Someone sent me the link below, thinking I'd be interested to see the state of today's shidduch world, the insane state. Please, someone tell me that we haven't finally come down to this. It's not enough that we have shidduch resumes today, turning the whole finding a spouse idea into a business deal. It's not enough that the CIA couldn't possibly ask as many questions of as many strangers of every stripe when developing a dossier on a prospective shidduch as we frum Jews do. It's not enough that we have turned the whole process of finding a marriage partner into such a scrambled mess that I'm not sure that shidduch crisis even describes it accurately enough. Now we've got "professional" relationship coaches. And prepare yourself people--this service isn't free and it's going to cost but good.
I browsed the site and I still am shaking my head. Among the things they will help you with is figuring out what to look for in a spouse, what you should be looking for and what not. Okay, let me shortcut what could otherwise be an extended rant: if you need someone else to tell you what to look for in a spouse then you are just plain not ready to get married. If you can't trust your own judgement about what qualities are right for you in a marriage, then you are just plain not ready to get married. If you need coaching by a "professional" (and reading the qualifications for the two people on the site, that "professional" designation is theirs, not mine) on what to talk about, about what to do, about how to act, about what to think when on a date, YOU ARE JUST PLAIN NOT READY TO GET MARRIED.
Every day I understand better and better that old saying that common sense is the least common of the senses.
http://www.shidduchcoaches.com/
19 comments:
I know someone who has been coaching singles for many years. At $100 per hour (that was 10 years ago) and no need for a PhD, it isn't a bad career.
professional?
please!
I'm nauseous.
Well we had to get that saying about a fool and his money are soon parted for some reason--this seems like a pretty good example.
Orthonomics, are you serious that somebody is willing to pay $100 an hour for one of these people?! Not only is the amount charged highway robbery for a service rendered by someone who is not a professional by any definition of that word, but the brains of those paying this sum are going, going, gone. You always preach careful budgeting and not spending what you don't have to spend or overspending on luxuries, and then you can say that this is not a bad career? Any money you would spend on these people is money thrown away.
I wouldn't spend the money. . . . . I'm saying "not a bad career" in terms of finding a market of parents willing to spend this type of money for counseling for their daughters with a non-PhD (the coach isn't without qualification, but is not a PhD in pysch either).
I wish I could find a market niche and make a good sum of money. Because I tend to think "why would anyone spend on this?" I have probably missed many opportunities to make an extra buck.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
This is yet another way for people to make money by exploiting the fears and anxieties of others.
"Professionals". Yeah. Right! In many neighborhoods now they are pushing for the local Rebbetzin to get this job (ostensibly to supplement the household income).
It's unbelievable!
Unbelievably sad......
First we create a situation where we are pushing our kids into marriage before many of them are ready to be there. Then we stigmatize the ones 21+ by calling them older singles, as if they were in their 80s. So what did you expect would happen? Always somebody around willing to take advantage of someone else's misery and make a quick buck doing it.
Last I checked parents make the best lifestyle coaches, along with maybe a trusted teacher or shul rabbi. Heck, even talking to your best friend if she's a sensible person is going to gain you more and cost you less.
Can't say I'm surprised by this....around 4-5 years ago my community had a special all day "seminar" for "single girls" and though I didn't go I heard from others that the big thrust was the idea that every single girl needed a "mentor" which I guess is the same thing as a "relationship coach" just with a less fancy title. Also no degree necessary, the mentor just needed to be an older, wiser married person who could give you more insight than a parent/friend/relative because he/she would have a more objective view of you.
It was only a matter of time before someone tried to cash in on this...heck, I see ads for sponsoring learning in some yeshiva or other with the heading "better than a segulah" and a prominent photo of diamond ring in one of the weekly jewish magazines I read every week (can't remember which one, though). And for a really long time some organization used to call my house asking for me because if I'd donate money to them it would be a segulah for a shidduch!! Naturally, I was at work at the time they called...not that their pitch would have worked with me.
hmm.... ive been looking for a new career... this could be it???
do you have to be married to be a shidduch coach, or does it matter??
Maybe the people on the site you link to aren't the most professional of coaches but I don't think the idea of a coach is such a bad one. Plenty of those who go into shidduchim who have never had any contact with someone of the opposite sex, none at all unless you count maybe brothers and they don't really count. They don't have a clue how to talk to boys or what is appropriate to say or not say on a date. Why is this different from someone who has never worked a job getting some professional help in how to act, speak and dress on an interview or in the workplace?
I went to the link to see what kind of professional training the people running the site have. You're kidding right?! The wife majored in French and Spanish and has worked in business so her qualifications are that she runs an organized program.
The husband got certification from a place calledthe Relationship Coaching Institute. Their site says "RCI is a distance learning organization. All of our training is conducted entirely by telephone. You can join us from your home, office, or anywhere else in the world." For some 40 hours on the phone you too can become a professional. To use their programs you have to join and become a member of their organization. But here is the best part. What do you get as part of paying your membership? "Relationship Coach Certification (includes Master's level)"
If you really need some personal help because you are totally inept at personal relationships, go find a well trained professional in the Psych fields, one who is college educated with graduate credentials from someplace "real."
We could be lchav zechus that these people are really wanting to help out those people who haven't got a clue about what dating is. BUT I'm like Ruth in being underwhelmed with their professional training to do what they are doing. If their training was really professional and involved years of study on the college/graduate level, maybe there might be some justification for the amount of money charged--maybe. But if Orthonomics figure of 100 per hour is true, or even a little less, how do you justify that with what is not much more then another diploma mill certification?
Shouldn't the important question be why our singles are in need of any of this lifestyle or shidduch coaching? Just what have we done to our younger people that some have no idea of how to talk to each other? There were no shidduch coaches back when I was dating and my friends and I managed to all get married and stay married. So how come we knew how to talk to each other?
There's an obvious answer to that question but a lot of the more right wing people don't want to hear it. They would rather spend a fortune on coaches (money a whole lot of them don't really have to spend) then to admit that we have made it impossible for our kids to relate to each other as human beings because we have segregated them beyond what is normal or even required.
Looked through the site quickly, but I think the single WORST piece of advice on the site (and that I've heard other people espouse as well) is the idea that every single should have a list of absolute, inviolable, never to be broken or compromised requirements for a future mate. I cannot think of anything that will keep a person single for no good reason than this nonsense.
You're very right JS. When someone very young starts dating the requirements they have as musts are usually ones that have been drummed into them by their schools. As they grow and progress in the dating process they get a taste of what dating really is or can be and they begin to change. The more life experience they have the more they may come to see that a lot of the things that they were sure they had to have aren't the things they want or need now. But they won't see where change has to come if they have some low level fakey professional telling them to stick to their guns. We know someone in her mid 30s who still insists that only a learning "boy" will do for her. Following the program with a vengeance.
To me, it just taps into this whole notion that you're a special, unique, wonderful, perfect person who has no flaws or idiosyncrasies and thus should never have to compromise...ever. It just centers around the "it's all about me" idea towards life and dating. It doesn't even take into consideration that someone else is looking at you and you may not be 100% what they're looking for. It also makes it sound like "compromise" is a four letter word and that "sticking to your guns" - being stubborn - is a virtue.
Besides, people change! And if you go in with this list of characteristics that should never be compromised and you actually find someone like this and they later change - oh boy!!! I want a boy who will learn - and then after a few years he's no longer interested. I want a girl who wears a size 4 - and then she has a few kids.
Sometimes what you want changes as well over time! I want a boy who's an earner - and then she wishes he was home more. I want a girl who can carry a conversation - and then he wishes she'd just be quiet once in a while.
If I had made a list at all, let alone right before my wife and I started dating, I'd probably still be single today.
I can understand that there may be some people in shidduchim who don't have close family or friends around and who might want to talk to someone about problems they are having. But shouldn't that be the exception instead of the rule? Why are we pushing this type of thing for everyone? I looked at the link and what I saw was yet another formula for behavior, another mold that people are going to be fit into. And I also wasn't impressed by the credentials. If you are going to go for expert help shouldn't you actually be getting an expert?
I don't think anyone on here would be against someone's asking a professional for help if they thought that they had no one else that could give them the special help they need. But as a single I don't like the idea of these shidduch coaches either. The way they talk we are all single because we are incapable of deciding what we need in a shidduch, that we are incapable of going out on a date unless someone else has written out a script for us.
I'm not single because I can't talk to a boy. I'm single because my right shidduch has not yet come. I don't need someone else trying to tell me that I'm wrong about what I know I can handle in a marriage and what I can't. I'm open to change but only if I decide that the change is good for me. I sure don't need to pay someone who is going to try and change me into something they think is better then what I am.
These people are looking to help singles date better? Great! Only do it l'shem mitzvah or as a chesed and ditch the pitch for the big bucks. As long as they stand to make a mint off of me I wouldn't go near them. When someone claims to want to help you because they have your success in mind and is charging for that help then you can't help but wonder just how much "extra" help they are giving you because it results in more money in their pocket.
Where were all these people so worried about the singles in the community before they discovered a money making idea?
The site is so poorly built and is made up of copied and pasted material from elsewhere that it could just be a sick joke. The Jewish Press has ads next to it's shidduch articles for coaching and psychotherapy.
I think people ought to be focused on telling people that they aren't flawed if they are single.
I agree with the commenter above that the site sounds like a business venture where everything is all about me and not about compromise or giving.
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