Best I can think is that she should seek out the company of her school’s Christian youth group. Yes, she’s a Lubavitch, but I’m guessing there aren’t many other Lubavitchers around or she would have found them already. The Christian youth kids (and there are probably plenty of them, this being Texas and all) will probably be (or try to be) less shocking to her than the rest of the school. Hopefully, they’ll do clean, wholesome activities on the weekend, be less explicit about sex, etc. The biggest problem will be when they try to convert her, but if she can find a polite way to spin that issue, she should be alright.
I’m not sure about the situation of Texan Christians, but some sect of Christianity can be just as judgmental towards anyone who is simply different.
It sounds like a bad situation. She can’t get by without friends (and being in her teens, she would want friends) and she have to keep a low profile. The good thing is that she only needs to keep a low profile about her religion; I firmly think she should stick to her ethical principles though. Pay no attention to sneering, but provide a ready answer “Oh, I am wearing this because of my religion”. Maybe try role-playing through a couple of sticky scenarios, like introducing herself, when others ask her about her dress code and why she have to turn down smoking etc.?
No. Like I said, I tried giving her “the talk”, but I don’t know how much sank in.
The thing is, she claims to be asexual. And she lives in a society where no one talks dirty or admits to fooling around. (Almost no one- the conversation was prompted by a strange dirty text she got from a friend). She said she honestly didn’t know that people got married for reason other than wanting to have children, or being good friends. So naturally, she wouldn’t understand about porn or rape or such.
Then again, she also said she had some very skeevy step-siblings, so maybe she’s in denial.
I guess the reason that it really struck me is a Law & Order episode I saw once. A developmentally disabled girl was being raped/molested/taken advantage of by her boss, and she didn’t even know that what was going on was wrong because nobody had ever bothered to explain such things to her.
Now, I’m obviously not worried that this will happen to this girl, but such total ignorance could easily lead to other bad situations of a related type. I’m glad you’re trying to counteract that to the degree that you can.
Does she at least understand the mechanics of sexual intercourse? Can she accept intellectually that people have a drive to do it that’s unrelated to their desire to have children? That’s crucial information for her own personal safety. It doesn’t matter whether she relates to those feelings or not. At her age, she simply must be aware that other people do have those feelings and will try to act on them.
Denial could be a possibility. I hope not.
A question for you, Malleus, if you don’t mind–I think in another thread you said that you were Jewish and religious. To what extent? And about how old are you? Just curious about why a non-Lubavitch person would even be allowed to be friends with such a sheltered person.
Hasidic/ultra-orthodox girls probably wouldn’t wear something like that as such skirts aren’t really very modest. Those skirts are certainly kind of see-through at times.
They tend to wear fairly plain skirts, though they don’t tend to wear overly frumpy or old-fashioned things like some of the fundamentalist Christian types. Sometimes they wear denim skirts and other casual things. I think the current long-skirt trend has been a boon for them. Their tops wouldn’t be tight, but they wouldn’t necessarily be noticeably baggy. They don’t wear short sleeves, but often wear three-quarter length sleeves. They can probably buy most of their clothes in regular stores.
If you saw one walking down the street in cool weather, you might not notice that there was anything unusual about her. Some ultra-orthodox girls and women are very into clothes and quite fashionable. In Texas, the dress might stand out a lot more, especially if those opaque black tights are worn.
Just as a side-note: Ultra-orthodox girls and women do participate in sports that require pants, or would seem to. I’ve seen them on the ski slopes with light skirts over their ski pants. We used to regularly have them on trips when I worked as a raft guide. They wore the type of nylon/poly skirts sold by many travel outfitters. I’ve seen them playing racquetball in long denim skirts.
Third post. Whee! I’m endlessly fascinated by Hasids.
And I’ve been freely conflating orthodox, ultra-orthodox, and Hasidic customs, but there is a lot of overlap.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the groups, in simple terms–ultra-orthodox Jews are very religious and follow a complex set of rules and regulations regarding lifestyle, food, clothing, etc. Hasidic Jews are a subset of the ultra-orthodox. The Lubavitchers are a Hasidic sect.
So all Lubavitchers are Hasidic and ultra-orthodox, but not all ultra-orthodox are Hasidic.
You’re right that it’s hard to find a picture of Hasidic/orthodox girls’ clothes! What’s with that?
But I found one of some girls at an orthodox yeshiva: http://www.jewishjournal.com/thecalendargirls/item/a_seminary_dilemma_of_a_different_sort_20080625/
These are NOT hasidic girls, though. So it’s not really a good example of what a Lubavitch girl might wear. Cute article, though. The girl who wrote it was heading off for a year at a yeshiva in Israel. She said:
It may be worth noting that the Lubavitch sect is much more active in converting secular Jews to being Hasidic than other sects. So Lubavitchers often demonstrate the fervor of the recently converted (dressing like they lived in 19th century Poland), while others can’t help but keep a toe in the secular world (dressing more or less like they live in the 21st century).
From my experience in Judaism and in Texas, she can get away with explaining a lot of what she wears / act like by saying ‘duh, it’s about God’.
If she’s very curious about reproduction, anatomy and so forth, education isn’t a sin. If she gets a factual book it’s just that- facts, nothing salacious. ‘Don’t Worry, You’re Normal’ is one I remember being good around 12 or so (hey, your friend’s a little behind). That one’s not a guide about, say, how to have sex but rather a little guide to ‘why is my body doing that? what does this mean?’.
And like others say- she does need to relax about secular and reform Jews. High school kids won’t always see that she means well.
When I was in high school - a LONG time ago - I graduated near the top of my class. For this, I got the privilege of having lunch or something with the school superintendent. He didn’t ask me if I was going to college (I was their first national merit scholar in YEARS) or what I was majoring in. He didn’t ask me what extracurricular activities I participated in. He want to make small talk about two things - my boyfriend (which I didn’t really have - I was sort of seeing some guy who was sort of seeing several other girls - I doubt I saw him again after this conversation and I don’t think I’d seen him in a few weeks before it - it was a very casual dating thing) and the school’s sports teams. To him, this was “connecting” with the youth - and given the fact that the school I went to had a poor college enrollment rate, a big emphasis on athletics, and a graduating class where pregnancy was normal - this was a reasonable approach - probably not when talking to the kids graduating at the top of this poor excuse for a school.
I suggest, based on the reported exchange with the principal, that your young friend should listen carefully to people, and then answer the question asked. “Do you have a boyfriend?” is a yes or no question. I don’t know why the guy was asking, but her answer was not responsive. She could have just said, “No,” then explain her answer or not. I got the impression maybe he thought she was intentionally being evasive. She may or may not have similarly answered other earlier questions.
The point is - she should listen first, then answer the question asked. For example, if a classmate asks, “Where did you get that cool sweater?” she should not respond with “I only wear grey because God only loves girls who wear grey.” Or whatever.
If she does not understand the question, she should say so and ask for clarification.
That’s all I got. I wish her the best. High school sucks at the best of times.
She knows the basic facts- unlike a friend of hers. She told me that this girl married at sixteen, didn’t know that husband and wife were allowed to talk to each other until a few weeks before marriage, didn’t get the birds&bees talk until one week before marriage. :eek::eek::eek: No, that is not normal. At least, not as far as I know. My Lubavitch friends from school are all very normal people who are aware of the world.
I’m twenty years old, and probably what you call Modern Orthodox. I have friends all over the spectrum. My relatives are all either Reform, unaffiliated, or even anti-religious. One of my closest friends is Conservative, the other is a very religious Sephardi. I met the subject of this thread at a Lubavitch-sponsored learning convention.
Again, I want to emphasize that the other Chabad people I know are fully integrated into the world. I don’t know why this girl is so insulated (or how that even happened, since she converted two years ago). I feel it would be rude to pry. If I lived near her maybe I could come over and slowly indroduce her to the real world, but from the other side of the country, I can only offer coping skills.
One piece of generic advice that might help- when coming into a new high school, she won’t have any close friends right off the bat. Having close friends (or even people to sit with at lunch) will make her life much easier. And one of the quickest ways to make friends in a new high school will be to join some kind of extra-curricular activity. It doesn’t much matter what it is- athletics, theatre, an academic quiz-type competition. Anything like that will put her in automatic contact with people who she may be able to become friends with, and that will make life easier.
I was thinking I had no advice to offer, because I certainly didn’t fit in in high school, and I didn’t even have a strict religious background working against me. But then I realized, *that’s *my advice: let her know that there are going to be lots of people who don’t fit in, for any number of reasons. Even some who seem fairly cool and popular to observers may in fact feel like total nerds themselves. Some of these people may be potential friends and allies, while others don’t want to have anything to do with other weirdos, for fear of alienating themselves further. But it may help her to know that she’s hardly the only one who feels out of place.
I want to thank you guys for your help here. I’ve going to be sending your advice on.
Nothing to add but these two things:
For one, she could try being proactively friendly to everyone, even if they are being jerks to her. (As some undoubtedly will.) This will be her opportunity to grow a thick skin.
For the other, I knew someone much like this once. He wasn’t all that naive, but he was raised in a very strict religious household, and spent his entire childhood in parochial schools. His senior year was spent in public school. He sort of cut loose and became a bad boy. But he had no problems making friends. He learned to fit right in right from day one. The fact that he was very friendly and very social probably had a lot to do with it.
Also, since this is Texas I would advise her parents to keep the number to the local ACLU handy. I have nieces and nephews in the Texas public school system right now and it’s not easy on anyone outside the mainstream.
Your friend has said she doesn’t want to compromise her principles. I think it would be helpful for her to spend some time thinking about what this really means to her. For instance, would she be willing to be friends with a female classmate who does have a boyfriend in high school (and isn’t planning to marry him in the near future)? Would she want to be open about certain aspects of her religious beliefs? If not, how would she feel if another student mistakenly assumed that she was Christian (e.g., invited her to a church function or tried to talk to her about some aspect of the Christian faith)?
Activities outside of the school can be a way to get to know some of your classmates – volunteer work at a hospital or animal shelter, community sports, hiking club or scouts.
If your friend watches movies, she might want to check out some public high school themed movies. A few that came to mind as being possibly useful are The Breakfast Club, Mean Girls, Election, Juno, and Friday Night Lights. (I haven’t seen Friday Night Lights, but I included it because it’s about football and Texas.)
Last night I call her. I didn’t have time to talk because I wasn’t feeling well, so I just told her to find out if her school had a peer-mentor system. She says she’ll look into it.
I think that if she just finds her barings (sp?), she’ll be considered a top student just for her good behavior. A squeaky-clean honor student make be an enormous help.
Wow. That’s extremely weird.
I know some people are really really naive, but I can’t imagine how a person could grow to the age of 13 (or a lot younger than that) in the United States without encountering subjects such as dating, romance, kissing, etc.
She won’t, as long as she sticks to her principles.
Yeah. True. I guess it’s just the fact that he was asking at all or that he seemed so…insistent. You think he’d be asking her things like what classes she particularly was looking forward to taking, what books she’d read…more academic pursuits. It could be innocent–just seems weird.
I thought that, too, when I read about Tom Wolfe’s Charlotte Simmons character. Maybe there really are people like that.