This is how my father dealt with shidduchim:Amen. As an aside, in my family, we actually generally paid for our own post-high school education, too, though my parents helped us to get scholarships and the like. I think that's the way it should be, especially for graduate schools. The government gives out (very well-structured) loans for a reason.
"I paid for their education so they can get a job.
I will pay half of a wedding and the rest is up to the couple."
All of his sons and daughters were treated the same.
We worked, we got our own furniture, we paid the rent.
That is exactly how it will be with my children i"yh
Todays parents are negotiating with terrorist, in my opinion. And all they get for their efforts is even more complaints that the poor spoiled children are getting what they idiot friends are.
Like my wife likes to say, children think they are owed everything. We are here to break that cycle of dependancy.
As another aside, most of my friends at least - even those who "get help" - are also working as much as they can and are as independent as possible. Those who get some support are very appreciative of their generous parents/in-laws, and try their best to minimize that which they receive, essentially taking the bare minimum even when they really could use a bit more (and could easily get it). And that's the way it should be.
I actually think it's funny that in the yeshivish world, the answer to the shidduch crisis is never "go out on more dates with more people." Instead, like SephardiLady pointed out, it's just "throw more money at it". What's funny about it is that it's not even about the learning anymore. It doesn't matter if you're learning for five years or three years. What matters is that someone is supporting you for those three or five years. Cuz come on, who needs salary when you can sit and learn in kollel. I mean, who learns JUST for the learning? People really sit in kollel to create more tzedaka opportunities, right? That's the impression I always got. Like, why would anyone give up a career and a good solid income to sit and learn all day just so they get to drive a crappy car and live like a pauper? Schar? Building our community? Spreading Torah on to the next generations? Naaaaaaaaaaaah! It's all about the Benjamins baby! Don't ya'll remember that famous Wu Tang Clan song: Cash rules everything around me...CREAM, get the money, dolla dolla bill ya'll. I'm gonna start a new ad campaign: "Dollars, the new Loshon Hora"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.
ReplyDeleteInstead, like SephardiLady pointed out, it's just "throw more money at it".
Most Jews are Democrats. :)
Okay, I'm not sure I'm understanding this right, but if we're talking about something similar to university tuition:
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate to be awarded a very good scholarship, and had no debts for college. However, my understanding of the federal grant/loan system, from friends who dealt with it, is that when deciding how much money to give a student, they assume the parents will help and factor in the parents' income. This made it really hard for my friends who were doing it on their own, because in order to be considered separate from their parents, they had to be a certain age, married, orphans, or disowned. I had one friend who was disowned, practically but not legally, and she couldn't convince the powers that be that she wasn't getting any money from her father.
Other than the frustrating situation of not receiving money the government insists you must be receiving, I agree that it's good for young people to make it on their own.
I'm not sure why that would be. Once a person is 18, there should be no difficulty in establishing that they are financially independent if their parents are not paying for their tuition and they're primarily living in a dorm or apartment of their own.
ReplyDeleteI had no problems establishing financial independence for college. Stupidly, because I had a very nice scholarship as well, I didn't take out loans the first two years of college even though I could have used them for living expenses or invested them and not been paying any interest while earning a nice amount. (Yeah, I'm still upset about it.)
Didn't you fill out the FAFSA? There is a section towards the beginning that asks the following questions:
ReplyDeleteWere you born before 1983?
Are you working on postgrad education?
Are you married?
Are you supporting children?
Are both your parents deceased or were you a ward of the court?
Are you a veteran?
At the top of this section it says "If you answer YES to any of the following questions, you do not have to provide parent information." Otherwise, they factor in your parents' income and savings. Note that if you were married at 18 and divorced at 22, you would STILL have to include your parents on the form, unless you had children and were providing half of their support.
Maybe some schools handle this differently, but at the University of Wisconsin, there were NO EXCEPTIONS. Even though my friend could prove she was independent and struggling, it didn't matter.
After reading the linked posts, I'm flabbergasted to learn that in some Jewish circles it's considered acceptable for a woman to fully support her husband long-term. I can't comprehend a culture where the husband wouldn't feel emasculated by such a situation and want to get a job as soon as possible. And as a woman, I would strongly resent being unable to focus on homemaking. Of course, doctors' wives often work when they're in med school, but afterwards, the situation is drastically reversed, and that expectation is certainly a strong motivator.
Perhaps that's why. I only actually applied once I was married, IIRC...
ReplyDeleteI'm almost flabbergasted as you, and I understand the reasoning behind it. My sister-in-law (SIL) wrote a fabulous comment about it a long time ago at Orthomom, defending it, but she and my brother approach it far differently than the people in those posts.
Perhaps I can convince her to write a post defending the idea itself if she has the time over the next few days. Many people do feel that the ability for the husband to study Torah full-time is important, to the point that they are willing to sacrifice a certain level of comfort to do so. I cannot defend, however, the way some people have stretched this ideal as discussed in those posts, simply because I disagree with them.
I'd be interested in reading SIL's hypothetical post.
ReplyDeleteMe too. :)
ReplyDeleteIf she can't, I'll try to dig up her comment at OM.
I found the post at OM, after quite a bit of searching. (Stupid me didn't think of using the search until just now. Brilliant.)
ReplyDeleteHere it is.
SIL's comment about it which touches on this subject is about 15 comments in.
I worked part-time and put myself through undergrad. I got scholarships and took out loans for what I needed. I lived at home but was fully self sufficient. I paid for all my expenses, school, books, car, insurance, etc. Throwing $ at problems doesn't solve anything and raising children to be so dependant on their parents is very unhealthy, IMHO. I appreciate being self-made. I always hated being dependant on anyone. Why would anyone think that's a good feeling?
ReplyDeleteHow right you are. The culture of dependence that is being created in the Orthodox world is really destructive. I also believe that while parents helping out with a few things here and there is not so bad, it's crucial for young couples to be self sufficient. The downside of pushing marriage so much these days is that people marry so young that they are not ready to enter the workforce. Then they're foced to be moser nefesh by living in an apartment rented by their parents, driving cars bought by their parents, having their living costs paid by their parents, and living by their parents after their babies are born. All the while the husband is learning in kollel instead of figuring out a way to make some money himself. Recently I came across a blog in which a kollel wife complained about not having enough money while being supported entirely by her in laws. That just irked me. There's something called j-o-b-s.
ReplyDeleteSara - EXACTLY.
ReplyDeleteJewboy - Agreed. I actually think I know which blog you are talking about, and their case is not so simple, but the general point is taken.
Also, how many people getting married today have ever seen a tuition bill in their lives before? And when will they see one? Not for another 4 or 5 years at least. How about parents start showing 19, 20, and 21 year olds their tuition and credit card bills and showing them how much it actually costs to live like a Jew and maybe that'll get some rational Jewish young adults to maybe give a second thought about getting married tomorrow and how badly they must sit in Kollel in order to have a warm seat up above. But who's gonna tell a shtark bochur that "oy, he has to leave yeshiva to get a job? How could you shter his learning like that?" Don't worry parents, if you're having trouble telling your kids they have to leave yeshiva, send 'em my way. I'll give 'em an earful. Every Jew, no matter what yarmulka they wear, has to decide whether they want to be part of the solution or part of the problem. And Young adults need to be told, not asked, but told where they belong in society, if they can't come up with a reasonable plan themselves. If you can have mothers of 26 or 27 year old guys still setting up their shidduchim, then you can have mothers of 26 and 27 year old guys telling them that they're wasting their time and they're getting nowhere in life. Even more so for a 19, 20, or 21 yo that just got back from Israel and still has their head in the clouds. Parents, wake up. You want your kids to act like adults and make the right decisions in life? Be a good example and constantly nag them into undertsanding the severity of things like marriage and whether or not they need to build a career instead of just going along for the ride and showing them off and whoreing them out. You want your kids to be happy so you don't want to nag them? How happy are they gonna be 6 years down the line when when they have 3 kids, they're running out of pampers and all 8 of the credit cards are maxxed out and you're youngest is in Israel racking up $450 phone bills so you're lucky if you even get to buy the kid a ticket to come home for pesach (which is the stupidest thing on the planet, they're coming home in a month anyway!) let alone help them out.
ReplyDeleteEzzie, SIL's situation is quite different from that being discussed and from what I was imagining. First, she's not fully supporting her husband; he has side jobs. Second, he isn't planning to be in kollel permanently; it would appear that eventually he'll be the major breadwinner.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would be willing to make sacrifices for my husband to learn (Bible in our case) but I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice being primarily a homemaker, and raising the children, as many Jewish women are apparently willing to do.
Yes, and her contention there was that more people are like her. (I'm not sure that's true - I think around here, it is, but in other communities it is not.)
ReplyDeleteditto to what kasamba said.
ReplyDelete