Schlepping Nachas

This has been an all-star weekend for a proud and loving father: me. I have three terrific daughters, each brilliant, beautiful, loving, and loved. And each had very good news to impart. Which I’ll share in a moment.

But first, a linguistic clarification. Many readers—perhaps most—may know that to schlep is a Yiddish word meaning to carry or drag. But schlepping nachas does not refer to carrying around tortilla chips with melted cheese and/or guacamole. (That’s “nachos.”) Rather, nachas is a happy feeling of pride in someone else’s accomplishment, sort of the inverse of the German word, Schadenfreude, pleasure taken in another’s failure. As for pronunciation, the ch in nachas is neither soft like macho nor hard like chorus, but rather guttural, like the ch in Ach du lieber. And as for usage, schlepping nachas generally refers to happy pride in the accomplishments of one’s children.

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