S/o: Seminary is NOT a luxury!

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:08 pm

amother Midnight wrote:

The question is, why is it a luxury for girls to learn for one year, but it's a necessity for boys to learn for several years, including after they're married. Why is the spiritual health of our girls viewed as optional, and the spiritual health of our boys is mandatory?

It’s not the learning that I think is optional, it’s where that learning is done. And I don’t think that it is (or should be) mandatory for every boy to learn after high school, or even after marriage. I really don’t think most people should be (or really are) full time learners. Just as girls can go to half day programs and work or go to college, so can and should boys. Girls who would benefit from full day seminary should certainly go….within their parent’s means. The same with boys. There is no reason why any family should go into debt. Only one boy can be the top in his shiur….

amother

↑ Pistachio ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:09 pm

amother Cantaloupe wrote:

I want to call this out - I disagree fully with this. If anything, seminary delays the transition phase for a year. The girls don't have much independence. It's another year of school, albeit outside of the framework of home. It's still a tightly controlled framework with few advances into the responsibilities of adulthood.

I see this first-hand with my daughters grade now. The girls just came home from seminary. You can pick out the girls who didn't go to seminary so very easily. They're more mature, have established jobs or college paths and are carrying various adult responsibilities. The girls just home from seminary still come across as school girls. There isn't much difference between them and the current 12th graders. They are only now going to start doing what the other girls did the past year - start the transition into adulthood.

I would classify seminary more as a sabbatical year than a year of transitional phase.

I agree with this. I remember pesach time the year we were of seminary age. We had a wedding and you clearly able to pick out the girls that were in seminary in E"Y. They were lacking a maturity that the others had.

amother

↑ Pistachio ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:10 pm

Ema of 5 wrote:

Kollel is a luxury that people sacrifice for. Not everyone is able to do it.

little neshamala ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:10 pm

amother Cantaloupe wrote:

I couldnt agree with this more

amother

↑ Salmon

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:14 pm

amother Midnight wrote:

1st of all I do think boys learning in EY is a luxury. They can go to a less expensive yeshiva where they live. 2nd Kollel is a luxury. 3rd boys learning is very different than girls learning imo. Learning Torah is a mans mitzvah.

amother

Pink ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:16 pm

OP, im laughing.
Of course its a luxury!
If it isnt a luxury, then its a necessity. Necessities are things that one NEEDS, without wihich they would be sorely lacking and it would affect them in a serious way.

Lets be real.
For the typical, grown up young lady who has completed 12+years of our chinuch system, who has been raised in a normal family by loving parents, who has not been "parentified" or abused and who is not desperately seeking to get out of her house....seminary is not a vital need.
It is completely a luxury.

Just because something has its merits doesnt make it necessary.

My brand new minivan is amazng in the benefits it has provided us. We BH no longer have frequent mechanic trips, we have a reliable vehicle, we can go on long road trips, my kids arent embarassed anymore at carpool pickup (our old car used to whine very loudly asi slowly drove around the carpol circle and had huge dents in it).
But it is a luxury, not a necessity.
My new shaitel that makes me feel like a mentch, has given me more confidence in public, and makes me prettier in my husband's eyes? A luxury.
The pre-chopped onions that make my erev shabbos prep so much more relaxed and stress free? Luxury.
Etc etc

amother

↑ Pistachio ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:18 pm

Ema of 5 wrote:

Yes, but not everyone is cut out for it, and that ok. No one should feel or be told that they are lesser either because they don’t want to learn full time or because they don’t want to marry someone who is learning full time.

No one should be looked down upon period. And especially for not coming through on a luxury.

amother

↑ Babyblue

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:19 pm

amother Pistachio wrote:

I think it's a different kind of maturity.

But in general, I wonder. At least in the RW community that I'm in. Why are we in such a rush to speed girls to maturity while keeping the boys as adolescents.
I feel like we need to keep it equal.
In a community where boys are getting married at 18-20, it makes sense to rush and start "real life" for our girls.
But in the RW communities. Boys are not getting married until 22-24. So what's wrong with an extra year.

In fact the girls that I know who don't go to seminary seem to get desperate to marry, and panic about the shidduch crisis that much faster.
Why the rush. Why can't they have a year of slow mature.

And like I said, it bothers me that most people have no problem paying 10k a year for 3-5 years of Bais Medrash, yet get upset at 15k for 1 year of seminary (I'm talking local american seminaries that charge between 12-15k without the dorm)
It feels unequal and in the people who I know, speaks to how they feel about women.

↑ little neshamala ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:22 pm

little neshamala wrote:

I couldnt agree with this more

To add on...
I notice the summer after seminary, the girls right off the plane often head straight to camp. Theyre still school girls, and have not yet started real life with real life responsibilities. So off to camp they gigglingly go.
The ones who stayed home and began working, juggling jobs with college courses, navigating the world of W2s and responsibilities...they continue with those responsibilities.
You see the difference in these girls like night and day.
I dont believe its a year in seminary that cultivates independence and responsibility. I believe its the year as a non-highschool/sem student back home that does that.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:22 pm

amother Pistachio wrote:

No one should be looked down upon period. And especially for not coming through on a luxury.

I agree!! But that’s not the way it is in reality. A young woman whose parents can’t offer as much or any support is not looked at the same way as a young woman whose parents can support. Many people who really can’t afford it will go into crazy debt to offer support, just so their daughter can have “the best.” Imagine how people now would deal with Tu B’Av…. The way wouldn’t even know how. All young women created equal??? No way!

amother

Poinsettia

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:29 pm

little neshamala wrote:

I dunno...I started touro college 4 days after getting home. My entire college class was girls just back from sem

amother

Wandflower ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:32 pm

amother Midnight wrote:

It’s incredibly chauvinistic. We don’t expect boys to be full fledged adults until they are almost 30 but we are now demanding that 18 year old girls immediately assume adult responsibilities without one extra year for themselves? Women always bear the brunt of community cutbacks and restrictions.

amother

↑ Cantaloupe ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:35 pm

amother Babyblue wrote:

Well, that's another whole can of worms. I agree with you about rushing the girls into marriage, but regardless a sabbatical year at a costly seminary is still a luxury.

You ask why we rush the girls into adulthood. Well, we don't have much of a choice. We keep the boys from adulthood, we don't allow them to transition and take upon adult responsibilities. And we get them married that way. So how would a marriage work when neither spouse can manage adult responsibilities?

In order to maintain this system where boys get married before maturing into adulthood, we have to expedite the maturity of the girls so they can carry the responsibilities until their husbands catch up.

I agree with you that this disenfranchises the girls. This is all done to support the system we have set up for the men. But the girls are left carrying the bag with the overwhelming burdens. So now queue the mental health threads. This feeds directly into those.

amother

↑ Cantaloupe ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:38 pm

amother Wandflower wrote:

I agree wholeheartedly. But to bring this back to OP's post, why must the extra year be at 30k year seminary? You can take the year without needing this costly experience.

amother

Amber ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:42 pm

little neshamala wrote:

What is the benefit to earlier maturity? They have their whole lives to be grown up and mature, why begrudge them an extra year?

And as someone here said, we are not rushing our sons to mature earlier- why the disparity?

amother

↑ Cantaloupe ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 8:58 pm

amother Amber wrote:

There is no benefit, it's a necessity. They're all going into shidduchim. If neither has matured to carry adult responsibilities, how will that marriage work?

I agree that it's unfair that the women have to singlehandedly carry the full weight of adult responsibilities.

amother

↑ Amber ↓

Thu, Jun 27 2024, 9:10 pm

amother Cantaloupe wrote:

They don't need to go into shidduchim the minute they finish seminary. So they'll wait another six months .. which most girls coming back from seminary actually do anyways.

Are you serious? The 19 year old girl has to be the adult in the relationship with a 23 year old guy? I wouldn't let me daughter get married if I thought she was entering into that kind of relationship. It's not just unfair- it's completely obscene.