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We have reached the age where our first grandchild has become engaged and is to be married after Shavuos.
Last night, I received a telephone call from the paternal grandfather of the Kallah. He introduced himself and asked me how much I was going to pay towards the wedding costs. I was taken aback by this request.
I am not making the simcha. The Chassan is not my child, but a grandchild. I answered the gentleman and said that I expect the parents of the couple will make arrangements and settle the financial details. I don’t see where this is any of my business. I don’t expect my son would ask for help paying for my grandsons’ wedding festivities, but if he needed assistance I expect he’d ask me directly.
SO>>>>>>
I am left with the following questions:
1. Do I tell my son and daughter in law about this call?
2. Is this an indication that the prospective in laws expect grandparents to support married children and grandchildren?
3. Was the prospective grand father in law out of line in making the request?
4. Is this a new custom or a custom in communities in which I don’t live?
5. If I pay for this am I expected to do the same for all my other grandchildren?
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B”H I am comfortable and could help if my son asked, BUT Mrs. CTL and I have always lived by the rule that if you can’t afford it you don’t do it.Am I out of touch with today’s society? I made a daughter’s wedding within the last few years and all the Chassan was responsible to pay for was the license, personal flowers, and the ketubah.
I am having a very hard time believing this happened….
To CTLawyer
Excellent questions
How about dealing as a proper capable and dignified lawyer?
Do not involve your children in this.
And as a lawyer there’s a general rule, Don’t assume anything.
I suggest call this Mechutin Grandfather and have discuss this with him. You seem to be a wise and reasonable person and will clarify/settle this matter properly.
I wish you Mazal Tov and Hatzlacha and more Simchos and Refuos and May you and Mrs. CTLawyef go Gezunterheit to the Chasunas of all your grandchildren!Mazal Tov, CTL and Mrs. CTL!
Don’t forget to send me the invitation… 😁
CTL: Mazal Tov and may the chupa take place bshah tovah umitzlachas. and bezras hashem thhat youand
Mrs, CTL should see all your einiklach get married.1. Do I tell my son and daughter in law about this call?
Ask your Rov for guidance. It may be a shailoh of loshon harah.2. Is this an indication that the prospective in laws expect grandparents to support married children and grandchildren?
Parents and grandparents
3. Was the prospective grand father in law out of line in making the request?
IMHO, yes.
4. Is this a new custom or a custom in communities in which I don’t live?
This is a phenomenon that shaddchanim are dealing with on a constant basis, grandparents being actively involved in their grandchildrens shidduchim.5. If I pay for this am I expected to do the same for all my other grandchildren?
Probably.Dear CTLawyer,
I live in Israel, and so my answers may not apply to you, but if you were here, these would be the answers:1. Do I tell my son and daughter in law about this call?
A: Absolutely. They may already know about it, but are waiting for you to mention it.2. Is this an indication that the prospective in laws expect grandparents to support married children and grandchildren?
A: Yes. Grandpa has money and it’s only right that he share it . Family is family, no? Do you think the mechutanim have not heard about your Connecticut estate?3. Was the prospective grand father in law out of line in making the request?
A: As out of line as can be. I call it chutzpah.4. Is this a new custom or a custom in communities in which I don’t live?
A: It is a new custom. You are the first generation (statistically, not you personally) to have made it in America. The previous generation were immigrants and survivors, and didn’t have the means. It’s a new age.5. If I pay for this am I expected to do the same for all my other grandchildren?
A: Big time. As an experienced attorney, you are familiar with the term “precedent”. If you pay, you’ve set one.Good luck
CTL, please let me know when your next grandchild is in shidduchim. I have a an excellent candidate.
I wonder if the grandfather who made the call is still in full possession of his mental faculties.
@CTL, the point that @rational was making is that this sort of (in my opinion outrageous) behavior is first presenting itself now as a result of the relatively recent success among religious Jews in general.
He was explicitly not addressing your case personally, but the more general phenomenon. Your own situation is rather irrelevant to his point, as it could not possibly explain what he says is a new custom.In @rational’s own words, “You are the first generation (statistically, not you personally) to have made it in America…”
Dear CTLawyer
I am well aware that you are an American going way back, you’ve mentioned it often. That is why I wrote that statistically, you’re in the minority, and I do think this is a new generational phenomenon. Hopefully, I am mistaken and the grandfather from the other side is an aberration. In any case, Mazal TovMazel Tov CT!
Iv’e never heard of this “minhag” before, please allow my two cents
Many of those things we love to complain about started with one person
I have a daughter who is waiting to hear whether or not she got into seminary. So many tears will be shed next week when the girls match. Then tears will come from the parents when they get the bills. Many will complain. Whose fault is it that this has become the norm?
When it became the norm for boys to stop calling girls to arrange their own dates whose fault was that?
Simply do what you think is right and refuse to buy into this new mishagas.
I have rich friends that refuse to play the game of full support, and they have made beautiful shidduchim. They help more then their share but they refuse to believe that the other side has a right to say “he’s your problem now”. Don’t play the game, it will just irritate you and it creates precedence for these crazy notions to gain a foothold and eventually be considered the “norm”
Hatzlacha!CTL: I mentioned the professional shadchan as this issue of grandparent involvement is becoming an issue as you asked in your initial list of questions. Unlike my grandparents who only asked what is the date of the chasunah and what time do we have to be there for the pictures many of today’s grandparents want a bigger say in their grandchildrens lives so much so the parents of the chosson and kallah have not been allowed to grow up.
CTL: DIL thinks he believes grandparents should pay for as much as possible as there are younger children to educate and marry off.
If that’s the case let kallah’s grandparents pay as much as what they want. While they have an achrayis to help defray the cost of marrying off and educating the younger children of your future machatanim you do not.
why are you all jumping on the community for making a new mishagas minhag just because one person posts anonymously that he had this singular experience? And instead of calling it out as an outlier, our first responses come from those who are always complaining about the way the we do things and they validate it as a possible new trend. Shame on you guys!
This story is nuts, the guy in the story is nuts, and your dislike for the kollel/parent support system should not allow you to start rumors like this. Do something to fix it or leave it alone.Syag Lchochma: Who are you replying to?
Syag
You may not read the FJJ
but grandparent involvement in shidduchim has been a discussion as of late
and, you will notice that my examples are all things that started as “outliers” and have become trendsSimply want to wish CTL and Mrs. CTL and family a mazal tov! Wishing you all the best!
To CTLawyer:
Job well done!CTL: I had no doubt that you were asking these questions as someone who is not “in-town” ((sorry I am from Brooklyn) and doesnt travel in the “heimisheh” circles. It is something that was recently discussed by Chana Rose in her weekly article in the Flatbush Jewish Journal and a few months back in “The shidduch forum” in the Yated.
You should help pay for the wedding. What else do you need the money for?
1: That is between CTL and his son, not a concern of the mechutans family and certainly not a concern of the denizens of the coffee room. If the parents of the chosson or kallah has the funds then there is no reason to turn to their parents to share in the cost. You asked “What else do you need the money for?” None of our business nor the mechutans family.
In Halacha a precedent requires three instances. As for whether or not a grandparent should pay, it sepends on local custom as well as the parents’ means. I know someone who pays his grandchildren’s day school tuitions. He is a retired college professor and his wife is a retired teacher plus they own rental property in NYS while their kids are just getting by.
This is dumb. Just because some people are control freaks doesn’t make anything the norm or anything close to a “minhag”.
B”H our community continues to grow, so even if the percentage of grandparents who want to control their children’s and grandchildren’s lives has gone down, the actual cases will likely have gone up.
The FJJ won’t get a higher readership level by printing letters from people who made shidduchim normally.
Bichlal, with CTL, it’s hard to know where reality ends and fantasy begins.
“Bichlal, with CTL, it’s hard to know where reality ends and fantasy begins.”
DY,
You are certainly entitled to disagree with CTLAWYER if you’d like but he’s the most honest poster to YWN. Your comment is out of line and you owe him an apology!
CTL
I personally think it’s way out of line.
But you, as someone who sees nothing wrong with Bernie Sanders asking me to hand over more of my money to help some guy I never heard of, do something I don’t agree with, what could possibly be wrong with your grandchild ‘s future new grandfather asking you to kick in a bit of cash?In other words, if Bernie Sanders forced me to kick in cash to help John marry Jim that’s OK. But for the new grandfather to ask you to give cash to your own grandkid to help they do something that presumably you are shepping nachas from, you have an issue??
CTL, you would vote for Bernie over Trump, throwing Israel under the bus?
When I read the OP, I was surprised that you asked if you should tell your son and DIL. Are they unaware of your activities in the CR?
Ctl
I keep forgetting that you will respond to my choice of words over the substance of my post. So I’ll try again
”Bernie Sanders ” was shorthand forYou consistently support ”higher taxes on those that have more ”
Even though the people who are being taxed have no control in how that money is spent (if Bernie, as one of 100 is called ”can’t force you to do anything ” then my lone vote even in NYC is just one of 8-9 million, certainly fair to call it ”no say ”)
So I’m not sure why your getting bent out of shape that someone is ASKING you to give money to a cause that you presumably support.
Whether they need it or not is irrelevant.
Your ire is directed at the asking.
I’m not mixing politics in.
I’m using your political statements to gauge your personal positions.
I didn’t ask who your voting for nor do I careCtl true it’s got to be in the contract. But you also need to grasp every possible meaning of what’s written in said contract or you will quickly find yourself embroiled in a court fight as you battle out which meaning was meant
“ I pay tolls in all the surrounding states and think they are appropriate for CT as well,“
Rhode Island doesn’t have tolls
CTL, you are a literalist? Do you believe that “an eye for an eye” means lex talionis? What about Common Law terms such as “effective” and “constructive” (I had a professor who called them “weasel words”). BTW, Aharon Barak ruled that a contract should be interpreted according to its “soul” (= what he considered to be its goal). This caused a great stir and apparently it has been overruled. See also “Literal or Contextual? What is the Correct Approach to Contractual Interpretation?” on the Oxford Business Law blog.
CTLawyer’s practice of not doing what he cannot afford is an excellent guide to life. Unfortunately, it is widely ignored. IF more frum Jews followed it, I think the yeshiva and kollel populations would be cut in half. I leave it to the Torah experts to tell us whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
“IF more frum Jews followed it, I think the yeshiva and kollel populations would be cut in half. I leave it to the Torah experts to tell us whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
IF more frum Jews would assassinate family members they cannot afford, I think the yeshiva and kollel populations would be cut in half. I leave it to the Torah experts to tell us whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
@joseph If the yeshivas and kollels would assassinate theit population, then yeshiva and killed populations would be cut in half.
CYL- in all seriousness, I do believe that even though the small wedding is COVID related, Hashem has still provided an answer for you. Not that COVID was made just so you had an escape, but that your granddaughter chose to get married at this time and under these new circumstances, after yoSheu had faith that things would work as Hashem saw fit.
May it be with mazal and bracha, and from a small beginning may they grow great.
If the yeshivas and kollels would assassinate theit population, then yeshiva and killed populations would be cut in half.
Are you seriously equating having a small wedding with assassination?
The Wolf
@wolf- certainly not!! Joseph made a silly argument that if Frum families assassinated the family members they couldn’t afford, yeshiva and killed populations would be cut in half. I made the equally silly (but correct) argument that if yeshivas and kollels killed half their population, then their population would be cut in half.
@Mods- if you are going to edit my posts, kindly do so only to correct my spelling mistakes (CTL, their, kollels), not to add your personal thoughts on yoSheu. It may be a lovely addition, but my words/ thoughts are my own. Either write your own post or at the very least, distinguish your thoughts in bold red moderator font. Thanks for all you do to keep the board rolling.
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