WOW I will not argue with you about observance, but there is something that does not add up in your description of the story. You are presenting yourself as a long-time observant family that has been living in a chareidi neighbourhood and belongs to a tight-knit community. However you don’t have anyone to rely upon, but, most important, what I deduce from your words (which may very well be wrong, but possibly is the same things that other people deduce) is that your son is out of control, and that you will not agree to any suggestion which the RY and the community is likely to make, and which are likely, or should I say, certain, to be much tougher than order the child to stay at a relative for a few weeks and behave. As a result I am very afraid that ignoring the problem does not make it go away, all the contrary. What do you think might happen? Do you expect your good standing in the community – and your other children’s – might be affected? And what would you do if you were in their shoes?
I will only say one last thing. There are choices which we disagree with, such as smoking, which is unhealthy and causes terrible diseases. But I have many smokers among my friends. One thing is to smoke, another thing is to be unpleasant and light a cigarette in front of people who don’t like breathing poison, yet another is to smoke under the sign “no smoking” in the hospital, and yet another wholly new level is attempting to blame our own decision to smoke upon others and the stress they supposedly caused us, and attempting to manipulate them and belittling them in the eyes of third parties.
PS I find it outright scary that you are so upset about him becoming frei (in fact, even jeans are a big deal) and then you say “If my son were throwing out a jacket I bought him, I wouldn’t complain.” What sort of human being does that? To a parent no less, but even if it were to a friend? Is that the sort of middot he has? There is no Torah without middos, last time I checked. I understand his schoolmates and teachers told him something wrong or were unfair (I suppose your son is perfection and he never hurt any of them in the slightest? Or you think this is irrealistic?), but you failed to tell him there is no justification and there will be no sympathy for his current attitude, where he is “the victim” from whom everyone must beg forgiveness. First of all, there was no abuse of any sort. Second, he should have told his parents if anything bothered him a lot (so that they may get involved as best they see fit) and he should have put things into perspective (one does not broke friendships upon silly little things, a normal person cares for others and wants to see them happy, even if this requires giving in a little bit over irrelevant issues). Then, you yourself admit it’s not the school and he would be saying the same, or worse, had you enrolled him in a “B” school. And I have never seen you comment about the heartache your son is likely to have caused to his teachers, rabbis, RH, much less I heard a word of yours, asking advice about how to fix that.
Chag Sameach to all of you.