Lost in Kollel » Parental Support

Support Your Kids at Whose Expense?

aaron — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:20:25 +0000

When parents support their married children in kollel, even if they can afford it, there are others who are hurt by their choice. Since they are supporting their children, they have less money to give to tzedaka, and those institutions suffer.

Every community needs basic infrastructure in order to maintain frum life – shuls, yeshivas, girls’ schools, mikvah, kashrus, etc. These are vital for a community to function, they are not optional. Most community institutions need all the financial help they can get, and they often struggle just to cover their budgets. In terms of priority, there is no question that these institutions take precedence to any other kind of tzedaka, because without them, the community could not exist. Many rabbonim have ruled that a person’s tzedaka should first be given to their childrens’ schools before any other cause.

But when parents are spending so much money on supporting their children, often much more than the required maaser of 10%, how much is left for the community institutions? When they allocate all their tzedaka to their own children, the institutions that need it the most suffer the greatest. This is happening in out of town communites such as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, and Toronto, and even in Brooklyn and Monsey. Schools and yeshivos complain that their parents say they cannot afford to give generously to their own institutions since they are sending so much money to their children in Lakewood.

If giving support to your children did not harm anyone, that would be one thing. But when the support comes at the expense of these vital institutions that a community needs to survive, it is clearly wrong. Every day these mosdos struggle just to stay open. If they had only a fraction of the money that is being sent by parents to support their children, how much easier would it be for them? How much more good could they do for their community if they only had a little more money?

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Adding Stress to Shidduchim

aaron — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 03:11:42 +0000

In our ongoing series of posts listing the negative side effects of supporting children in kollel, this one is painfully obvious. The suffering of thousands – yes thousands – of single girls waiting for a shidduch is unbearable. And yet, we as a society are doing absolutely nothing about it. Everyone knows of an older single or two, whether its your neighbor, friend, cousin, or sister.

The problem is a difficult one to solve, and the causes of it are demographic in nature. But nevertheless, the added stress of requiring money to be able to afford a good boy only makes a bad situation even worse. While it is true that wealthy families are also affected by this, support for learning in kollel causes more hardship and difficulty to the shidduch process.

In the past, shidduchim were based mostly on the traits and characteristics of the boy and girl, and less emphasis on the families. It was quite common for a shidduch to occur between two very different “types” of families. Now, partially because of the need for financial support, it becomes more of a business partnership instead of a shidduch. The father of the girl needs to be reassured that his investment is suitable for his kind. And the boys parents want to really be assurred that their “precious son” is going to be well taken care of. So instead of opening up the market and easing access for the boys and girls to meet each other, another layer of complication is added to the mix, which takes time to be carefully considered, and often is the reason many matches are rejected.

In the past, shidduchim were often made between the boy and girl themselves, without any intervention of the parents. While that may not be feasible today, we should not lose focus on what is the most important factor in shidduchim – do the boy and girl actually like each other? Eveything else is really just icing on the cake. Shidduchim should not be sidelined with matters like money and support, which in the scope of a lifetime are really insignificant.

Is our insistence on college degrees for girls and financial support for kollel from the parents really a good thing? Or are we causing more harm than good by increasing the pain and suffering of the thousands of good girls who wait endlessly to find their shidduch?

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Support Your Son in Law so he Should Hate You

aaron — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 04:32:13 +0000

Parents support their children in kollel with the dreams that their money is going to good use, and that their children will feel a tremendous sense of gratitude and respect for their sacrifice on their behalf. But the reality is, this dream rarely happens. The sad truth is that supporting your children in kollel increases the likelihood of them having a poor relationship with you, than those parents who don’t support their children financially.

People have an inherent pride that makes them feel uncomfortable when they are on the receiving end. Because of that, anything and everything that is said or done to them by the givers is interperted as negative, even if it is only their imagination. Take for example, the following exchange between a father in law and son in law:

It is the first day of Sukkos, and the family is going from the house to the sukkah to eat the Yom Tov meal. There are lots of people eating at the meal, so the father in law starts to shlep some chairs to the sukkah. The son in law happens to be sitting nearby looking into a sefer. The father in law, seeing his son in law sitting there, gently asks him if he can help him. The son in law immediately interprets his request in a negative way, and thinks to himself, “My father in law thinks that because he gives us money he can make me do work for him! If he wouldn’t be giving us money he never would have asked me for help.”

The parents also feel awkward in their giving of money, and that also adds to the negative feelings. Since they are giving money without receiving anything tangible in return, there is a negative balance created in the air which surfaces from time to time. Parents tend to ask their married children to do things for them which the children may not be most interested in doing. But when there is support in the relationship, the parents feel as if they have the right to demand their compliance.

I was sitting with two friends who both received money from their in laws during the early years of their marriage. They both expressed their fervent wish that they become rich so that they can bring all the money their in laws gave them over the years and “dump it back in their face!”

Money does not create a healthy relationship. It skews things and causes tremendous stress and hard feelings. Parents need to let go so their children manage on their own, even when it seems to them that they aren’t capable of doing so. When children fend for themselves, they realize what struggle their parents and in laws went through, and it creates a newfound respect for them.

Bottom line – don’t think your superstar son in law will love you for all the money you give him. Chances are – the more money you give him, the more he will hate you. When you let him fend for himself, maybe then he’ll start to actually respect you.

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Every Girl Needs a Good Degree

aaron — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 03:35:58 +0000

In addition to providing support for their kollel son-in-laws, parents must also give their daughters a degree so they can have the ability to bring in parnossa for the family. This is the opposite of what chazal instruct us to teach one’s son a trade – instead we are teaching the daughters and not teaching the sons.

In the desparate search of people looking for ways to boost their daughters’ income ability, it has become the norm to require a degree of some sort. When a girl is considered for shidduchim, her degree is one of the most important qualities taken into consideration, much more than her middos or even her intellect! If a girl chas v’shalom doesn’t have a degree, its often a strike against her, leading to an outright rejection.

This custom has not been copied from the secular world, as many tend to think. This emphasis on college degrees for girls is only because of kollel support. If the woman is to provide parnossa for the family, she must have the means of which to earn a decent salary – which a regular teaching job or office position cannot provide.

What is the result of all this? Due to time constraints and the hectic lifestyle of most frum girls, there are not many options for degrees available. That has led to the creation of programs such as Sara Schneirer and Raizel Reit, which are designed to get the girls a degree with the most minimum of standards. These programs graduate hundreds of girls a year, all of them with similar degrees who are looking for jobs in the cash strapped state of New Jersey, in the vicinity of Lakewood. Because of the enormous supply of qualified candidates, salaries for these positions are lower than they should be for the qualifications needed.

The negative consequences of this situation are both numerous and destructive. First of all, it puts another barrier in the way of shidduchim. It also puts a delay in their earning money, requiring them to spend up to 2 years of college studies to earn their degrees. It puts an additional financial burden on parents who are already cash strapped. It causes great harm to the life of a newly married couple, who have to deal with the new wife studying and traveling into class during the first crucial months of their marriage, often while being pregnant and holding down a “temporary” job. In short, the custom of earning a degree has come at a great expense, physically, emotionally, and financially.

Is this really what kollel is all about? When we talk about mesirus nefesh for Torah, does it mean earning a degree too? Perhaps the true reason boys demand the degress has less to do with mesirus nefesh for Torah and more to do with their wishing to be “taken care of”. If that is the case, we are certainly headed in the wrong direction with this, for all of the reasons mentioned.

Yes, the world does things without thinking. Requiring a girl to earn a degree so her husband can learn in kollel fits into this category.

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Harming Your Childrens’ Future by Supporting Them in Kollel

aaron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:10:49 +0000

It was only 70 years ago that our nation went through the torturous holocaust, and the scars will remain in our spirit for a long time. The survivors were mostly young and had no one to care for them. When the came out, they were determined to build families and start life anew. With the memories of the pain they had to endure, they swore to protect their children and care for them with every part of their being. Even to the point where their protectiveness actually causes them harm, although not intended.

Protecting children is a natural instinct that parents have. But when parents try to remove all pain from their childrens’ lives, they are actually causing them more harm. Children cannot remain in their parents’ nest forever. They need to be pushed out of the nest and be taught to fly on their own. For the moment, it is painful to watch them struggle as they discover their inborn abilities to run their own lives, but in a short while they are free and independent, and capable of fulfilling their own destiny.

Supporting kids in kollel is an excuse used by parents to delay teaching them how to fly on their own. Parents think back to their own years of struggle, and wish to shield their children from that momentary discomfort. But in the long run, they are causing them much more harm, since they will never learn how to manage their own lives and take care of their own needs. Forever they will be dependent children who come running home to Mommy & Daddy every time they need something, always expecting it to be handed to them, without having a clue of how to care from themselves.

Eventually, the parents will realize the harm they are causing, and out of a sense of disgust they will terminate their financial support. But by then, the process of learning how to fly is much more difficult, and the suffering they were trying to prevent will be even greater.

So next time you sit down and write your married children a check, think long and hard why you are doing so. Are you really doing it to support learning, or is it to help your children along in life? Because every month you give them money, you are delaying the inevitable and making their “flying away” a bit more painful and difficult.

A lot more on this topic and the ill effects financial support has on children can be found in the book The Millionaire Next Door. If you are supporting your kids, both in kollel or out, reading this book is mandatory.

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Working Longer & Harder to Support the Family

aaron — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:26:34 +0000

To provide for their family’s needs, a woman whose husband is learning in kollel almost always needs to work outside the home, even if they are being supported. Unless they are fabulously wealthy, even the most generous parents cannot afford to contribute more than $10-15,000 a year. Assuming the husband can bring home a kollel check of up to $10k (which is a very generous assumption – and if he is learning in BMG he brings home next to nothing), there is still a massive shortfall which needs to be filled by the woman’s income.

Those of you who are supporting their children in kollel, are therefore greatly increasing the length of time their daughters need to work. Now it is true that even in many non-kollel families the woman also works. However, in most cases the burden of the income is borne primarily on the husband, not on the wife. But in the case of the kollel family, the pressure on the wife to work is immense. Many women have said that this great pressure to work is more difficult than actually doing the work. Knowing that if they ever stop working they will be putting their family in jeopardy is really a burden that a woman should not have to carry.

A few years ago I overheard a conversation between a father of a 34 year old kollel wife and her high school principal. The father was speaking of his daughter’s daily schedule. She lives in Lakewood with her kollel husband and 6 children, the oldest who is 9. She wakes up 6:00, feeds her baby, prepares clothing for her sleeping kids for school, puts supper up for later that evening, and takes the 7:00 bus into Brooklyn so she can go to her teaching job where she earns a $28,000 salary. She returns home at 4:00, gets home about 6:00, feeds the kids supper, does homework, laundry, and other tasks until she collapses into bed at 11:00, when after a few short hours interrupted by a crying baby who needs to be fed, the cycle will repeat itself again.

The father was telling this to his daughter’s prinicpal, waiting for his positive reaction. That’s not what he got. “You call that amazing? That’s not something to be proud about your daughter! I call that meshugah!” he bellowed. “She is working herself into oblivion, and is becoming a shmateh in the process. It is not possible for her to be a good mother or wife under these circumstances.”

No father or mother would willingly subject their daughters to such conditions. But by continuing to support them in kollel, that’s exactly what you are doing. By keeping the husband learning in kollel longer and out of the workforce, you are subjecting your daughter to continue working even as her family grows.

Another thing to think about when supporting your children – am I really helping them, or is my “help” creating just more unpleasantness for them?

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Peer Pressure – Keeping Up With Friends & Neighbors

aaron — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 03:55:50 +0000

Another negative consequence of parental support to young kollel families is the tremendous pressure it places on everyone else. This problem is readily apparent in Lakewood, but it occurs even in Eretz Yisroel.

It is hard enough for an idealistic young couple to begin marriage with the plan to “live with nothing” while learning in kollel. But it becomes almost impossible to do when his chavrusah, her best friend, their siblings, and neighbors are living a “comfortable” life while also learning in kollel.

30 years ago, it was unheard of for a young kollel couple living in Lakewood to buy a house. Who could afford buying a house while being in kollel? But over the past 10-15 years, it has become standard practice for young families to buy a house after just a year or two of marriage. Obviously, they cannot afford to do so on their own. The money for their homes come from the parents.

Most parents do not have the financial ability to purchase homes for their children. But due to the tremendous peer pressure placed on their children and back up to them, they are forced to struggle even more than they were expecting in order to fund their children’s homes. Yes, they rationalize the purchase by saying things like, “A home is a good investment.” And “They are anyways going to need a new place to live soon.” Or, “Why waste all that money every month on rent when it can be going towards paying on a mortgage?” But the real truth is parents would not extend themselves to such an extent if not for the fact that their children are being subjected to terrible peer pressure from other parents that have extended themselves.

And so the cycle of debt and “spend more that I make” continues way past the age when kids grow up and move out.

Supporting your kids in kollel sounds like a noble deed. But when you consider that your generosity causes great strain and harm to others that aren’t able to do so, it starts taking on a different meaning.

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The Unbearable Stress of Supporting Kids in Kollel

aaron — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:56:53 +0000

The most obvious problem with the practice of supporting children in kollel is the great financial and emotional stress it places on their parents.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a typical Jewish family of 6-7 children making anywhere from $70,000-$140,000 a year cannot afford to give their married children $1200-$2500(!) a month. The math just doesn’t add up. As it is, they struggle to pay their never ending mortgage, tuition and camp expenses for their children living at home. Add to that the existing debts they accrued from making chassunas, and sending the girls to seminary, and you can see how most frum families are being squeezed awfully tight.

Most people would not willingly promise money they don’t have for the sake of someone elses learning. But when it comes to kollel support, they do. Whether they work as accountants, lawyers, dentists, or computer programmers, they are promising sums of money for kollel support that they simply don’t have.

Why do they do this? Simply because they want their daughters to get married. And in today’s society, in order to marry off your daughter you are expected to pay for the mesirus nefesh of your future son-in-law.

That is why most often the support for the kollel couple comes from the girl’s parents, not the boy’s. Because of the great shidduch crisis, there are far more girls than boys on the “market”. That causes an imbalance in the supply and demand of the marketplace, which forces the parents of the girl to “sweeten the deal” by providing the support. In most cases, the motivation for offering the support has nothing to do with the value of the son-in-law’s learning. It is simply a way of getting their daughter married – at all costs.

Even when the cost is too much of a financial burden to bear.

How do they manage to come up with the money? Likely they do so by remortgaging the home, by working years longer than planned, by selling investments and cashing out retirement funds that were put away for their golden years, and by the mothers getting new jobs years after they left the workforce. (A relative of mine tells me of the many middle aged women taking special ed classes in Sara Schnerir together with all the young girls, which creates somewhat of a culture clash.)

Torah is surely a worthy cause to support. But when faced with a stark choice, wisdom must be used to tell us when and how to support Torah. That wisdom should give one the option of putting their own family’s needs first, where it should be.

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Supporting Kids in Kollel – The Harmful Side Effects

aaron — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:37:04 +0000

Supporting kids in kollel sounds like a very noble cause. After all, by helping them financially, you are making it possible for them to live in an ideal situation, where the husband can spend his days fully engrossed in learning without worrying about earning a living. Financial support, together with the wife/mother working and some assistance from Uncle Sam are what make it possible for so many kollel couples llving in Lakewood to be able to “stay in learning”.

But people neglect to notice the harmful side effects of support, which are causing great damage to our society which will have grave consequences on us in the not so distant future.

Each one of these side effects require their own post, to give enough attention to the details. I will list the negative consequences here, and detail each one in their own individual posts over the next few weeks.

Financial stress on parents
Peer pressure between couples
Increased burden on women to work longer and harder
Lack of planning for the future
Forces girls to obtain ridiculous degrees for the sake of earning a “good” living
Sour relationships between son-in-law and father-in-law
Adds stress to the already difficult shidduch market
Drains precious financial resources from worthy causes

These negative consequences are so intertwined with each other that they are not really separate. We will explore how the widespread custom of supporting one’s children in kollel is having negative ripple effects through our lives. What began as a noble endeavor has turned ugly, and we must realize how it is negatively affecting all of us before we will do anything about it.

This series will likely evoke strong emotions from many of my readers. There are so many players involved in this – from the parents writing the checks, the couples who cash them, the single girls who long for a shidduch, the children of supported parents, and just about everyone else in our frum non-chassidish society. Everyone has their own opinion about this matter, but I believe that this series will strike a chord with many of you.

Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments. After all, this almost certainly affects your life in more ways than one.

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Being Supported in Kollel is Not Free Money

aaron — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:59:28 +0000

Another tragic kollel story:

A 41 year old who learned in Yeshiva in the US and moved to Eretz Yisroel has been sitting and learning in kollel while being supported by his in-laws. They give him $2,000 a month, and he manages to stuggle along.

Of course, the in-laws fly the family in to America for simchas and Yom Tov. At a recent family simcha, the in-laws asked this fellow to speak. He wasn’t comfortable doing so, and he politely refused. The mother-in-law replied, “But we support you! And if you can’t speak, why are we spending so much money on your learning?”

Needless to say, this fellow was devastated.

There are lots of conclusions that can be drawn from this. My take is simply this – is it really worth 2 grand to take money from people who obviously don’t want to give it, and when they do they feel as if they “own” you?

Just remember – there is no such thing as free money. Kollel support is no different. Even Especially when it comes from family.

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