Ask Away About Other Communities- Not Chassidim

↑ crust ↓

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 11:29 pm

amother wrote:

First, those were unusual family sizes, even in Brooklyn. Second, what were they earning? Third, what were the groceries? I'm betting no prepared dips and precut veggies. Fourth, what were the facilities and services in the schools? We haven't even gotten to expensive clothes and sheitels and household help. What kinds of weddings did all those children have? Expenses have risen, but so have standards.

It seems like we live in two different worlds.

Remember my grandparents were both Hungarian. Maybe they were living on higher standards back then?

Re family size. Not unusual from where I come. Ten was the average size family I was surrounded with growing up.

You are right about groceries sheitels school standards and wedding 'night' standards.

However...

The Kallah jewelry was on a much higher standard back then. They recieved more jewelry than the standard Kallahs today.

The way a couple was ois-shtufeert! My parents got the most expensive furniture, a chandelier and a coach and what not?
When my parents married us off they felt they weren't giving us 'anything' according to what they got.

My grandmother had full time cleaning help and she employed a professional seamstress a few times a week! Material was not cheap. I dont think the bottom line was less than what I spend for my own daughters. I think I spend less.

My mother had cleaning help for $5 an hour. True, its a fraction of what I pay today but I don't see it as a luxury because as they say ... your luxuries become your children's neccesities.

↑ crust ↓

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 11:34 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Even if you make all your food from scratch, don't have household help or expensive clothes or expensive shaitels, the cost of living is STILL much higher than it was then. Housing prices - through the roof. Health insurance costs - ten times the price (at least). Tuition - much higher as well. So the old way of life is not do-able in the year 2018, no matter how many places you try to cut costs.

Exactly.
It's not that my grandparents had less food. They made the flaky dough and I buy it.

The chorben is that
A. some of thier luxuries became our neccesities
B. The wages didn't go up with the inflation.

↑ giselle

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 11:43 pm

Boca00 wrote:

For sure. I have plenty of friends with no internet access, living similar lives to me, who are plenty happy as well.

Giselle- my school experiences were vastly different than yours. (My long-term memory hasn't been affected by mommy brain so it's not that.) OOT schools are just not taught the same way at all.

I meant those in the schools in my area

Jewel22 ↓

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 11:48 pm

Bizzydizzymommy wrote:

Now a question for the sefardim. Do you spend hours and hours making all those intricate dishes, like stuffed grape leaves, kibbe, and all the traditional foods , from scratch . Or are you really fooling us and taking it from the freezer section at your local supermarket ?

I'm Sephardi (gorsky/kavkaz) I don't know if anyone here has heard of us because we are kind of a small community but most Sephardim has similar foods so we also do and yes we make it from scratch. My mom my in laws make these food mostly for Shabbat and I also try.

↑ Fox ↓

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 11:53 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

All of this is true. Real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) have been near-stagnant for decades for the majority of workers. My parents, who are now in their late 80s, still have trouble getting their heads around the fact that health insurance is no longer offered for free by employers. Higher education has gone up 600 percent in the past few decades.

However, not only are certain big-ticket expenses consuming more of our income, we also have a lot more things to spend our money on. It's true that many adults in the 50s and 60s had been raised in various levels of deprivation and were therefore quite frugal, but the reality is also that there was also a lot less to buy and fewer places at which to buy it.

aquad

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 1:13 am

crust wrote:

It seems like we live in two different worlds.

My mother had cleaning help for $5 an hour. True, its a fraction of what I pay today but I don't see it as a luxury because as they say ... your luxuries become your children's neccesities.

$5 in 1969 is worth $34.72 in 2018. https://www.saving.org/inflati.....=1969

↑ crust ↓

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 7:28 am

aquad wrote:

$5 in 1969 is worth $34.72 in 2018. https://www.saving.org/inflati.....=1969

This means one has to earn approximately 7 times as much in 2018 than in '69!

If my mother earned $200 a week when she got married then, if multiplied by seven, a couple in 2018 should earn about $1350 per week.

If my parents paid $85-$135 towards rent then, if multiplied by seven, a couple in 2018 should pay $595-$945.

Reality is that rent for newlyweds in Brookyn is 16-23 times as much as it was back then. ($1950-$2250)
The wages, however, are only 3-4 times as much.($600-$800)

I know this post isn't an all inclusive, I'm just trying to put the reality of 'raised expenses without a raise in salary' into numbers.

hotzenplotz

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 8:54 am

Bizzydizzymommy wrote:

I went to BY and am probably the only girl that married someone with a shtreimel. My classmates all married learning guys and for the most part their husbands are learning or have a shteller. Many of these women were extremely with it, full of energy , always smiling etc. Unfortunately , in more than half of my class these women have a baby almost every year and look like shmattas. They honestly look miserable and can barely force a smile. Even when they talk, it comes out in this slow weird way. The kids are all over the place , on top of the shopping cart, underneath and hanging from all sides. Many of them are parents in my kids classes now. It almost looks like life itself has been sucked out of them and they are just not coping. Is this what they signed up for? Is this a result of working too hard? Are they not allowed to take BC? Are they proud of this chaos that they deal with daily? I'm trying to understand the path they have chosen. I honestly believe that they are not happy . They would smile and be themselves otherwise. Something is wrong and it really concerns me. I went to the same school and could've made the same choices as them. I knew I can't live a kolell life so my DH only learned until my first was born. I just worry that these innocent women truly believe that torturing themselves is their avodas HaShem and it bugs me.

Why is yeshivish bashing allowed on this site?

southernbubby ↓

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 9:14 am

imasoftov wrote:

Every Lubavitcher becomes a shaliach?

unofficially, yes.

The Rebbe wanted every Lubavitcher home to have a sign on the door that said 'Beis Chabad.'

Every Lubavitcher (male) is supposed to ask strangers if they were Jewish and had not put on tefillin that day.
Every Lubavitcher woman is supposed to ask other women if they are Jewish and if they light Shabbos candles and there are little kits to give out for that.

This doesn't mean that everyone does this to the same degree but this is the Lubavitch ideal.

↑ thunderstorm

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 9:28 am

hotzenplotz wrote:

Why is yeshivish bashing allowed on this site?

This is not yeshivish bashing at all. This is a sincere question and I got sincere answers. Not every question that is uncomfortable to ask or to read is a "bash". If asking is not allowed, we would never get anywhere in the world. Asking and getting answers helps us understand each other. That is the whole idea of this thread to begin with.

↑ southernbubby

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 9:28 am

amother wrote:

Question for lubavitch.
How is it not a problem to put tefillin on and say brachos with people who didn't wash negel vasser?

The answer that I was given was that because these encounters always happened later in the day, and not immediately after the person woke up, we could assume that he had washed his hands in some fashion that day and that this was good enough.

naturalmom5 ↓

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 9:57 am

hotzenplotz wrote:

Why is yeshivish bashing allowed on this site?

I don't perceive this as bashing at all. If anything this post downplaying the reality.
Maybe its unintentional, but you are actually being very cruel, by attempting to whitewash pain and suffering.

You don't see my neighbor's faces. One lady in my building, is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. Sometimes on Shabbos, while I'm talking to her she is falling asleep standing up.
I insisted on babysitting for her for a few hours no charge, so she can get a nap.

↑ simba

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 9:59 am

imasoftov wrote:

Every Lubavitcher becomes a shaliach?

No. The concept by us is that even if you don't officially "go on shlichus" you should still be a shliach wherever you are. Try and encourage yidden to do extra mitzvos, teach people about yiddishkeit etc..
Maybe I should be nominated as the chabad shlucha to imamother!

Sorry southernbubby, I didn't see your response.

Last edited by simba on Tue, Mar 06 2018, 10:03 am; edited 1 time in total

amother

↑ Black ↓

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 10:00 am

naturalmom5 wrote:

You don't see my neighbor's faces. One lady in my building, is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. Sometimes on Shabbos, while I'm talking to her she is falling asleep standing up.
I insisted on babysitting for her for a few hours no charge, so she can get a nap.

And therefore? Scratching Head

It is very kind of you to babysit though I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. Many of us mothers are tired. Nursing a baby can do that to you. So can kids waking up in the night. And so can late nights. Doesn't mean that someone is unhappy.

↑ naturalmom5

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 10:03 am

southernbubby wrote:

I was told that just like a regular frum man is allowed to touched unclean covered areas (ie: the upper arm and armpit) to put on tefillin, because its impossible to do it any other way, similarly in order to be mekarav a yid who is far from yiddishkeit , we can rely on leniencies...

1) Negel Vassar isn't halacha, its kabbalistic..

2) we always go by the Rov (majority). Rov people wash their hands after using the bathroom..

amother

Violet

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 10:07 am

naturalmom5 wrote:

I'm not one to bash the yeshivish community at all, and I didn't see BDM's post as bashing, but as genuine concern for the direction in which the community is headed. My DH is heavily involved in the community (Lakewood) and is witness to a tragic number of women suffering from bona fide nervous breakdowns. I believe that it is directly correlated to the enormous strain these women are under, whether they chose the life for themselves, for their husbands, or to fit in.

DH's rosh yeshiva is of the opinion that many of today's problems would be lessened significantly if mothers were able to be home more with their children and encourages men to go to work rather than learn longer and stress their wives to the max.

SixOfWands ↓

Tue, Mar 06 2018, 10:19 am

crust wrote:

Maybe it depends where you lived?

In the 50s and 60s, both of my grandparents were raising between 10 and 13 kids each, owned nice size homes in Brooklyn that costed 20-30k, had a grocery bill of $29 a week and paid a few bucks for tuition.
They were the upper middle class.

How long has it been since a home in Brooklyn was sold for 30k or a weeks worth of groceries for a family of 14 was available for 29 bucks?
When was the last time that an upper middle class family was able to breathe like my grandparents?

The only thing that didn't change that drastically is the income.

Of course incomes changed drastically.

We were staunchly middle class. But when my mother chose a house that cost $14,200, my father was horrified -- "we're not rich!" And FTR, that was a row home. The detached homes on half an acre, just a few blocks away over the county line, were $15,500, and that difference was insurmountable.

In 1960, hourly wages were under $3. Median family income was under $6000 (about $38,000 in today's dollars).