I don't get it; how do people survive?

amother

Strawberry

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 10:27 am

amother Yellow wrote:

Fact is, that middle class income of 150k elsewhere in society generally has the means to make it. So this is mostly limited to our community.

So why is that our community can't? Part of that answer is housing. Why are we continuously crowding in communities to the degree that the housing costs are ridiculously high? Why don't we incorporate the mindset to gradually move outwards to keep costs at bay?

Tuition is something that our communities need to figure out. Private schools is a luxury elsewhere. We obviously need them. But to expect the average family to pay the exorbitant expenses is unrealistic. We need to figure out how to keep costs at bay.

Because pioneering isn't for everyone, and we do have infrastructure needs like minyan and mikvah. Prices shoot up insanely fast once a place becomes workable for a frum family. By the time we decided to make the move out of Brooklyn, considering career adjustments, schooling, and everything else, housing in our target location was just as unaffordable. Now what.

↑ BaltoMom65

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 10:48 am

amother Pearl wrote:

1) our children will be in coed classes because separating by gender in public school is illegal. Even if everyone sent to public school, my 15 year old daughter would be in the same class, sitting next to the 15 year old boy. Im not ok with that.
2) they WILL be taught all those problematic topics. No way around it.

Have you ever tried teaching your child your own values and to respect others? Maybe your child will fall into the ideology at the public school (which is not pushed as much at the better districts) or maybe they'll end up more frum. Maybe they'll go to the frum schools and rebel anyway. We need to stop acting like frum schools are a bulletproof guarantee or that it's THE ONLY WAY

amother

↑ Yellow

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 10:50 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

Pioneering is indeed not for everyone, bit it shouldn't be a rarity either. If we change the mindset, we will have more movement. More movement will ease up the strain. It's not going to disappear totally of course because we will always be constrained to certain locations, but it will definitely help alleviate some of the pressures around it.

amother

Dahlia

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 10:52 am

amother Sunflower wrote:

We have a 3k mortgage because we jumped to buy when rates and prices were both low. We’re racking up credit card debt. We shuffle cards every year so we can at least put some of it on a 0% interest card.

Yup, same

#BestBubby ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 11:15 am

BaltoMom65 wrote:

Sorry but Yeshiva/BY is the only way to have frum children

100 years ago most frum children went to public school. Often their teachers and much of their classmates were Jewish.

95% of them became not frum as adults.

And schools are a million percent worse in indoctrination of Kefirah and pushing kids to have zx.

amother

↑ Vermilion ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 11:21 am

amother Tanzanite wrote:

What do you think of starting more charter schools?

I don't think rw people will do it for many reasons. I can see lw mo maybe being ok with it so the question is really whose asking the question?

amother

↑ Vermilion ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 11:24 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Re Tuition Crises

If we can get tuition vouchers for yeshivas that would help.

But the government will try to force their lgbqt and evolution agenda.

we have vouchers. our bill last year for 3 kids, one in 4 year olds so too young for vouchers was over 20,000 which is not small change in ohio

↑ #BestBubby ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 11:55 am

amother Vermilion wrote:

we have vouchers. our bill last year for 3 kids, one in 4 year olds so too young for vouchers was over 20,000 which is not small change in ohio

Start a private kindergarten in your home for 10k.

amother

↑ Vermilion ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 11:57 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Start a private kindergarten in your home for 10k.

no interest. just wanting to make it clear that unless you are low income you still need to pay tuition even in voucher states Wink

amother

Oleander ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 12:03 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

People bring this up as a given. The reality is that most of the parents had very little interest in their children remaining Orthodox as they actively wanted to assimilate. And many of them were Conservative or Reform and so maintained some level of Jewish identity.

Deep Blue

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 12:09 pm

We have been extremely frugal from the start. My kids are still in preschool and we've already had to use up savings. We switched to Refuah healthshare for insurance and have had only one car throughout. If we hadnt done this we would be in debt.

↑ #BestBubby

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 12:24 pm

amother Oleander wrote:

Children whose parents kept shobbos andKosher, 95% of them became irreligious because of PS

amother

Waterlily

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 1:00 pm

One major challenge is that as housing courses go down cuz we move out of town, tuition costs shoot up compared to Lakewood. And salaries shoot down compared to Brooklyn.

The reality isn't that people out of town are having a much easier time making ends meet.

amother

↑ Oleander ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 3:11 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

Children whose parents kept shobbos andKosher, 95% of them became irreligious because of PS

If you are talking about the generation of Jews whose parents immigrated prior to WW II, the parents really were Orthodox only because there was no alternative in Europe.

They probably were more equivalent to Conservative or "traditional" than being Orthodox in the way it is used currently.

It wasn't as if their children were going OTD in the sense it is used today because their children's level of religious observance was fine with their parents. There wasn't a "derech" they were going off because the parents weren't particularly observant except in the sense that they were not Xtians and had a Seder of some kind and went to synagogue for RH and YK only.

So saying that going to public school was the "cause" is backward in terms of cause and effect - the kids went to public school because the parents weren't frum in America and probably had been Orthoxprax in the "Old Country" because there was no alternative in terms of the social world they inhabited.

In the cliche of the software industry - it was a feature and not a bug as assimilation was the goal for them.

amother

↑ Vermilion

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 3:17 pm

my father came from europe during the holocaust with his family (they were part of the lucky ones) all the kids in his family stayed frum. all their kids cover their hair.... one aunt went to public school because there was no other option, other sister went to the dayschool that had just opened up and my father went to torah vadaas. My great aunt was a very proud orthodox lady and unfortunately her family didn't stay frum. so I don't know about other people but I know at least in her case it wasn't as you are describing.

my mother's parents grew up in America. My grandmother went to a talmud torah that included shabbos and possibly camp. She was incredibly proud of her jewish education but yeah went to public school. her sisters who grew up in a different state (long story, she was raised by her cousins) I believe also stayed frum but like her are not lebavitch like their parents.

GLUE ↓

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 3:20 pm

Maybe we should stop eating our own

How many times have people moved to the edge of town and investors came and buy many of the houses. They gave not a dime to the shul, eriv, ect.. but had no problem profiting from them.

↑ Frumomsi

Wed, Aug 21 2024, 3:22 pm

amother Steelblue wrote:

Not sure what you mean. Do you not believe that families are genuinely struggling with basic living expenses?

I believe we are all struggling so need to consciously and collectively lower whatever standards we can to allow some breathing room. Simchas, clothing, shoes, summer camps, accessories, sheitlach… whatever possible.