Vanity: Should I Send My Jewish Child to a Catholic School?

self

[Yaelle]

My 6th grade homeschooled son wants to go to school. At first, I was a little hurt by it, but upon serious thought, I realized it would be good for us both. I am so busy with the new baby that it makes homeschooling difficult. And he is of the age when he wishes to contradict everything I say! But we need a safe, conservative place for him.

The local middle school appears horrible. There are hundreds of kids in each grade, and there is the gang element, and I am sure drugs as well. I just cannot throw my child to the wolves.

We are a financially struggling family, trying to make it on one salary, with three kids. We cannot afford the one local nonreligious private school: only the children of the wealthy go there. There is no Jewish school near us, and even the one far away wouldn't work (Chabad, and they don't accept my Conservative conversion), if we could afford it, but we can't. The only school we could afford (barely) is the Catholic school.

They teach Catholicism and all the kids go to Mass. As well they should! They have a good academic curriculum, and the school encourages good values. A lot of the parents are conservative. My son is secure in his Judaism and will become bar Mitzvah next year.

I have visited the school and spoken with the principal. Everyone is very nice there. My son would obviously be expected to do all the curriculum like everyone else, religion included. I simply cannot make up my mind. It doesn't seem right to send a Jewish boy to Catholic school. I wish we Jews had a good educational system like the Catholics do, but we do not. I would like my child to attend a religious-based school, at a reasonable cost.

If I were to decide to send my son to Catholic school, what about his little brothers? One will need a school next year and if I sent him at his young age, wouldn't he be Catholic within a month, just to be like his teacher and friends?

I am going in circles here trying to decide. I don't want to set my son up for failure in a school where I should have known from the outset that he might not fit in. Neither do I want to deny him a good experience in a small religious school if that would be what happens.

I am grateful for all thoughts. Go ahead and be blunt. Thanks.

[ArrogantBustard]

Re. Ritalin, discipline, and drugs:

The Catholic schools of today are not the Catholic schools of the early 1960s. Unfortunately. But they lag far behind the government schools in PC crap.

[Yaelle]

If the thought of your son abandoning his Jewish roots would cause you and your family distress and heartache then I would suggest you not send him to the Catholic school.

Thanks for this. Yes, it would cause me some distress. My loving ancestors were killed for being Jewish and my grandfather, who escaped Buchenwald and lived to see his grandchildren grow up Jewish and proud in America, would not want his great-grandchildren abandoning Judaism. This is what troubles me. I respect and love people following their different faiths [please no terrorist flames here, you all know what I mean] and feel akin to Catholics and other Christians in many ways. We share more than divides us. But we Jewish people are also important to this world. And we practicing Jews are important to Jewry; without us, the more Lite versions of Judaism couldn't hang on, either. So I believe my son has a mission in life to be a good Jew. I hope he remains so.

[nickcarraway]

It was very important to Dr. Laura to send her son to a Jewish school, but she said unequivocally, she would send him to a nonJewish private school before a public school.

[skraeling]

Catholic = Real Christian The rest of y'all are just posers.

I'll ignore all that. You can try and explain your silly ignorance to God while he is kicking your presumptuous arrogant ass.

[Yaelle]

Very, very, very good post. Hmmmmm. LOL, these posts are showing the basis of my ever-flickering inner debate! What a quandary.

[Yaelle]

Thanks for your post! It seems there really have been other Jewish families going the Catholic way. That is so good to know. LOL about being tied down. They wouldn't even LET him go to Communion or Confession. Maybe a good thing, that latter... he would be in there too long! LOL.

[Yaelle]

Perhaps for the same amount as you'd spend on school tuition, you could get a Jewish tutor part time to work on your son's greatest educational needs?

Another good suggestion.

[Yaelle]

They're too homogeneous, too.

This one is more homogeneous than our public schools. My little son is one of three white kids in his class. I love that the kids are completely blind to "race" at his little age, but that changes soon enough. I love the different colors together, and the interesting cultures, but there is one culture that is very language deficient (apparently even in their own mother tongue) and bringing the class down, which really starts to hurt the class as they get older.

[ArrogantBustard]

Fascinating ... he responds to "arrogance" with, well, ... arrogance.

[Yaelle]

Great school for learning but there is no way in hell I'd expose any child of mine to an institution so completely warped and morally bankrupt when it comes to sexuality..

I would be very happy if sexuality were not mentioned at all in school! I do not like what they do in public schools, with the gay awareness and condom distribution. Sexuality should be discussed in the home.

[Yaelle]

Well, thank you so much for saying that. I agree... I had been talking to a few Catholics and a few Jews in my own circle, and I have been DREAMING in CATHOLIC the last few nights. When I woke up this morning, I KNEW I should post a vanity and ask the FReepers.

While being politically and socially conservative is not a religion, it IS a way of life and a serious belief. My husband and I are very conservative and we just don't fit in with the conventional (liberal) "wisdom" around here. Asking the FReepers was the best thing. I really enjoy all the responses, on either side of the decision. Thought-provoking, and some of them have really put into words what were just amorphous blobs of thought in my head. It helps.

[Yaelle]

The question for yourself is: Does learning this outweigh learning reading, writing and math in a safe and structured environment where you will not have to worry about your son's safety or PC crap being taught.

I am a devoted Jew, and yet the answer to your beautifully posed question is this: NO. (Right? The answer is no, isn't it?) It is FAR more important for my son to be in a safe, OBJECTIVE VALUES-based school where he will not be indoctrinated with the PC crap. I would far rather he learned Catholicism than the LIES of subjective morality and liberalism.

Thanks.

[Yaelle]

I have no problem with him learning what Catholicism is REALLY as opposed to what its detractors say. I welcome that. It is not a bad thing to be a Catholic; I didn't mean to be offensive! Read one of my earlier posts (not too far up, I think) where I go over my family's history and why I wish my kids to not abandon Judaism.

I like your point about religion not being mocked. Very good.

I cannot imagine that sports have more emphasis among Catholics than among others. You must be kidding. Sports is everything around here, in the public schools. Many pro ballplayers have come from this small corner of the world. The local high school is KNOWN for its recruits.

[Yaelle]

Thanks for your post. May I ask what the Catholic curriculum IS re sex ed? I would welcome the no abortion stance as I have always told my son from a fairly early age that if somehow he got someone pregnant, she could just kill his baby if she wished, and I think it made an impression on him. What else is discussed? I wish for him to learn that while the Torah is against homosexuality, he must have tolerance for all gays. He is not allowed to use derogatory gay slurs just to call people stupid, like boys his age sometimes do. We have neighbors that are homosexual, also.

[ArrogantBustard]

I would be very happy if sexuality were not mentioned at all in school!

Commendable, within limits. A Religion/Theology class is inevitably going to address the Ten Commandments. In such a class, your son will learn (in an age appropriate manner) such warped and morally bankrupt notions as that extra-marital relations (adultery and fornication) are wrong, that homosexual relations are wrong, that sex within marriage is a good thing, that abortion is a form of murder ... Naturally, this sort of thing is more emphasized in High School than elementary school. Nevertheless, the adultery thing is right there in the Decalogue ... the Sixth Grade teacher has to say something about it.

[old and tired]

We are Catholic and sent all of our children to Catholic schools. If the public schools in your area are as bad as you say they are then rest assured there are other (although probably Christian or perhaps Hindu) non-Catholics at this school.

One thing that occurred to me is that in many areas 6th grade for Catholics means confirmation. It may mean that the religion class is very question and answer based (a la Baltimore Catechism). I wouldn't expect classes like that to convert anybody and it would give him a good understanding of the Catholic faith.

You are certainly entitled to review the curriculum and should ask to see the religion books that the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders use. You may find that it's not really religious at all, but more morality based. As a Catholic parent, that is frustrating, but I couldn't imagine it presenting a problem for a decent non-Catholic person.

[ArrogantBustard]

I deliberately put a smiley after the "bad thing" comment. It was a joke, of sorts. I appreciate that you wish your sons to retain their Jewish Faith. I think that Faith is in less danger in a Catholic school than a Government school.

Some Catholic High Schools, in some areas, have reputations as "Football Factories" ... but the phenomenon is not universal. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I am given to understand that athletic competition is not highly regarded in more traditional Jewish circles, due to its historic association with Greek and Roman paganism. Have I got this right? If so, it's an issue (possibly minor) to consider.

[xzins]

The very best quality school in our area is St Xavier high school. It's a catholic boy's school.

Only send your child there if you want him to have an outstanding education.

[k omalley]

We are Catholic and live in a small but very multi-ethnic city, therefore the Catholic high school is also multi-cultural. At my daughter's Catholic school there were Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Protestants, as many parents sent their kids there to avoid the public high schools where drugs and skipping school were rampant. I don't know of any kids from other religions who converted to Catholicism. Sex ed was taught but it was abstinence based. Of course there was a small group of kids who were up to no good but my daughter had a wonderful bunch of friends. My only complaint about the school is that I wish it were more Catholic than it was.