S/o What Does Your Husband Do?

amother

Natural

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 9:50 am

amother wrote:

Plus, a kollel schedule is very very relaxed giving a whole afternoon off for lunch etc. A kollel man can take off a few hours to take his children to the doctor. A working man cannot. A working man doesn’t get 3 hour lunch break. A working man sometimes travels far and works 12-15 hour shifts. So no, I don’t think kollel is half as difficult as work and neither does my hardworking husband who started off in kollel

I'm not sure what kind of kollel you're talking about but my husbands's doesn't have 3 hour lunch break! He's in Yeshiva from 7:30 for Shacharis, learns from 8:30 until 1:15. Then has an hour and a half lunch break. back in Yeshiva from 2:45 until 7:30. Comes home for an hour an and half for supper and has night seder from 9-10:30. I guess it depends on the kollel? Also, my husband is not getting paid yet for another few years but once he starts the amount of time he is allowed to take off is EXTREMELY strict. I have friends who don't take the (meager) check because its very hard to count the minutes and they are afraid of not being yashrusdik.

amother

Lawngreen

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 3:10 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

So this is the attitude I don't understand. I come from a family/community where everyone starts off in kollel (with some exceptions of course) and I think it's a beautiful thing. I truly don't get what bothers you.

As for learning being easier than working -- I told my boys that this is what imamother says; they laughed so hard...

I'm assuming your sons saying this based on their experience working and learning? I'm curious about what kind of jobs they've held. My experience and those of people I know was much different.

My husband took a couple of years off medical school to learn in kollel. Even though he wasn't getting paid he adhered to the kollel schedule and learned outside of that. I think in many ways it was good for our marriage, especially because it was the easiest schedule he ever had.

The remainder of medical school, residency, fellowship, and working were all much more difficult and time-consuming than kollel. And during much of this time he was learning evenings and Shabbos. The only time that was easier than kollel was a month of med school 4th year that was a super-easy rotation.

notshanarishona

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 3:20 pm

amother wrote:

For the boys who take learning seriously and actually learn all day, kol Hakavod, it is hard work. Unfortunately, many many men aren’t actually learning in their allotted time. Plus, a kollel schedule is very very relaxed giving a whole afternoon off for lunch etc. A kollel man can take off a few hours to take his children to the doctor. A working man cannot. A working man doesn’t get 3 hour lunch break. A working man sometimes travels far and works 12-15 hour shifts. So no, I don’t think kollel is half as difficult as work and neither does my hardworking husband who started off in kollel

Another myth, every kollel is different just like every job is different.
My husband has a lunch break from one to two thirty, including 5 to ten minutes of transportation each way that gives him a little over an hour break, a far cry from the whole afternoon. The longest break I remember in eight years of kollel (4 different kollel and he looked into many more) is 2 hours in the afternoon.

amother

Navy

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 6:58 pm

amother wrote:

I'm not sure if this will help you as we have somewhat unique circumstances. My in laws paid for law school out of pocket so we don't have student loans to pay off. We didn't have kids right away so we were able to save a lot of money in the beginning of our marriage by living simply in a studio apartment so we could put our money towards investments and buying a house. We currently are only paying tuition for 1 child in elementary school and 1 in preschool, so we definitely can live within our means. I work from home part time so we don't have childcare expenses either. Once our baby is in school and our bills increase I will hopefully be able to work more to offset them.

If your husband can get a job in a big firm (not a given these days) then it might be worth putting in some time to get the big $$$ and the experience. It's soul sucking work so not everyone is cut out for the long haul, but if he can stick it out for a few years then he'll be very marketable if he wants to move in house somewhere. It will mean you'll barely see him though.

Hatzlacha!

My husband is a lawyer.

Took max student loans. Just about paying it off 11 years later.

We chose to live simply, and LIVE. He worked for a small firm, gained tons of experience and then opened on his own. I worked part time and we scraped by. Baruch Hashem he is successful and I am able to be SAHM.

So glad we chose this path.

Sparkle

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 7:18 pm

My husband was in kollel for the first 9 years of our married life. He did not have a 3 hour lunch, and had very little time off. While we are both so pleased that he was able to have that time and are not at all "anti" kollel, he is the first one to say that physically and emotionally running your own business is far more taxing than learning FT. The stress of running a business, combined with the pull of family and the desire to be kovai ittim, makes a dedicated frum man's life way harder when trying to do all that vs. learning FT. This is not to say that learning in kollel is easy or a cop out at all, but working/learning is by far the more taxing and challenging. I don't know how anyone could say differently.

(to answer the question in this thread, he is in digital marketing ;-) )

mommy3b2c

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 8:55 pm

notshanarishona wrote:

So he only has an hour and half break. And which job gives you an hour and a half break, if I can ask?

Not bashing kollel. It’s great for those that are actually learning. But saying that kollel is harder then working is ridiculous.

notshanarishona

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 9:01 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

Which job goes until 10 pm at night and pays minimum wage or less? He is not getting an 1 hour break and coming home at 5. He gets a similar break for dinner and then goes out again. I am not saying it's harder than all kobs, obviously different jobs are different hours , but it's a full day schedule.

amother

Smokey

Sun, Jul 22 2018, 9:39 pm

amother wrote:

I don’t know of any kollel that gives off all afternoon (or even 3 hours) for lunch. A kollel man may need to be the one to take a child to the doctor, because the family can’t afford to do without the wife’s salary - which would be lost, if she would do so. (If a working man’s wife is earning more than he is, he may also be the one to take off . . .)

In the case of DH, he doesn’t take any money from the kollel, so he is not tied down to a strict schedule. However, he has set for himself an amount to learn each day, and he is careful not to fall behind. This means if he takes off for any reason (e.g. to take a child or parent to the doctor, for a family simcha, for a levaya or another chesed, etc.), he makes up the time later. This often results in him learning until 2:00 a.m. (or later). My children can attest to all the times they wake up at 3:00 a.m. to go to the bathroom or take a drink and find Totty learning (or asleep at the table over a sefer). He gets up before me (alarm at 5:20) and goes to sleep later, and he is one of the hardest working people I know. Also, this is 365 days a year, which includes Shabbos, Yom Tov, Sunday’s, vacations, etc.!!!!! (He saves things that are allowed to learned on Tisha B’Av for then, doesn’t get too drunk on Purim, because it would interfere with his learning etc.). He finds bein hazmanim very stressful because he has the same amount to learn, but he has to do other things, as well.

Sure there are individuals, who take advantage of the kollels and slack off (on the schedule and the learning), but by the same token, there are many professionals in my office who come late, leave early, spend much of their time talking on the phone, socializing with colleagues, playing games, shopping online, etc. Many take off for frivolous reasons, as well. Most of my colleagues, on the other hand, are very hardworking and go above and beyond the demands of the job. It is no more fair to make sweeping judgments about kollel men, based upon the behavior of those you happen to know, than it would be to disparage all professionals on the basis of the actions of some of my colleagues.