It’s been a year since my daughter came home from what she ostensibly says was an inspiring and uplifting year in seminary, and I’m ready to pull my hair out.
For the past year, she’s been dating with no luck. She is b”h a very popular girl and has a charm that makes her a prime target for shadchanim. But she is also picky, and getting “the one” isn’t as easy as it seems.
A short time ago, she went out with a boy who, by all appearances, was finally the guy she would end up marrying. He was a ben torah, had sterling middos, and I was legitimately excited for my daughter to have such an upstanding young man as her husband.
The dates went by one after another and our daughter’s happiness grew. She connected with him on every level and we could see how they fit with each other like a hand in a glove.
My daughter began acting like a kallah. She purchased gowns for her lchaim and vort and even began perusing local ads for apartments. She was ready.
But upon coming home from their final date before the expected lchaim, she walked through the front door with shock and dismay on her face and said simply, “It’s over,” before running to her room and closing the door.
What could have possibly happened?
When she was finally willing to talk about it, I sat down with her and had a conversation. I had just one question: “Why?”
She tearfully explained that a boy like him simply didn’t live up to her standards.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, stunned at this sudden change.
My daughter explained that on that date, the boy had told her that he didn’t know how long he would end up learning. He’s a boy sitting in BMG and plans to learn for as long as it could work, but he couldn’t guarantee to her that he would sit and learn for the rest of his life.
I couldn’t understand it. Why did that matter? He wants to learn, their values aligned, but he also is a responsible young man who knows that marriage comes with the responsibility of putting food on the table. Why is that a bad thing?
But no, my daughter couldn’t come to terms with it. She repeated, over and over, how in seminary she learned that your whole household is different if a husband only sits and learns and doesn’t work, and that she came to the conclusion that it’s the only thing she wants.
We couldn’t talk her out of the insanity and the shidduch was broken off at the last second, breaking both my daughter’s heart and that of the young man – the one who should be her chosson right now.
I can’t help but feel bad for my daughter, but also enraged at her seminary. I spent $30,000+ to send her to your school only for you to take a bright-eyed young girl and turn her into an ideologue? You took a clear-thinking young lady and convinced her that a husband that has every middah and value that she does but isn’t able to promise that he’ll be in learning all his life (because he understands his responsibilities) isn’t good enough for her?
It’s beyond. No wonder we have a shidduch crisis. We are sending our daughters to seminaries that teach them to look for a husband that doesn’t exist. If you want to know why our girls are having a hard time in shidduchim, forget the age gap. Take a good hard look at our seminaries first.
What’s the boy’s name? Sounds like he may be good for my daughter…
Why blame only the seminary. It is the parents achrayus to make sure they are on the same page with their own daughter. She has been home from seminary for a half a year. Only let her date when she is levelheaded enough to make her own decisions,
You are incorrect.
She is correct.
It IS a different household if it is Toraso Umanuso.
And if thats what she she is ready for, by all means, she should go for that.
Now, she very possibly be fooling herself that SHE is on that level. But that doesnt mean that what she learnt in seminary is wrong!
In fact, YOU seem to be the one most out of line here. You cannot be open minded and understand her perspective, if you did, and then you felt it wasnt for HER, you would be able to go to a chashuveh Rav and he would be able to help.
But instead, you called her opinion “INSANITY”….
Your daughter is right!
You’re Krum
Your daughter is clearly not ready for marriage. and you nebuch sent her out on a date only to hurt a young mans heart.
You sent her knowing exactly what they would be indoctrinating her with, why are you now so surprised? You expect her to think on her own, yet you as parents were caught up with the hype and were convinced that she’ll never get married without going to Seminary. Yet mos lt of the girls that didn’t go are now engaged while those that went are struggling.
This is a total baloney story written by a fabissina single guy. I call Bais Shin.
My daughter is looking for a boy like him we were told there is no such thing like this out there
For all saying the writer is wrong, no she is not, while ideologically the girl is right, the gemara says, אלף נכנסים לבית מדרש, ואחד יוצא להוראה , staying and learning your whole life is a one in a thousand feat, and it doesn’t come from having everything comfortable, it comes from not needing anything,
So sending a girl to a mainstream Saminary should not produce a girl that only one-in-a-thousand will be good for her.
Clearly a made up story. Too many holes to enumerate. Just to incite.
We took the risk of sending our son to yeshiva in eretz Yosroel. He advanced himself till he was learning in the Mir for several years. When we brought him home, he was told that he was worth $50,000.
When he told us that we answered that he was worth $0.00. we can not allow him to date until he learned humility.
He took it to heart and got married to a fine wife who supported his Torah in kollel for ten years. Then his Rosh Yeshiva sent him out to work saying that he needs the kollel gelt for newlyweds.
He now learns till 11 am and from 9 pm till ? . His wife is happy to have such a husband and we are proud to have such a son.