Share your opinion without bashing please...

↑ Chayalle ↓

Wed, May 29 2019, 1:11 pm

Simple1 wrote:

I think it's Ok to use your money within your means to enjoy life. The problem is when certain things become a standard or a social pressure. I have things I like to splurge on that's purely for my own self care that no one outside my family knows about. That's different than the pressured feeling I get each season to buy Yom Tov outfits.

OK, I hear that. If I'm buying Y"T outfits for DD because I want her to feel good about herself and have Simchas Y"T, then I'm doing what the Torah teaches us about Simchas HaChag. But if I buy Y"T outfits because everyone will be having new Y"T outfits and I have to keep up, then I'm merely giving into societal pressures.

For me, the pressured feeling is more about actually finding something that fits her, is tznius, and is reasonably priced. Plus DD loves new clothes but absolutely hates shopping and has no patience trying on clothes. I have to shlep her to the store and get her to cooperate.....

It's not about whether my neighbors will think my kids look good enough. I could care less....

Pollyanna

Wed, May 29 2019, 1:11 pm

DVOM wrote:

Ahhh… another edifying conversation about my dear hometown, Lakewood!

I’m exhausted. My boys all had stomach viruses this week, and I have scrubbed all sorts of bodily fluids out of all sorts of surfaces more times than I can count. So take the following with a healthy heaping spoonful of salt. I get very wordy when I’m this pooped (hah! Pun intended!). And I know I'm really not answering the OP's question. Sorry OP! Here are my rambling, sleep-deprived thoughts:

We too moved into a Lakewood neighborhood that seemed, at first glance, to be a good fit for us. We were young and dumb, bright eyed and bushy tailed, nerdy and naive. We were told that the crowd was 'very Frum,' mostly Kollel families. We took 'very Frum' to mean very simple, very spiritually inclined, very focused on what is really important in life, very kind, very honest, very accepting and loving and warm. Well, we though, we're very Frum too, or at least we aspire to be, if that's what Frum means. We'll fit right in!

It took a lot of heartache and the gnawing feeling of not belonging before we upped and moved. The strollers! The fancy shmancy Shabbos pajamas! The matching weekday and Shabbos outfits, matching down to the sox and hairbows and jewelry! The looooong park-bench conversations about finding the right pacifier clip! The kiddushes and bar mitzvahs with ice sculptures, masses of fresh flowers, ice cream sunday bars, dozens of teeny tiny cakes shaped like itty bitty pink ballet slippers or torahs or boys' initials! The time and effort and attention given to professionally perfect family photos, to window dressings, to kitchen appliances, to Shabbos 'tablescapes'! The looks that I got in my comfy maxi skirts and sneaks and scarves when everyone else dressed in heels and loooong wigs and designer sunglasses! Many of our new neighbors were, in fact, kind, spiritual, honest, accepting, loving and warm. I grew to call several of them close friends. But precious few were living anything close to a simple lifestyle.

I don't begrudge anyone their little or large luxuries. I don't mind if you want to buy a stroller that cost more than my family spends on food in a few months or go on vacations that cost more than we spend on food in a year. Right or wrong, I have my own luxuries that I’d like to afford, my own materialistic dreams, my own extravagant splurges.

What did (and does!) get under my skin is the tacit and sometimes not so tacit invitation that these living-large Kollel families seemed to broadcast, an invitation to the rest of us to admire them and their lifestyle, to, in fact, look up to them. I have seen families whose outsides match their insides; whose bar mitzvahs and pajamas and wigs match their dedication to Torah learning and Torah values. I truly admire these women. They’re walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

But families who are living richly while learning in Kollel seems to me like… like a friend of mine who has full-time live-in cleaning help who once told me that she ‘prides herself’ on having spotlessly clean floors. You could walk on her floors barefoot, she told me, and you toes would stay as pearly pink as if you’d just hopped out of the bath. I marveled at her perspective. She does not clean her own floors. She does not even earn the money that pays for her cleaning lady; it is funded by her wealthy dad. What exactly is she proud of? Or a couple we met who ooohed and aaaahed about the beauty of the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the majesty of the changing colors of each rock layer as you travel deeper and deeper into the earth, the towering walls high above you when you reach the bottom. We were very impressed, envious even, and asked how difficult it was to do the climb, how many days it took to accomplish it. They responded that they went in and out by helicopter. No doubt the Canyon was still beautiful, but our admiration and respect for them was gone.

I’ve always believed that hard work buys pride in one’s self, wins the respect of others. There’s no accomplishment without hard work. Kollel with a bugaboo just seems too easy to me to feel like there’s much to admire there. I know what you’re all going to say, and it’s true: each person on their own level has their own struggles, and that a stay at home Kollel wife with a huge home, a doona, two late model cars, two yearly vacations, extensive cleaning help, a healthy budget for food, clothing, toys, therapies, extracurricular activities for her kids and herself can still be sweating, sacraficing, striving, working really hard to support her husband’s Kollel learning. I know it can be true, and yet, I still have difficulty finding any respect or admiration for that Kollel lifestyle. I can admire her for many other things: her kindness, her chessed, her respect for others, her parenting, her heavenly chocolate cake recipe, her tact and sensitivity towards her neighbors, the ways she puts on makeup. But please don't ask me to admire the fact that her husband is in full time long term learning.

Loved this post, wish more people were like you.

↑ PinkFridge ↓

Wed, May 29 2019, 1:11 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

I feel for you. I'm really glad I'm not raising and clothing young kids now. When my girls were younger, I could go to Dots and get a nice selection of hairbands for $1 each and they were happy.

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, May 29 2019, 1:23 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

That is absolutely true. But I think we forget a few things:

Our hard work is negligible. I work full time, and yet many stay at home mothers work harder than me. I earn more than them, but is it really something I can be proud of? There are many women who work three jobs and don't earn much, and that's not winning anyone's respect, somehow, because she didn't do the "right" thing and go to this college or get that degree.

All of this comes from Hashem. I'd like to be like all these posters who come on here to say that they don't have any luxuries and they don't care what anyone else thinks of them. We all have elements of that in our lives, none of us are slaves to society and we have minds of our own. And yet things that I thought I'd never compromise on I find myself giving in to. Those $0.50 bar mitzvah invitations didn't pan out. I spent more. The pipe dream I had of serving cake on a tray and calling it a day didn't happen.

The cheaper clothes I wanted to always buy my kids was derailed when one child threw a massive tantrum over a particular outfit that they wanted, that they couldn't hold their heads up in society itself until they obtained it. I wrestle with children who seem more aware of the materialism around them than I seemed to, growing up. I'm not sure if I'm to blame, our surroundings, or just the inevitable fact that this is quite a golden age for most of us. Should I force them to bend to my will, or give them

Chayalle also said it really, really well. Who among us survives on a carob tree and sleeping on the ground, using half our day's wages to enter the Bais Medrash? Even the not-well-to-do among us has more material luxuries than some of our ancestral kings. We all don't walk the real walk, we all spend on things other people would scoff at. We all tell ourselves that it's different with us, different because, well, we need these things. This is a requirement. I'm actually helping someone else by doing it.

My question is not WHY is everyone else spending so much? Not WHY is everyone else living the high life? Not WHY aren't more people living how I imagine they're supposed to live? My question is, and I wish someone would give me an honest and truly personal answer, WHAT should I stop spending on? Because I've asked sha'alos, and they're not at all what I expected them to be. I think that a particular purchase is stupid and frivolous, and yet I've been told that Hashem gave me this money to spend. But it all seems wrong, somehow.
And no one really talks about this.

How can I be different? How can I take the money God has given me, and use it the way He wants me to use it? How can I teach my children to not need the matching outfits and the headbands?

I think -- this is a tentative thinking; I'm really not sure -- that part of the answer might be getting the kids to work with you on a budget .Explain that this is what there is for clothing and they can either spend it on headbands or shoes, or whatever. (I know so little about buying clothing that I am not even phrasing this properly.) Give them the option of going to Goodwill, or a Gemach, to get cheaper things. If it's a choice that they must make, they learn that money isn't limitless, that there are consequences to decisions, but that they still have some agency over what they get to wear.

I personally spent $0 on invitations. I just sent email. But this doesn't work for people who don't have email, of course.

↑ imorethanamother

Wed, May 29 2019, 6:52 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

You know how women on this site can all agree that you definitely should not be spending money on X, you should really spend it on what they think is important? Like Y?

That’s what explaining a budget to children is like. Don’t think I haven’t tried. My child successfully argued that we should sell the house, move in with my parents, and get them the item they want. I have him pegged for law school.

amother

Aubergine ↓

Wed, May 29 2019, 8:04 pm

Another vote from me to meet up with DVOM one day so I can shake her hand for so eloquently putting my thoughts into words. I can't explain it, I don't know what bothers me, so my neighbors parents are paying for their maids, designer clothing, wigs, etc. while I work round the clock just to pay for tuition and my groceries-why is it my business? But it's hard to ignore when the standards of living are being raised -my high schooler asked to go to sleep away camp this year, I explained she'd have to put aside her birthday money and babysitting money to help pay for it, plus she's working first half in order to earn herself spending money. So far she's earned $800. Come to find out her friend pays $800 less than we do simply because they're a kollel family, she doesn't have to put money towards her camp costs. I'm so mad, why can't camps and schools look into money backgrounds and not just hear, oh they're a kollel family so we need to give them a discount with no questions asked. The kollel friends from her class that are going to sleep away camp ALL live in brand new houses double our size, not a single mother works, multiple vacations, designer clothing, every single one has cleaning help-don't tell me it's none of my business when camps and schools are making it my business by making it as if they need the discount when they say 'kollel family' while I'm stuck paying full price with zero leeway.

amother

↑ Cyan ↓

Wed, May 29 2019, 10:07 pm

amother [ Aubergine ] wrote:

I did, this is my first time dealing with sleep away camp. I was told to try asking next year but for this year if we want our spot we have to pay the full price. It upsets me because I heard the kollel discount is given without question, but why can't my daughter have that money in her bank account when to the camp it's such a small amount that they give it in the form of a discount for others?

Add this post to.long list of reasons I wish I didn't join ima. Ignorance is bliss. I wish I.didnt see this

It's too upsetting

I never thought about this since im.not up to this stage. Now that I do I can't wrap my head around why EVERY kollel family deserves a reduced price to SLEEP AWAY CAMP??

Especially if they r not offering it to others who r tight financially.

Until I read this I thought it's questionable if someone getting a tuition break for kollel should feel comfortable spending on camp. I never imagined they send to camp on another discount. TMI

Eta I'm sorry if this post upsets other imas
Maybe I shouldn't b on ima so late at night ..

amother

↑ Powderblue ↓

Thu, May 30 2019, 3:01 am

imorethanamother wrote:

Question: Would you like them better if they said they spent money on nice things because they deserved it? Or they needed some self-care?

I see this as an attempt to channel the money they were given into some kind of higher purpose. Like someone who spends $1000 on an esrog that kinda looks like every other esrog there is.

I'm the poster you were asking. Again, I'm right-wing Modern Orthodox.
I'd understand when someone says 'I like this, it makes me happy, I have the money so I'm going to enjoy it'.

Spending large sums of money on an etrog is an actual inyan- and if you have the money for it, enjoy! I've never noticed the real difference between a $600 and a $1000 etrog, but each to his own.

And there is also an inyan of elevating the physical to have a spiritual dimension. But at a certain point of opulence and finery, I start to question if this is all about elevating the gashmi, or is it because the community sees itself as only living for spiritual pursuits and so must justify everything and squish it into the 'ruchniyus box'. The narrative of these Lakewood/Passaic/Yerushalayim communities is one of living only for Torah and everything else is scorned as hevel- and so everything must be justified in the name of Torah, even when it doesn't fit so well.

The narrative doesn't allow for 'this fancy shoe cost 30x more than sturdy bargain bin shoe, but I liked so I spent the money on it'- because gashmiyus is hevel! The narrative demands spiritual dimensions to everything. The only way to justify these luxuries is that 'well, a bas melech/ben torah must look a certain way' or 'l'kvod shabbos' or some other justification.

It works to a point, and my cognitive dissonance detector doesn't always go off at all luxuries. But when I walk down the streets of kollel communities and see the jewelry and clothing, or flip through Mishpacha and see Harry Winston ads next to an article about the importance of kollel, the ironies are too blatant to ignore.

↑ Mommyg8 ↓

Thu, May 30 2019, 4:34 am

Chayalle wrote:

I don't know, I guess I'm really guilty here but don't see things the same way. I think Hashem made a beautiful world for us to enjoy. As long as we don't go too crazy, and have a balance - you know, it's not permanent, after 120 we can't take it with us - and also, it's okay to enjoy this world as much as we can.

Like my gardening post. I don't think I have to live with an overgrown lawn and no flowers. I can spend a little to make a pleasant haven for me and my family. And we can mow the lawn, for goodness sake. It saves me money (no gym membership, and gardening is great exercise.)

And who says a bargain means headspace? Maybe your neighbor happened to pass buy the store next to the grocery and saw those matching headbands. Or she saw them when she was shopping for clothes for them - a necessary chore I do for my DD once a season, because unlike her big sisters who could wear the same clothes for multiple seasons, this one actually grows B"AH and her clothes from last year are usually too small. (No headbands though. she hates the feel of anything in her hair - plain ponies it is for us, or occasionally braids if we are in the mood.)

And you know everything is relative, right. Some people would think a colored tablecloth and dollar store items are an extravagance (I remember Simchas of 30+ years ago with plain white tablecloths) the same way you look at your neighbor's extravaganza as over the top.

I agree with you, that Hashem made a beautiful world for us to enjoy. And like I said, I'm pretty hypocritical here, because I like nice things myself.

I guess what I mean is that a lot of this is social pressure and this is what bothers me. It's not only the headbands, which of course is a small thing, it's the pressure for nice (expensive) clothing, pressure to have full time cleaning help, pressure to have nicer simchos, pressure to give X amount of money to support your children... whatever stage of life you're up to. Here on imamother we say "you do you" but in real life there is constant social pressure to fit in and do what others are doing. And when the standards go up around you... you do have to fit in to a certain extent.

Another thing - and this is just me personally, I'll admit that I'm crazy - is that I think there is just too much headspace being taken up with all this. It's not that she got a bargain on headbands - that was not the point - it's that someone is running to every store in Lakewood to get the exact match for her five year old. Not a 12 year old, a five year old. If this is an internal pressure and she loves to do it and she has plenty of extra time - "iz halbe tzara" like they say in Yiddish. It's when it becomes a community norm that it bothers me. And when it becomes the focal point of all conversations that it bothers me. I know, again, I'm crazy.

Again, I don't think my neighbors extravaganza is over the top. I've been to some very fancy simchos and enjoyed every minute and I'm very glad that they were able to afford to make such a nice simcha. I'm not sure if I'm clear what I'm trying to say....

As a side point, I always had this question about the balance between gashmiyus and ruchniyus - I even posted the question here on imamother some time ago - and I recently heard a shiur that explained it clearly. Rabbi Yisroel Brog explained that kedoshim tiyihu refers to abstaining from full gashmiyus (this is poshut pshat). He says that there are no laws for kidoshim tiyhu as to what the parameters are, and what's considered ok and what's not, because for each person the balance is different. One person may need a steak supper every night just to feel normal, while another is ok with potatoes every night and feels satisfied. It's not a hard line, but it is something to constantly evaluate and constantly aspire to.

I think that what a lot of poster are expressing is not that we are upset that kollel people live nicely - I totally fargin everyone a full supper and nice clothes and electricity and indoor bathrooms -but I think that what we're all feeling is that there is a lack in our society for the appreciation for living simply. That it really should be a Torah value - at least in theory - but it's not any longer.

↑ Mommyg8 ↓

Thu, May 30 2019, 4:40 am

amother [ Powderblue ] wrote:

So now I'm going to play devils advocate and go in the opposite direction.

I have heard from a lot of people that the reason that the RW is pushing the emphasis on better things is because they are denied everything else. In the MO world, you have movies, TV, internet, organized sports, etc etc etc etc, but in the RW world these are all frowned upon. So you have to give people SOMETHING to be busy with. This is a pshara - if I am using the word correctly - because although gashmiyus should not be a value, it becomes a substitute for other things which are denied. A frum family will spend on matching clothing for their kids, for example using the money saved from not spending on entertainment...

simcha2 ↓

Thu, May 30 2019, 4:48 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

The whole point of the kollel lifestyle, in general, is sold as the exact opposite. We don't engage in this "waste of time" activities so we can fill our time Torah. If you're filling the gap with $40 headbands and cashmere onesies might as well go watch a movie.