a place of idol worship, and Yaakov reacted when she passed a beis midrash. One fetus integrated one type of stimuli, while the other integrated the other. While it’s impossible to avoid all exposure to negative or unsavory stimuli while she’s expecting, a woman has to take into consideration that she has no way of knowing how each situation will affect her baby. If she breathes both fresh air and toxic fumes, she can only hope that the fresh air will have a good effect on the baby and that somehow he will be spared the ill effects of exposure to the toxic fumes. But there’s no way of knowing which will affect the child more.
While many aspects of a child’s personality are divinely decreed, how these are encouraged to grow is determined by the influence of certain stimuli as early as in the womb.