Sheltering

I actually took this picture myself.

One of the primary goals of a frum parent is to shelter their kids. Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein is a major proponent of this. Now sheltering is a sugarcoated term which hides it's true meaning. The real way of saying sheltering is "not preparing children for life". This problem stems from at least one of two issues.

1. the parent(s) have no life experience to prepare their kids with
2. the parent(s) believe that their kids will be better off without the knowledge on what is out there and how to confront it and think that this will help their "neshamas"

Whether it is either one, or both of those reasons, this is a very stupid and evil idea which results in absolutely no good in todays times. Only severely misguided parents think this. Most parents have internet, and even those families who don't, their kids can easily procure an unlocked phone (which can be used as an ipod) or an ipod itself. This in effect will undo whatever sheltering you have tried to impart as this will give your kids access to whatever they desire to get their hands on. Now one could make the argument for sheltering kids who lived in a shtetel in the middle of Russia 100 years ago where they were born, lived on and died in the same shtetel; a place where there is no internet or any way of outside influence reaching in. This in general worked great back then, but today is very different. The reason is that kids don't stay sheltered. Today, there is internet and even if you don't have internet, then friends at school who have internet.

I remember one day I was browsing imamother and I saw this comical post from a mother with clearly no brains. She asked a question weather or not she should give her daughter the talk about sex, period etc. at 12 years old. Now some mothers with more intelligence replied with the correct answer that is if you have a 12 year old daughter in school she definitely knows all about that already. Now this mother who posted the stupid question was obviously trying to "shelter her daughter". The only reason given for sheltering is "to protect our children". The parents who say this are only hurting their kids by sheltering them. When they get thrown into the real world, which will happen, they will be stuck without the necessary tools and knowledge to navigate it, and be susceptible to all the various traps that the world contains. I will continue to discuss this at a later time.