It seems that my post about not spending money you don’t have rankled some readers.
>>sorry, i think this post was super judgmental. no one should homeschool if it’s against their values because they can’t afford tuition in the school that aligns with their values, and if it carries a social/emotional cost. <<
I would never, ever suggest to anyone that they make choices that don’t align with their values. I’m wondering why suggesting that people struggling with the costs of tuition consider other options seemed judgmental? I want to encourage people who feel they are financially drowning and feel doomed, who feel there’s no way out because this is the cost of life – I want them to think outside of the box so they can find contentment in living a life aligned with their values that is financially doable for them.
If they can afford it and their lives are working for them, then there’s no reason to make a change. However, there are a lot of struggling families – a lot – and these are whom I’m addressing. I’d love to hear your suggestions on how families can minimize the struggle.
The beginning of change is recognizing that something isn’t working in your life and you need to stop doing what you’re doing. You can’t make anything better until you reach this point. Once you are honest with yourself, it’s the beginning of finding solutions.
You may not like my ideas that focus on each family taking personal responsibility to find a way out, but criticizing someone who suggests looking with a creative eye at how to live within ones means, isn’t constructive in finding solutions. I can validate how frustrating and difficult the struggle can be, but I’m not helping anyone to sympathetically agree, ‘yes, it’s impossible to live nowadays, of course you can’t manage’. And I can’t agree that if you want something you can have it regardless of your financial capacity. That’s not my belief and it’s not my lived experience.
If it were easy to find solutions, then they’d already have been found. We’re going to have to do very creative or very hard things to change the direction things are moving in, as individuals or as a community. The cost of Orthodox Jewish life in the Tristate area of the US is reaching a crisis point (this is what was being discussed in the podcast I wrote my reflections on) and there’s a lot of community conversation happening about what to do. (While this was a specific community issue, it’s worth discussing since rising costs and the fear of not having what everyone around us has are affecting all communities.) I’m adding my thoughts to the wider discussion. As with everything, you can take them or leave them.
I’ve never advocated homeschooling for everyone. Never. I wrote in the post following the one commented on: “I’m the first to agree that homeschooling isn’t for everyone. My point is that while educating one’s child is a need, there’s flexibility in where and how that education happens. When people begin to realize this, it can get their mental gears to brainstorm possibilities. This is my position about every expense: we have to separate between what is a need and what is a want, and find solutions so that our needs are met.”
As I said in that post, I also suggested that people can look at less expensive communities, in which tuition is much more manageable. For example, I know someone living in a PA community where the school limits tuition to 15% of family income.
>>ditto for seminary, if it’s an important life stage that you actively want your daughter to experience (from what i hear, excellent seminaries exist in the US, israel is not a requirement, but i can make a financial case for israel- a girl who experiences it and wants to remain here may end up costing the parents less as she marries).<<
Like everything else, if it’s important to you and you can afford it, go ahead and pay for your child to have that experience. I’m not telling anyone how to spend their money. I’m grateful I was able to go to seminary in Israel and it was very impactful on my life, and I was able to do that because I worked hard to save money to attend. I’m saying if you can’t afford it, then you have to look for options or you need to accept you don’t have the financial resources you’d like to have.
>> do you say the same about yeshiva gedola tuition for boys? that it’s “optional” if you can’t afford it? sure, in that case, send them to public school. it’s free. <<
I’m very consistently saying the same thing, again and again. If you can’t afford something, you have to look for options. That doesn’t automatically mean doing without; that can also include possibilities that many have accessed such as asking for scholarships or requesting family assistance, work-study arrangements, or agreeing to pay a lower monthly tuition for more years. I’m sure many more things have been negotiated.
>>no- we are moser nefesh (self sacrificing) to educate our children with our values, and there is value in having a mainstream school experience.<<
Being self sacrificing means you’re giving something up in order to have this experience. Someone who is sacrificing is accepting that everything can’t be a priority. If you want to have one thing, making that choice ipso facto means you’re not going to be able to have another.
Self sacrificing doesn’t mean we insist we can have whatever we want, whatever the cost. If something is important to you, find a way.
>> and, yes, conformity is a basic human need. children who feel weird will make life decisions based on those childhood feelings, and that often backfires.<<
Conformity isn’t a basic human need. Belonging is a basic human need. A person can conform and not belong. A person may not conform but still belong. You may think you need to conform in order to belong and there is some overlap, but they aren’t at all the same.
>>from your posts, i understand that you and your family expend extraordinary time and effort to be frugal. <<
No, we actually don’t spend extraordinary time and effort being frugal. Perhaps it seems that way because I detail various things we have done, with the intent to help others see there are different ways to achieve your goals. I don’t aspire to live in deprivation and lack, and my finances aren’t endless, so I choose to take alternative actions to live a life that is abundant to me.
While we don’t spend enormous efforts being frugal, it would be accurate to say that we’re probably more intentional than most about spending our time and money in a way that gives us the most value.
>>living where you do might be cheap and enjoyable, but you know better than i do that it has high external costs (e.g., waking up at 4am to commute to work by public transit, because you have one car and work is in the center of the country).<<
Where I live isn’t cheap, and in fact many people considering moving here have been surprised and discouraged by the cost of housing. Yes, I do find it enjoyable to live here, and am grateful that by selling a smaller apartment in a more expensive part of the country we were able to buy a larger home here while keeping the housing costs the same.
Your example of high external costs references a post in which I explained why we chose not to continue having two vehicles. I don’t think that’s a good example of the discomforts of living in a less central location. To clarify: my husband took the train even when we had a second car. The second car was used for him to drive to the train station instead of taking a bus there. We agreed to do without the second car and he takes two buses a week instead.
He has the option to take our car to work if he wants and avoid public transportation altogether, but he chooses public transportation because it’s easier and less stressful than driving to Tel Aviv in rush hour traffic. While this may sound like something that would be difficult for your family, for us it’s not a high cost at all, but a choice we’ve made that fits who we are and what we want for our lives.
>>our family’s cost-benefit analysis is different, which you address in your post, and we aren’t in any debt, but it’s irrespective of the objective cost of living. we’re planning a simcha now BH, and are being very mindful of staying at the lowest end of acceptable – as we’ve done for all our previous simchas- and at the same time making sure we’re not weird outliers. thankfully we’ve chosen a community where the standard is very affordable.<<
That’s wonderful! You’re making choices that work for you. That’s what my message is, for everyone to make choices that work for them.
Regarding the two comments you made about being weird, I’ll simply state that my family and children are all well integrated into our/their communities. Even though I refrain from sharing the positive sentiments regularly expressed about our family, it’s because I think it’s unseemly for the ‘rich’ to flaunt their ‘wealth’, not because we’re ‘weird outliers’.
Avivah
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