Sara Richard Remarks About Changes In Shidduchim

I’ll have to read the letter but here are a few thoughts based on your excerpts:

– How about letting the boys ripen a bit first?

– To girls’ parents: what are you looking for in boys?

– What if parents can’t support? Are we setting our kids up for big problems by not making sure they’re as resourceful as they can be?

Anyone from Brooklyn has heard of the Shadchanit “Sara Richards”. She has years and years of experience. That being said we can be sure her words hold a lot of weight.

Regarding one point in letter I can speak from personal experience. I myself “ripened” before I got married (not by choice 😉 . The single years were that of tremendous growth, learning and maturing. Holding down 2 jobs taught me responsibility, loyalty and dependability.

Additionally, my husband has a friend going through some Shalom Bayis issues now, some of the stories he tells, insinuate not a lack of middos, but a basic lack of maturity.

“Additionally, my husband has a friend going through some Shalom Bayis issues now, some of the stories he tells, insinuate not a lack of middos, but a basic lack of maturity”

That is because of the fact that due to the nature of how our boys and girls are being taught idealized versions about marriage, they are often shocked when they are forced to cash a reality check. Not all parents can or necessarily want to support their children. many are willing to help out occasionally, but not as an expected entitlement. I am of the school that says that whatever a parent is willing to do for a child is a chessed, but it should not come to be expected as the child’s due. Kids need to learn to stand on their own two feet. We did.

We need mashgichim to work with parents from high school on chanoch l’naar al pi darko.

You have boys who go to bais medrash, then, when the olam goes go to Eretz Yisrael, then come back (and heaven help us, people are recommending arbitrary time tables, not when the boys are ready and have really got the learning they need to get) to start shidduchim. At what point does anyone sit down with their boys and tell them what they should expect to have to do once they’re on their own, assess their kochos, and do what it takes to get them ready? Three years after they’re married? To paraphrase Rav Hirsch, more than three years too late.

Darchei Noam, not sure what you’re referring to, probably just that I have girls in the parsha, not boys yet.

And you talk about the particular shidduch. What if a parent says, at this point, when it comes to ALL shidduchim proposed, we can’t help out?

Darchai Noam, and what about girls whose parents can’t afford a “dowery”? And what about these tough economic times when a parent may not be in a possition to keep giving as long as they thought they could?

If a boy wants to learn, he can learn even if he has to work. My father learns every day before work. My husband works 12 hours and still has a steady shiur. The roasted chicken isn’t floating into the window and onto the table of our idealistic youngsters. Boys have to know also that marrige isn’t only in-laws, parents and wife working so he could sit and learn.

Azoi.is, I read Mrs. Richard’s letter. As far as your snip from point 2, she clearly talks about preparing boys to shoulder their responsibilities in life.

I do disagree with her last point, in which she mentions that parents care for their boys till then, why not a few more years. On one hand, I appreciate any efforts to alleviate the girls’ parents burden; OTOH, who’s to say that either side has the money? Many girls are working, paying for some of their expenses and floating their own student loans. While this may not be feasible for the boys, I honestly wonder how many parents can keep their boys afloat another 3, 5, 10 years, while still paying full or close to it tuition for their younger ones and fulfilling all their other obligations.

If both the boys and girls started off in life and marriage earlier, they would enter marriage with less of the meshugasim that many come into marriage with currently. (That also further delays their willingness to marry.)

azoiis, were you tongue in cheek about multiple mortgages?!?! And the mechanchim and kollel people are supposed to do this too?

Are you part of the real world? Do you know how many mortgages people can (forget about should) realistically take out?

Please watch the advice you give. There’s this thing called lifnei iver, and with the accompanying hysteria, you’re treading on thin ice.

I think parents who could support easily should and parents who cant shouldn’t why should people put their parents in the position of supporting if they cant.

Taking loans or mortgages just puts their parents further in debt how could people do that to parents??

I dont understand why parents who are financially secure(but cant support a couple)would put themselves into major debt? I mean it’s one thing if the parents can do it then great but another thing if parents cant and by putting yourself into debt doesnt ease the situation! It just makes things worse in the long run!

– interast rates soaring,bad credit score….leading to more and more debt!

GAW, don’t you know that you aren’t supposed to enjoy any of the money you worked hard for? Instead, you should give it all to a generation that has little understanding of hard work and necessities…

Wow people can totally misinterpret things! I was talking about parents who WANT to support their children in kollel

im not so sure you interpreted that Gemorrah broadly enough

and of course we dont paskin from Gemorrahs

he begrudged his daughter the vegetables, as i understand, because she didnt need them. had she been an ani he of course would have been glad he picked them before he died.

and if his sons needed money to go to learn, well he didnt say, but i can be pretty sure he would have been happy to support them

im not sure what that smiley means

im guessing it means your last post was in fun and i took you seriously?

“and if his sons needed money to go learn, well he didnt [sic] say, but i can be pretty sure he would have been happy to support them”

Really? Why is that? Very interesting isogesis you have there.

FTR, monetary solvency is not a given in today’s awful economy. A parent who has plenty of gelt today, could find himself with a failed business, collapsed portfolio, and debt galore, on a moment’s notice. Given that fact, and also given the fact that according to the Gemorah a man is REQUIRED al pi halacha to teach his son a trade, I think the best parenting includes helping a child when necessary AND possible, but also making that child earn his way at the same time.

My dad O”H woke up VERY early in the AM to learn, then go to Shul, then to school (when he was older,to work), then learned again at night after he came home. He contributed significantly to the family living expenses before he got married, and learned how to budget. His learning NEVER suffered, and he was a great talmid chochom (not only my words, but the words of all who knew him) who gave amazing shiurim. He could have and should have had smicha, but never felt the need for “the title” of rov. He did this while pursuing his secular degree and career, and became a healing professional who often gave free care to his patients (which is why we never had any money, LOL). I grew up valuing his hard work ethic AND his Torah knowledge. One does not prevent the other.

Notimportant, it is tragic that people feel that men can only have access to Torah when they work full time (see oomis’s most recent post). What happens when a woman can’t work (e.g. pregnancy complications), or needs to give more time to her family (and I’m talking about all the kids being wonderful and happy, forget about special needs or other circumstances)? Why aren’t we giving our young women permission to become an akeres habayis? Who are you people and what have you done with the traditional image of akeres habayis?

(And no one tell me about the women who helped out in the store until you very carefully read Zalman’s Menorah to see what real men had to deal with too.)

Reminds me of the old Enjoli perfume commercial (you are definitely too young to remember this) – I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never [let him go unappreciated], cause I’m a woman.

Jphone, re your last point. The partnership is between the young man and woman. That parents help out is wonderful, but not an essential ingredient, and sometimes not conducive to the young couple’s shalom bayis. (Of course, neither are money problems, but still.)

Savta_be, let me see if I got this straight. You are saying that if we teach our kids that marriage is a 50/50 proposition we parents should be splitting the support equally.

Leaving aside the impossibility of support for many parents, I disagree with the first half of the premise. We should NOT be teaching that marriage is fifty fifty, we should be teaching our kids to give 100%. Not to become doormats; we presume their spouses are menschen. But never to become scorekeepers.