OhTeeDee

This is as sad as it gets, …Whoever gave the ultimatum should have been told the school made the decision, you are not greater than the school and if you don’t like it there is the door.
But the school ran itself like a business who was worried about losing an important customer …

edited

As someone who has gone OTD and stayed, i will tell you that religion just isnt for everyone.

But almost everyone needs family, love, support, and friendship on some level.
Loving and supporting your child (without condition) will be best for you and them. Whether that brings them “back” or not isn’t in your control, so stop worrying about it.
Life is too short.

That age group might be a little on the old side. I think kids 5-9 are ideal. Older kids will get bored, or end up spending a lot of time/money at the arcade.

As indoor water parks go, it is fairly standard (almost identical to cocokeys)

I took 2 kids, 5&7 there last year. they had a great time but after a 3 or 4 hours they were basically exhausted. maybe the older kids will have better stamina but with limited options for rides they will get bored before they get tired.

i think if i had emunah i would want to know what happens when i die. but i’m pretty sure i know. (worm food)

emunah for sure.

Goq: znus/drug/alocohol/pritzus is not limited to (frum) jews.

I think it is still a generation or 2 away. Aside from the govt, this is being funded from people who are professionals, no? How many doctors are going to be coming out of this program to help fund their sons and sons in law to learn all day?

it just seems the numbers keep growing and the benefactors dying out.

Is this a sustainable model for 55,000 people?

Sam, it seems that there was plenty in judaism that is not unique to us. Some of mishpatim is mentioned in the code of hammurabi, etc

yytz – my main issue with the topic of gilgulim is if they are part of the cycle of life, how could it not be in the Torah (or at least elsewhere in Tanach)? i.e. is the time of the Zohar or when the Ramban discussed it coincide with it picking up popularity with Eastern religions?

I had a full MO education, year in israel, etc and i had never even heard of gilgulim throughout those years.

I’m just amazed that a huge concept doesn’t seem to be part of the mainstream curriculum. Does yiddishkeit really believe in such things?

I see no reason to tell your parents. I havent told my parents and they are 1.5 miles away, not 6000. If they do ask, be honest. If they don’t let them assume what they want to, noone gets hurt that way.

My parents “know” that i’m otd but my dad doesn’t push it. we have had a great don’t ask dont tell policy for > a decade. My mother asks too many questions (of which i am honest). when she doesnt like the answer, or more often says “don’t tell your father it would kill him” i usually respond something like “if you don’t want to know, stop asking” or “It WOULD kill him, thats why he has the sense not to ask”. In the meantime, my father is amazing. he will repeat a good vurt if he hears one and we have many intellectually stimulating conversations about science and history. Our relationship could not be better. and before someone argues that the relationship is based on a falsehood, i will preempt to disagree. Life is not all about religion and religious observance. All the things you all have mentioned about davening 3x a day, or saying tehillim or doing tshuva has NOTHING to do with your relationship with another human being.

I will post more later, in response to the thoughtful responses given to my questions.

Oh Shreck!

Is there really a debate on whether yuntif is a burden though? Using all your vacation time from work (if you get paid vacation time, if not you get bubkis on those days either can lead to parnassa issues)- not to mention the women who cook, clean, deal with the kids/go to shul/rinse/repeat for 73 hours at a clip.

Come on let’s be honest here.

The idea of yomtov shaini b’chutz la’aretz is something that I could never understand (not because it wasn’t explained) 🙂

I mean, there is no safek yom anymore, this we know. And there are more serious implications than simply those of convenience (or inconvenience). For example, the torah specifically says that succos is an 8 day holiday, so next friday A. why aren’t you oiver on baal toisif? and B. Shouldn’t you be putting on tfillin? C. Shouldn’t you be doing hakafos (the real ones) on Thursday

A good breakfast!

Ask her why she needs so much food?!?

I love some of the things I read here, great advice. Smile E Face and wallflower…just brilliant

Kids are all different. They can’t be all treated to the same cookie cutter education, the same school uniforms and the same monotonous education year in and year out. It breeds resentment. Having children express themselves in what they wear, the people they look up to and the like is what makes them children!

Once they start looking, there is no hiding the internet. Nor should there be anything to hide if you think you have the Truth in being frum. Kids, as always, think the grass is greener on the other side.

Ultimately, if parents and educators do a good enough job in having the children follow because the frum life is tradition and sets us apart from umois ha’oilum – while not asking too many tough questions (i had many go unanswered) – they won’t want to wander to the other side.

But children are all different. They are not all wired to believe blindly, no matter what you throw at em. I know because I fit that bill.

2scents – wonderful post. really insightful. one bewildering comment you made – in what world is it inappropriate for a mother to take a walk with their son?

msseeker – you seem very quick to make a korban out of one kid so that the others don’t get influenced. This post is not about the other kids (who are obviously important too). It is about the young man who needs his parents right now. screaming an emphatic “Yes!” and you wake up to an empty bedroom and another homeless teen hits the streets. really brilliant.

WoW – why are you so worried about secular movies? there are a million religious kids out there (of all religions) who have seen all kind of stuff. Seeing new things is part of maturing. Keeping him closeted to outside information is the exact reason for his current resentment. I promise. Besides, you can see worse in the NY Post on any street corner than an R rated movie. Instead of banning banning banning, why not actually allow it.Forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter. And maybe he will figure out right from wrong without you holding his hand.

Your son may or may not need to see a professional, one thing is for sure…in order to know how to parent in this situation, YOU DO!

i know you are hurt W/O/W and i understand that there is only one emes in your world. And that is tied into the contemporary frum world. But go back to har sinai, as you say. did they all wear black and white? (did they even wear kipot, uh…probably not). This image that tomorrow night we celebrate an event which kicked off the Jewish religion with 600,000 shuckling, bearded, yiddin is (i wonder if yyou agree) quite laughable. But lets face it, isn’t that what we were taught as kids?

So i ask you, aside from the text of the torah, do contemporary jews have anything in common with those that said na’aseh v’nishma? What exactly does your statement that they were “living as jews” even mean?

People HAVE been choosing their own derech for millenia. Practicing what they can and often time removing what they cannot (like a jacket) – which explains why ashkenazim and sefardim differ so often

Look at todays frum world, and you will see why the feeling of mitzvot and customs being arbitrary is so rampant. I would go so far to say, that if the torah was given tomorrow night on 13th Ave or in Monsey or Lakewood, most likely women would not be invited to the party and there would be no food because you cant find 100 jews who agree on a hechsher.

Daniela why is the reaction always to send someone away? I realize you only say for a few weeks (as opposed to the usual of sending to yeshiva in another city/country for a school year). This doesnt address the core issue NOR does it indicate to the child that you are willing to attack their needs head on and give the situation the attention it deserves. You are doing nothing but putting the same furniture that doesnt go well together in a room painted a different color. It still wont look good!!

This tactic really infuriates me. Does ANYONE think this is productive?

Daniela “nothing wrong” is subjective and a moving target. I agree that WOW did all she knew to be right as almost everyone does for their children. In her son’s eyes she did do something wrong and his point of view is paramount now, which is why WOW feels so guilty about it.

I have friends who were in yeshiva for 8 hours before getting to secular studies (to cover those subjects in 90 minutes, mentally exhausted) – Many become barely literate adults. Are their parents doing something wrong?

WOW – I beg you to accept your son for what he is and for what he is not. In terms of guilt, this is a nature vs nurture debate. And since the nurture is usually identical, same parents, same yeshivos, even same rabbanim – yet we see all the time kids turn out way different – it is hard to argue that nature too has a certain roll.