They're Your Children You Say?

A reader who wishes to stay anonymous has been having an ongoing email conversation with Sefardi Lady at Orthonomics and with me. The topic of the conversation is that soon to be parent's fear as to who will be more influential with his as yet unborn child: himself, and his wife, or the schools the child will go to. In particular this gentleman has no desire to see his child fall into what he sees as the "I'll sit and learn and you will support me and my family" trap. He wants his child to see work as both necessary and as worthwhile. He fears that he will not be able to overcome the influence of the schools, and yes, parts of the community as well. He asks if it is even possible to be foremost in one's child's life today. Basically, his fears hinge on the question of whose hashkafah shall be dominant in a child's life: a school's hashkafah or the family's hashkafah.

I only wish that there were some easy answer to give this reader. He is first going to be facing a problem that some of us have been wrestling with for a while. It boils down to one simple question: whose children are they? Common sense would require that we say that children "belong" to their parents. Our government concurs with this answer for the most part. Children are the responsibility of their parents, and only parents can make decisions for their minor children--unless you cross certain lines. If you choose to abuse your children, if you choose to starve your children, if you refuse to provide any kind of education for your children, then the government can and will step in. Those areas where the government can choose to act in are those that protect the physical/mental welfare of the child when that welfare falls below minimally acceptable social guidelines.

But it is not any kind of governmental meddling that worries my reader; it is meddling of a different kind. Schools somehow come to develop a particular hashkafah, a modus operendi if you will. The worldview represented by this hashkafah organizes and colors every act of the school. There are rebbaim who guide the school in establishing the hashkafah, who are the halachic advisors that help shape the hashkafah. For the most part, every act of the yeshiva, every decision, hinges on how well that action or decision supports the school's hashkafah.

And then there are parents. Parents also work under a particular hashkafah. A family hashkafah comes into existence under many influences. Parents may be continuing the hashkafah they themselves were raised under by their parents. They may bring into their family elements of the hashkafot of the schools they attended. They may bring in elements of their shul and its rabbi's hashkafah. They may read and study and bring in elements from the things they have studied. They may observe others and adopt/adapt elements of the hashkafahs these people live under.

Now what happens when a child, raised in a family with hashkafah X, enters into a school with hashkafah Y? In a very few schools there is not much of a clash. What the school says is while the student is physically in the school building that child needs to follow the rules set down by the school, but out of school is not the school's concern; that concern belongs to the parents. Of course, these schools teach according to hashkafah Y, but they don't make a fetish out of telling the student that only hashkafah Y has merit. Would they prefer that a student adopt the school's hashkafah as their own? Sure they would, but they don't make a major issue out of it.

And then there are the other schools. These schools do not consider themselves successful unless they have not only presented the school hashkafah to the students, but that the students have adopted the school's hashkafah as their own, with no exceptions. They consider it as part of their duty to introduce the students to the "true" hashkafah. Are they aware that students come from a wide variety of homes with varying hashkafahs in those homes? Sure, and for the most part they don't care. These schools take the attitude that hashkafah setting is not the purview of parents; hashkafah setting falls under the rubric of school responsibility. Not only do they expect students to toe the hashkafah line while in school, but they expect the students to toe that same hashkafah line when outside of school. They expect that students will observe school hashkafah when at home. And they expect that parents will fall in line with the school's hashkafah as well. Note: some schools get around the hashkafah conflict by not admitting any students who do not already follow all or most of the school's hashkafah.

So what is a parent supposed to do? Abdicate all parental responsibility and hand it over to the schools? The schools wouldn't mind, except, of course, for those "minor" issues of paying tuition, feeding and clothing the student, taking care of any medical issues, paying for the required school activities, paying for weddings and then supporting couples where the husband is sitting and learning. They magnanimously "allow" parents to be a part of these things, as long as how these things are done follow the school hashkafah.

Let's look at a couple of areas of conflict where school and parental haskafahs may differ. Parents may feel that knowing about the Internet and being able to navigate it are in line with their hashkafah. They are aware of the pitfalls and have in place house rules that keep their children from going online to places not acceptable to the parents. The school where the parents send their children has a different hashkafah; the Internet is treif, full stop. The parents feel that what goes on in the house is their business to decide; the school feels that what goes on in the house is its business to decide. The child is caught in the middle between two warring parties. Substitute television for the Internet and you have another common war ground. Substitute secular reading material and you have yet another conflict. Substitute going to college and the war continues.

And then there is my reader's concern: work. What are parents to do when a school's hashkafah allows it to denigrate those who work, where the hashkafah says that only sitting and learning for as long as possible is acceptable? Working parents will try and instill in their children the idea that work is both honorable and necessary. They will point out to their children that it is working that allows the money to come in that pays for all necessities, including schooling. They will point out that no school could survive if there were no working parents. They will point to the numerous tzedaka organizations that could not function if there were not working people with the money to support the organizations. They will point to themselves as examples of people who are committed to Yiddishkeit, who are frum but who work as part of their hashkafah. And maybe they will be successful with their children---and maybe they won't be. Because the schools will counter with yes, there are working parents, and it is the responsibility of these parents to see to it that their children don't have to work, so that they can sit and learn. It is the responsibility of parents to support children ki l'olam chasdoh.

And then parents will have to patiently explain to their children that there is a flaw in the school's reasoning. If parent's have the responsibility to support their grown and married children, then whose responsibility is it to support those children's children? Following the school's logic would say that it is the parents of those children who need to support them. But those parents are not working, so how will they support them? So now the original parents are supposed to be supporting three generations. (Co-tangentially, the same schools that argue that grandparents can and should be supporting three generations also argue that retirement is not a "frum" concept. These are the same schools that are not concerned in any way, shape or form with the very real concerns of what services our communities are going to have to provide for an aging older generation.) At this point any "logic" on the part of the schools' argument falls apart. Unless you are Baron von Rothschild, you aren't going to be able to support two generations on one generation's income, never mind three generations.

If parents patiently explain this to their children they just might be successful in having the children see that parental hashkafah is the better choice in this case. But I wouldn't count on it. The schools have our children for more hours during the day than we do. There is more opportunity for them to present "their side." Then there is peer pressure, which the schools count on. Children have a need to fit in with their peers. If their peers are pressuring them to follow the school's mission, to head off to Israel, to sit and learn while their parents support them, then the parents are fighting the battle on two fronts.

So what can parents do? Any or all of the following:
1. They can look at their hashkafah and decide on which points they do not want to compromise, and then pick a school that fits in with those points. It may mean picking a school that is more to the left than their basic hashkafah. It may mean heading more towards Modern Orthodoxy rather than to the right.

2. They can pick communities to live in that are more in line with their own hashkafah, or communities that have many hashkafahs represented and where the community members live in harmony, accepting that there are many hashkafahs.

3. They can choose as personal friends those whose hashkafahs are the same or similar to their own. In this way their children will see that it is not only their parents who hold a particular view but others as well.

4. They can be fully involved parents, spending as much time as is possible with their children, and representing themselves as the model they want their children to follow. They are going to need to start when the children are still young and be consistent in their message as the children grow older. They cannot throw up their hands and say "There is nothing I can do to counteract the school's message."

5. This point can be hard for parents: sometimes, no matter what you do or say, your children are going to be different from you. It then becomes the parents' responsibility to say: "Fine, you have chosen the derech you want to go on. Just understand that it is YOUR derech, not ours, and that you will have to support yourself if you choose this route."

I am not being facetious when I say that I am very thankful that my children are grown up and that I do not have this to contend with now. And I wish my reader hatzlachah as he begins his parenting life. Any other pointers that readers can give as to how they balance the war of the hashkafahs would be appreciated.