Those schools which want to exclude their children from the realistic world of the 21st century may do a lot of harm to those they want to overprotect. Their effort to avoid any irresponsible and immature behaviour and to silence the many questions a child may have does not help either to advance the kids how it should. Not giving the opportunity to come in contact with what really happens in the outside world the Antwerp girls school, mentioned in my previous post, also undermined the teachers effort to make resistible students and strong girls who can stand on their own in our contemporary society.
While teenagers are trying to cope up with physical and emotional upheavals within them they should find adults who are willing to give them enough feedback and trust to grow and to make themself free from the boundaries of closed family life and the Jewish community. When not willing to show what really happens in this world the school shall give them a feeling of distrust or even worse, of a love and recognition not wanted to be given to them.
At the time when they are looking for answers it is like the school does not want to listen to them and does not want to give them the right answers. Also by not giving them the possibility to try out things and to explore and experiment, they shall not be able to develop fully like a contemporary girl should do. When they start feeling the school and their surrounding are not willing to account them as full members of society and when the rules and regulations are too crippling, the girls shall come to take pleasure in flouting them. We also can see that such limited girls, by the restriction brought by the responsible adults, endangers the free will of the child and instead of making it fully mature makes it rebellious. A further danger is that our love for the Hashem may come to look for them something threatening or not giving them a full life. By considering it then as a threat to their freedom they may come to hate our way of life for the Elohim.
Some may still try to come to please their parents, but start feeling as imprisoned by their school and their community. Seeing the difference in upbringing and freedom given to the boys, their attempt to please their parents or accomplish the dreams of their fathers, may further undermine their own womanhood and get them to lose their own personality.
Not giving the possibility to learn about boys other cultures and religions shall not prepare the girls to come in a world where there are not enough religious people to find as a partner. Instead of making the choice easier, by pushing later to a Jewish boy they do not know, it is not making it easier for them, but makes it more dangerous that the matrimonial expectation shall blow up in thin air.
Today we have to recognise the youngsters shall have to face a totally different world than their parents had. Like every generation of parents, they probably make the same errors of worrying too much. Perhaps our perspective of the world is also not the real perspective and is limited because we also do not enough effort to understand the younger generations with all their electronic gadgets. Being obsessed with how the youngsters cloth themselves and what sort of language they dare to use, we as parent may have forgotten we dared also to use at certain times certain slang or words not liked by our parents.
Today it looks as if the adults want to overprotect their girls and consider the outside world as the evil bringers. Though we do know satan is the ruler of this world, it should not mean that our kids become trapped in the pitfalls those adversaries of God prepare for others. The girls school in Antwerp clearly shows how there is a discrimination between male and female Jews and how males want to keep the girls ‘their slaves’ or how the women should follow all the wishes of the man. We do have to come to see that is not any more of this day. Women should have the same rights of speaking and the same rights of thinking and freedom of expressing themselves.
To the outside world that girls school also gives the impression to non-Jews, that in the Jewish community there is a discrimination between boys and girls, and that boys are aloud so many more things than what girls would be allowed to do. that school also gives to the outside world the impression that the Jewish community has no place for a broad minded community.
All believers in the One God should show the outside world that we do not discriminate. We should convince others that there is no reason at all to be afraid of us because we do have an open heart to every creature of the Hashem. We also have to show the outside world that we do respect those with an other religion and that we teach our youngsters to respect the opposite gender and to consider them as equals.
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Preceding article: Trusting present youngsters who are not necessary evil
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Immanuel Verbondskind - עמנואל קאָווענאַנט קינד 
Lovely sentiments. Thanks for including my post among the related articles! Enjoy the Sabbath 🙂
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