Telling parents about lifestyle changes

There’s no good solution other than Teshuvah.

Aside from concern about your own neshamah, no manner of telling or not telling your parents can prevent their hearts from breaking.

May Hashem have mercy on you and them.

Okay guys, he wants advice, not a judgement call of his lifestyle.

Now, going off the derech will be painful news to your parents no matter when you tell them. Young people often go off the derech, following a path that is attractive to them at that time.

You need to answer (to yourself) are you rejecting the PRACTICE of religion or do you truly not believe in G-D.

Will your parents will be visiting you in the near future? In which case they will see your “lack” of observance.

If not, you need to share with your parents, who love you very much, your doubts about the lifestyle you are choosing to leave, at this time. I strongly suggest that you do not shut doors behind you at this time. You need to tell your parents, but parents are usually quite intuitive when it comes to their children. I am sure they have “picked up” clues about your behavior and beliefs. It is up to you to share your ideas, ideals, doubts with them. DO NOT turn it into a shouting match, do not make it you vs. them. The conversation will be painful on both sides, but you need to start a dialogue with them as soon as possible.

rebdoniel, while you may have “easily adapted”, for most people it is a gradual and difficult process. Furthermore, since you chose this lifestyle voluntarily, you may have difficulty understanding why people would discard it. However, it’s very easy to take what you have for granted. The grass is always greener.

I would also add that there are plenty of frum parents who did everything right and still ended up with children who smoke, have sex, or are “at risk” in other ways. It’s not necessarily a side effect of public school or a secular upbringing. My husband went to public school and never did those things.

People are made by God for the purpose of serving Him. Your choices are irrational and contravene logic.

Do yourself a favor and read Aristotle and then the Moreh Nevuchim.

I always had an inner sense of morality, hence I never engaged in ishes-ish, etc. (Smoking, while unhealthy, actually isn’t seen as devinat in frum society; it is unfortunately an activity which many very frum yeshiva guys partake in). I don’t know what the OP’s circumstances are, but he should understand that his choices are heartbreaking for his mom and dad, since he’s rejecting everything they invested lots of time and money towards instilling in him. Some parents would even say kaddish and sit shiva for such a kid.

Jewishfeminist, it is a fact that by the secular people those problems that rebdoniel described are by far more likely to occur.

When I hear that someone has been living a hidden life from their parents, and is afraid to tell his parents of his life choices–I don’t really wonder why he made those life choices.

Assaf

All of Klal Yisroel is connected and we are one family. You are in the army so you will understand this term “you are a deserter.” You have a mission which is vital both to yourself which is your neshama and also vital to the Jewish people as a whole. You just left the front lines and nobody can replace you. Furthermore how can you do this to your future generations all your future children and grandchildren? How can you be so selfish and shortsighted? How can you rob them of their eternity?

WIY: No, only those who think their parents only value them as long as they are frum. Not very good parents in my opinion.

Besides, modern orthodoxy is unsustainable. It essentially is the cultural aspects of Judaism without the heart which almost forces one to choose one way or the other.

Differnt forms of orthodoxy are for different people. Some people just cannot handle the Yeshivish/Kollel Lifestyle , Some cannot handle the Chassidic lifestyle and some cannot handle the Modern Lifestyle.

Everyone is different and has different needs. Some people need chumras and love them and some get overwhelmed by them and go off because its too much for them.

Not everyone can get married at 19 and have 14 kids , not everyone can sit and learn 15 hours a day and not everyone can go into the outside world and work with all kinds of people including those who life lifestyles your abhor without making comments.

assaf,

Could you tell us a little more about why and when you decided to go OTD? It may clarify things.

WIY do you even care why he “deserted” ? perhaps his commanding officer was very cruel to him and made him feel worthless maybe his fellow soldiers berated him and hurt him physically and emotionally, perhaps he was put on kp duty for weeks on end with no appreciation or gratitude while other soldiers ate and enjoyed the fruits of his labor. perhaps the officers who would visit the barracks a couple times a year would treat him like a servant and expect him to serve them and watch their children while they sat at the officers table and chatted for hours being treated like kings, i dont know his reasons but you cant judge a man unless you have walked in his shoes.

In answer to PO’s question, there is no easy way to tell your parents about your current situation but nit is probably better to tell them then to have them find out through other means. Be prepared for a deal of turmoil anguish and recriminations. Make every effort to tell your parents that it’s not their failure, that nothing they did forced you away, that your lifestyle is not a reflection on their parenting, that you love and respect them, etc. but remember that they will be terribly hurt by your revelation. If they may, over time, come to terms with your decision.

While they probably will never accept your lifestyle, they may still maintain a loving relationship with you. However, be prepared for the possibility of that they may totally, or almost totally sever relations with you. You seem like a level-headed, mature young man. Certainly your military service has taught you to prepare for the worst and that “no plan outlives contact with the enemy”, I.E. things are certain to develop differently from what you expect, at least in some respects. I wish you good fortune and hope and pray that you will eventually return to your people and your G-d.

P.S. This fellow is an illustration of a point I have been making for years. OTD and “at risk” are not the same thing. “At risk” implies engaging in self destructive behavior. This guy isn’t a druggie, isn’t “hanging out”, Isn’t a threat to himself or others (yeah, except to his neshama). He seems rational, oisgehalten, put together, etc. The fact is some people simply come to the conclusion that Religion just isn’t for them, no risk involved.

PP.S. MDD, you can be as judgmental as you like. Your judgment and and mine are worth bupkes. The only judgement that counts is that of the Dayan HaEmes.

mdd you are right about the increased problems of being raised more secular vs more frum.

Also (I know you did not bring this up, so the following is a general idea and not addressed just to anyone in particular) no one, can know all the details of how someone was raised, no matter how much they ‘think’ they know: Not even if they grew up in the same family.

They cannot know every word of every conversation they had or every private good or bad moment that may have occured between parent and child, or every ache and physical or emotional pain the child had that may or may not have been addressed properly.

If only G-d can judge then that reservation of judgement to G-d alone, must include that only G-d can decide if the parants really ‘did everything right’ or not.

Commonsart,

Can’t speak for Poppa but if he said that then nope I don’t think he was a very good parent. Doesn’t detract from his greatness in other areas though

mdd-

Wrong in what aspect? I am merely stating that Hashem is the only being in existance that can properly judge a person. I’m sorry you dont feel that way.

commonart: that story was written in a VERY controversial piece in Mishpacha that for all practical purposes ended up retracted. Rav Schwab’s son wrote an op-ed afterward saying that the story was not true the way it was told (it was actually his grandfather who said it and what he said was entirely different, etc.).

That’s forgetting about the fact that just because someone is great in one area, that doesn’t mean he/she will be great in other areas. This has NOTHING to do with Rav Schwab, of whom I don’t know very much, but rather in general, as a question out of curiosity- can you say that a given talmid chochom or even mechanech is necessarily the greatest parent in every respect? After all, NO parent is the greatest parent in every respect.

This is not intended to be disrespectful, just curious- my grandfather was a close talmid of a gadol and posek hador of the last generation and is very close friends with his sons, and the big impression I get from his stories is that of greatness through NORMALCY. He was an amazing person, but you knew that he was a real person, unlike the images you get in biographies and articles.

Sorry about the rant, and this is completely off-topic, but this is something I’ve historically not gotten at all.

Tell the WHOLE story from the beginning to the end and don’t make up anything. If you do make something up you may be caught in a lie. I love being frum:) 🙂

Assaf, I’m not sure what “logical” arguments you have gone through to come to the conclusion that it is difficult to believe in religion, since I would guess that you’re somewhere between 20 and 25 (closer to 20 would be my guess), but when I was growing up, being fed secular education my whole life, I also had difficulty believing in the first page of the Torah, since “logically” how could I believe in it since I did not believe that Hashem created the world, so if page 1 was false, logically the rest was also. I felt that it was a good argument and carried on with my life without compunction.

Many messengers were sent to me through different means at a particular point in my life, when I was almost 30, which sent me to a Discovery seminar being held in my area. I felt that I was going to gain nothing and was really going just to satisfy these various messengers without any intention of doing anything different afterwards.

I was seriously wrong on many counts. Listening to the lecturers at Discovery gave me such insight into the “illogic” of my arguments and presented me with such evidence to the opposite(and not just fancy “codes” in the Torah – which for me were just icing on the cake), that I was simply not able to logically maintain a secular life anymore and made my way to becoming shomer mitzvot.

Only people who have spent time answering logical questions that people like yourself ask are the people for you to turn to if you want to confirm your “logical” arguments. Maybe you should ask them some of them before you permanently alter the relationship you so value with your parents. Obviously for some reason they decided that a religious life is the best thing for themselves and wanted to bring their children up as such. What do you think, that they were brainwashed or they are simply not thinking through things? If you respect them, then you most probably feel that they are intelligent people, and it is their due that you should fully investigate the basis for their lifestyle before you reject it. Discovery has seminars routinely in the Old City in Jerusalem. If you have a furlough from the army, maybe you should look into it. It’s only a day or two, aren’t your parents worth that much of your time, considering how much of their time they have given you?

Assaf,

“it is because of difficulty beliving in religion from a logical standpoint”

From all the possibilities, that is the one I least expected. I would say your standpoint is actually illogical taking into account the many brilliant religious scientists who believe in Hashem and torah. I personally knew one (Google Leon Ehrenpreis) who was a prize-winning Nationally renown mathematician who proved a mathematical theorem, called after him.

Have you discussed your “logical” problems with people who are qualified to discuss them? If not, I would suspect that while you profess your motive to be logic (and you may even believe this yourself), it is but a cover for other, less logical motives for wanting to be irreligious.

commonart- we must have read different articles then… the entire POINT of the article was to contradict the first which quoted the original story (and the story as quoted in the original article was definitely mentioned to be incorrect at least in some pretty major details).

Basically, commonart, +1!

A proof that we should love Hashem more than we love our children can be seen from the halacha that it is forbidden to kiss our children in shul. The reason given is because we must love Hashem more than our child.

Just btw, I think Assaf is a troll. Proof? I don’t think the IDF pays for people’s university degrees. It is a US thing where there is no draft and they offer perks to enlist. The IDF would have been bankrupt by now if they paid for every guy. Our “Assaf” seems not know the Israeli realities.