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Identitiy crisis, what am I? -poll added
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Which school do you think would be better for my kids
Frum community school (still right wing)  
 82%  [ 34 ]
More Right wing Insular school (not chassidish)  
 17%  [ 7 ]
Total Votes : 41



amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 7:51 am
amother [ Forestgreen ] wrote:
I also agree with Turquoise.
I am not a big fan of joining insular communities. By very definition, they do not accept outsiders, and you will always be second best. It might not be as extreme as other parents not letting their kids come over to your place (although it might). But you will definitely feel it at shidduchim time, when none of the classmates your kids went to school with will be willing to marry into a BT family.

Also, you yourself say you are having an identity crisis. It is obviously not your first - choosing to uproot your old life and become a BT is also an identity crisis. You are someone who examines her life periodically and grows, makes changes. It would be a very bad idea to lock yourself into a system where conformism is so highly valued, and where there is very little room for change. Do you really want your kids to be in a school where they micromanage the moms' dress and behavior, to the level that you can't choose your own shade of nail polish?

In ten years' time you may want to make changes. Give yourself that freedom. Don't send your kids to a school where you have to pull them out if you want to change.

And don't forget that your kids are not your typical insular kids. They have secular extended family, they will be exposed to some secular influences whether you like it or not.


This factor is what makes me consider the “right wing but accepting school/ community school” vs the “right wing insular school” I am open to the fact that my kids may be out of the box even if they have all the right friends and are in the right school due to their connection to our family even though I try to limit it. And dont want my kids to feel bad if they dont fit the mold. On the other hand I want to encourage an environment where they have the best chances of fitting the mold (right school, right friends) and not being drawn down by friend who have secular influences. Some of the kids at the community school have TV and are not sheltered.

We would not consider the modern school where it is the accepted norm to have tv and have secular exposure.
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amother
Lilac


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:05 am
A lot depends where you live in NY.
There are areas that have more mixed neighborhoods/schools that almost have an oot, community school sort of feel. OTOH, if you live in a place like BP there is far less diversity.
You say you live in a mixed neighborhood. So where do your neighbors send their kids to school?
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:15 am
amother [ Lilac ] wrote:
A lot depends where you live in NY.
There are areas that have more mixed neighborhoods/schools that almost have an oot, community school sort of feel. OTOH, if you live in a place like BP there is far less diversity.
You say you live in a mixed neighborhood. So where do your neighbors send their kids to school?


Yes in our neighborhood, our neighbors send to all schools, the insular right wing, the frum community school, and the modern left wing school. And the chassidim bus their kids out since we dont have a chassisish school local.
I think most neighbors are split between the insular right wing school and the frum community school.
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amother
Babyblue


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:18 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
refined with good middos .

This describes a lot of my non-Jewish and non frum acquaintances and friends and the friends my public-school-attending child brings home from school.
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amother
Lilac


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:27 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Yes in our neighborhood, our neighbors send to all schools, the insular right wing, the frum community school, and the modern left wing school. And the chassidim bus their kids out since we dont have a chassisish school local.
I think most neighbors are split between the insular right wing school and the frum community school.

Sounds like the community school would be the best fit.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:59 am
amother [ Lilac ] wrote:
Sounds like the community school would be the best fit.


Please elaborate, why you think this is the better fit for us.
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amother
Periwinkle


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:09 am
Did you ask your shul Rabbi which he thinks would fit you better?

Where are your closest friends sending?

Your neighbors that you most want to be like?
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amother
Lilac


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:11 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Please elaborate, why you think this is the better fit for us.

You gave enough information about yourself to show a very insular school isn't what you are looking for.
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amother
Khaki


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:16 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
We are the parents, but schools contain friends and friends are a bog influence for kids.

Secular college no, higher education ok.

We live in a mixed community in queens, chassidish, yeshivish, modern, conservative, askenaz, sefardi.

We do not have a tv, we watch secular shows but hope to break this habit soon, especially for me and the kids, my husband wants to too but it might take him longer to break the habbit.

My husband and Listen to secular music, we are ok listening to a mix of jewish and not jewish music, we listen to secular music in private only. kids only jewish music and dont want them listening to secular music.


If you’re specifically asking for school purposes, the schools in queens that are not modern orthodox are very mixed. If you send to either of the main girls schools or either of the main boys schools tou will get a pretty similar mixed crowd.
If you’re asking for general purposes I think you know clearly what your hashkafa is. If you’re looking for a label, most of us that don’t belong to an extremely specific sect have to sort of label ourselves. Like I said I just made up our label “working yeshivish”. It doesn’t really matter.
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amother
Khaki


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:20 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Yes in our neighborhood, our neighbors send to all schools, the insular right wing, the frum community school, and the modern left wing school. And the chassidim bus their kids out since we dont have a chassisish school local.
I think most neighbors are split between the insular right wing school and the frum community school.


Didn’t you say tou are in queens
Which are you calling right wing insular? Tiferes Moshe ?? Maybe you’re in far rock away or something ...?
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:38 am
amother [ Periwinkle ] wrote:
Did you ask your shul Rabbi which he thinks would fit you better?

Where are your closest friends sending?

Your neighbors that you most want to be like?


My Closest friend send to the community school, but their kids are exposed and I would encourage other friendships for my kids. I think exposed kids are the minority in the community school.

My Neighbors I want to be like the most send to the school more to the right.
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amother
Red


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 9:42 am
Then choose the right wing school
Visit it talk to people and go for it - usually schools look stricter from the outside looking in
Sounds like you know what you want really
Hatzllocha
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OOTforlife




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 11:00 am
Visit both schools and speak to families in both. I understand that minimizing exposure is a priority for you, but surely it's not the only one. Some other big things that I would suggest looking at are class size, classroom management style, approach to discipline, bullying, quality of education in both secular and Jewish subjects, available support for special needs or gifted students, where graduates go on to attend high school, and professionalism of staff.

Also, I think you should think very carefully and seek trusted advice from your rav or other close friends about whether your children will be accepted socially at each school.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 11:09 am
OOTforlife wrote:
Visit both schools and speak to families in both. I understand that minimizing exposure is a priority for you, but surely it's not the only one. Some other big things that I would suggest looking at are class size, classroom management style, approach to discipline, bullying, quality of education in both secular and Jewish subjects, available support for special needs or gifted students, where graduates go on to attend high school, and professionalism of staff.

Also, I think you should think very carefully and seek trusted advice from your rav or other close friends about whether your children will be accepted socially at each school.
I think this is the best answer yet, people get tunnel vision about one issue and forget to look at the grand picture.
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amother
Green


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 2:00 pm
As the daughter of a BT who went way too far RW—
It may seem appealing now to be as frum as possible so as to fit in, but keep in mind that it may come back to bite you. I know many children of BTs like myself struggle with this, because at the end of the day you need to be your authentic self (that doesn’t conflict with Torah values obviously) and more LW communities don’t have such strict cultural rules and the culture is more similar to what you are comfortable with.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 2:20 pm
amother [ Green ] wrote:
As the daughter of a BT who went way too far RW—
It may seem appealing now to be as frum as possible so as to fit in, but keep in mind that it may come back to bite you. I know many children of BTs like myself struggle with this, because at the end of the day you need to be your authentic self (that doesn’t conflict with Torah values obviously) and more LW communities don’t have such strict cultural rules and the culture is more similar to what you are comfortable with.


How did it bite you?
Cultural rules like what for example.
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amother
Blue


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 4:43 pm
If you're in queens area, the insular school is probably not that insular. If you were talking about a Lakewood yeshivish school, I might vote differently. But in this case I vote for the insular school.
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imasinger




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 5:29 pm
OOTforlife wrote:
Visit both schools and speak to families in both. I understand that minimizing exposure is a priority for you, but surely it's not the only one. Some other big things that I would suggest looking at are class size, classroom management style, approach to discipline, bullying, quality of education in both secular and Jewish subjects, available support for special needs or gifted students, where graduates go on to attend high school, and professionalism of staff.

Also, I think you should think very carefully and seek trusted advice from your rav or other close friends about whether your children will be accepted socially at each school.


This!!!
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amother
Green


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 6:01 pm
amother [ OP ] wrote:
How did it bite you?
Cultural rules like what for example.


Like someone said above, which shade of nail polish you can wear. Other examples of things that aren’t assur but are culturally unacceptable:
Wearing a tie dyed dress, going biking, reading secular books, wearing your wig in a braid, decorating your house by hanging vintage maps and newspapers clippings on the wall...

Even if you say you don’t care about some of these things now, I also thought I didn’t, but years down the road I became nostalgic for my childhood and did want to share The Hobbit with my kids and do things I (and my mom) thought I would be ok without. In a more open minded community you have choices—you can choose not to let them listen to secular music now, and if anything changes you can make a new choice without uprooting your life.
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amother
Babyblue


 

Post Fri, Jun 04 2021, 8:02 pm
OOTforlife wrote:
Visit both schools and speak to families in both. I understand that minimizing exposure is a priority for you, but surely it's not the only one. Some other big things that I would suggest looking at are class size, classroom management style, approach to discipline, bullying, quality of education in both secular and Jewish subjects, available support for special needs or gifted students, where graduates go on to attend high school, and professionalism of staff.

Also, I think you should think very carefully and seek trusted advice from your rav or other close friends about whether your children will be accepted socially at each school.


Sometimes I need a wise person like you to talk through an issue. I think you covered almost all, if not all, the bases in one succinct reply. jeezez I wish I had that kind of clarity and wisdom.
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