Brother becoming a lot less frum

I know how you feel--helpless.

My dd also became a lot less frum (B"H she still keeps shabbos and kashrus) at round the same age and was in a different city. We have much less influence when it happens to them as adults. My other kids keep telling me not to criticize her when I see her (which is not too often) and to accept her the eay she is--that way the door is always open and she won't feel pushed even further away.

We just have to keep davening.

my DH comes from a very chassidshe family and was in Yeshivah than became a Gabbai all before we were married. At some point he realized learning full time was not for him and tried to speak to his parents about going to work while of course davening and learning at night. Because of his family and the way everyone else was (his brothers and sisters) his parents went into shock, his mother would say Tehillim by his bed every morning and was nervous he wouldn't find a shidduch. They set him up with ridiculous girls only Bashos which he wan't interested in and finally he found his own Shadchan and the rest is history (we have K'H 2 kids).

There uncompromising attitude pushed him away so he felt that there lifestyle was shoved down his throat. We now send our kids to very Litvishe schools and he's the only one in the family that does not wear a Shtreimel.

Parents need to learn to be more open and listen when there kids talk.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

I can understand both - your husband and his parents. Being afraid she wouldn't find a shidduch for him was a real concern! But he sounds like he was a frum boy and it's a pity they didn't understand that.

Motek, he was hit in the schools he went to so it wasn't an option in his mind to send our kids there.