I remember my old boss telling me she moved to a certain county Florida and showed up at the first day of school with her daughter, not realizing that it was Rosh Hashanah and that the public school was absolutely off 
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The main difference for me living in a majorly Jewish area versus not is how often I get asked if I’m Jewish.
In Missouri it only happened like 3 times in over a decade. In New Jersey it happened roughly every 4-6 minutes.
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They did say $20K not $50K lol. But I don’t think this dude’s argument holds up at all. And in NYC the argument is definitely on more shaky ground. But I completely understand wanting to send your kid to Jewish day school especially if you’re in like, Omaha.
But my dad‘s immigrant NYC parents changed his whole religion for a better school so clearly we don’t give af lol
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Very important angle! I am not religious and also don’t have kids so I have about two actual sticks to rub together
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Haha okay yes 20k is in the slightly less bananas realm but still!
I know several families who have happily done this and hey, if it works it works!
I appreciate the way that you give the LWs the benefit of the doubt while also not indulging their bullshit. It’s a fine line!
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Last night I read one of my response and asked Aaron if it was snarky enough and friendly enough
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But REGARDLESS, heaps of people in my area earn that much and spend that OR MORE on their children’s private schooling. Like. So what if it’s a religious school, that cost and that income work fine.
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But my lifestyle.
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From my dad on Catholic school in queens: In the 60’s, it was included with membership in the parish, which included a tithe at some level. In the 70’s, it cost from $100-150/month for each kid, I think. Plus tithe. Remember we were a low-income parish.
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Indexed for inflation that is $900 a month now so $9K a year
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I feel like people aren’t really understanding the conflicts & are being a little bit snarky here. Even though I don’t think that this system is one that genuinely upholds the values it purports to.
The New York city public school day ends at 3:30 PM. The Jewish Sabbath (this time of year) begins around 4:10 PM on Friday. It will continue to get earlier for another few weeks.
Jewish MO schools have early dismissal on Friday for this. Buses are scheduled accordingly. Without infrastructure to support more than a handful of kids in public school, there is a serious issue for kids who need early dismissal and transportation every single Friday for 3-4 months a year (<-- this was even a problem for me in a Conservative Jewish Day School eons ago!).
MO Jews don’t just keep Rosh Hashana. There are 7 “Sabbath-like” holidays in the fall within the same 3-week window (+ the “eves” thereof). Some years, they can all fall midweek. That’s a lot of days of missing school, having to make things up, etc. Yes, other kids have to do this for other reasons too. That doesn’t mean it’s great.
Providing or having access to kosher food is also a challenge in a school system. Kids do it and have done it for years. But it’s like any specialized diet - you can’t cross-contaminate utensils, heating implements, etc.
Food for a birthday or holiday? Sorry, you can’t have any. Invited to a birthday party on the Sabbath? Nope, you can’t go. And, of course, even the non-Sabbath ones often aren’t going to have kosher food.
That’s without getting into what the actual educational curriculum is. The MO school I went to had all Judaic studies as immersion in Hebrew language. I am fluent in Hebrew & able to study religious texts in their original languages (hebrew, aramaic) because it was in the curriculum from 1st grade onward. We had a school day that was easily 1.5x to 1.75x the length of public schools because we had classes in: Hebrew language & literature, Bible study and/or Prophets, Jewish law, Jewish philosophy, Jewish history, Talmud. And we also had classes in all the same secular subjects as the public schools in our state.
Trying to create an equivalent religious educational program that goes along with public schools isn’t the same as taking a class or two in language, Bible or Jewish culture.
I certainly don’t condone this as an excuse for 5% community lifestyle. But, as I mentioned above, there ARE religious reasons for the private school path.
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Update from my dear aunt: “ iHola mi querida! When I was there (March 1962 -June 1968) it was $5 month per child enrolled. Our Lady of Sorrows would forgive tuition for families who were strapped or who had more kids. OLS was the working class/poor kid Catholic school in Corona. About a third, maybe more, of our kids were black and Latino. Janet’s best friend was the one Asian girl I ever remember seeing there. She was Chinese. The nuns who staffed the school were Sister’s of St Joseph. The order’s mission was to serve in minority communities, particularly black communities.”
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Thank you for explaining way better than my little finger typing does!
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I dont doubt there are? I know heaps of families who put most of their money on putting their kids through a local religious school instead of the free public school. But in context of this LW’s household income, available local schools, cost of local schools and even the cost quoted, I’m not seeing “a child’s school will be too expensive so we can’t have a child at all!” excuse from the Husband holding water. Like, awesome, thats a thing thats important! Ok, how do they make it work? Nope, its just thrown out in the too hard basket.
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I learned a lot from your post, thanks for taking the time to write it out.
Signed, a former Catholic school student that was pretty light on the religious education side of things
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I agree that it doesn’t make sense as an actual financial argument.
It does make sense as a manifestation of (untreated) anxiety from a person who is in a community that has literally been calling this “problem” (i.e., affording to have kids in these communities on that type of income) a “crisis” for 20 years.
I don’t think the husband’s excuse is RIGHT. I just have seen it be the manifestation of legitimate anxiety and not necessarily a made-up-reason to hide the fact that he may not want kids. As far as I’m concerned, it could be either or both.
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Yep! I am team yes religious school (as long as it also teaches real curricula) but team this husband either needs anxiety help or more likely needs to get honest about what the goalpost for kids is. And maybe it means tiny condo and a different lifestyle.
Way more intrigued appalled and fascinated by LW whose husband was wrong about his finances.
I will say starting at 20k here means 20k/year in kindergarten, 50k by grade 4, and keeps going up. So it could be a financial mess. But maybe there are grandparents or financial aid. And maybe kids is a dealbreaker
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I don’t think the man’s cost anxieties bear out for any schooling option. The example is he wants to see any potential kids in 20k religious school, but even if it was a public school, parents are still buying their way into the best schools and their resukting social groups by tacking an extra $500K onto the cost of their homes and being highly selective about what neighborhoods they’ll consider buying in. I went to a religious school for some of my education (not Catholic school, not Jewish school) I was not a fan, and as an atheist I have opinions on religious private schools that dont matter here because I dont have any religion or kids. I don’t think parsing the value of religious choices matters so much, this is just how class and all education, even public, works in the US.
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My understanding is that part of the high cost of being MO is needing to live in walking distance of an appropriate synagogue, a need that drives up housing prices in that range…
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Re: MO couple, I wish we knew what their housing was costing them. Because if you can keep housing costs reasonable it is feasible to pay a lot for kids schooling and still have a decent life in a big city. We did it in Beijing. Yes,we cut way back on our savings when we were shelling out 50k+ a year in school fees. But we did it and still had a good quality of life.
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