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

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.

This is just my opinion, and it is the opinion of a homeschool mom, whose son also wanted to "go to school" when he was about 12.

I'm glad we chose not to send him to school, be it conservative school or otherwise.

At that age, peer pressure is really starting to take hold.

You mention that he contradicts everything you say. One question, do you really think that after spending all day with a bunch of other kids his age, that this behavior is going to get better or worse?

I'm on the other side of the issue now, and I am sooooo glad we didn't give in to the "wants" of our 12 year old.

Just this weekend, my son has been camping with a couple other families (his dad and I stayed home), and the adults were all raving about his attitudes, and behaviors, compared to the other teenagers on the trip.

I really credit homeschooling for that.

There are online courses, where you could back out of some of the "teaching instruction" and have more time to spend with the baby, and these would be considerably cheaper than a private school.

Like I said, just my 2 cents.

Should I Send My Jewish Child to a Catholic School?

They teach Catholicism and all the kids go to Mass.

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

Only if you won't become upset when they talk about Jesus, and you won't decide it is your civic duty to change it to suit your own preferences.

I'm Independent Baptist and Iwould not send my son to a Cathlic school no matter what!!!!!

If you send him to this school he will be Cathlic inside of a year. They teach there Doctrines as part of there curiculim and there is no getting around this.

My wife Home schooled our oldest son rather than send him to a public school. She started work at Baptist school as the Elementry Supervisor last year and solved the problem we had as to what to do with him since our two youngest 3 & 5 were just to much for her to deal with as she tried to Homeschool.

We will keep you in our prayers and maybe G_d will provide. I have found that He is more than capable.

May G_d Bless You & Yours!
Southron Patriot

I bless my parents for my good Catholic primary, high-school and college education, tho I left the church soon after I left my Catholic university.

The mass is really nice, however. And much "religion" taught in Cathoic schools is based on the Old Testament. You might find books or articles on the topic of how much of the church, the mass, the history is based on or similar to Judaism. Quite a lot, as I recall.

I attended a Yom Kippur service in a lovely synagogue in London with friends I was visiting there and was astonished at how similar it was to the Catholic mass.

If you explore the differences and similarities between your beliefs and the Catholics' with your son, he might be just fine in Catholic school. IMHO, you could homeschool him with your own class in comparative religion and let him go to school.

I applaud your decision to want the best for your child. Homeschooling works for some people, but is not practical for everybody, and don't let people guilt-trip you into thinking that you're doing your child wrong by trying to find the next best alternative.

I went to Catholic school for the first and second grades, back in the early 1960's. Yes, the discipline there was everything you've heard about in the standard portrayals of rulers and hovering nuns, but it's changed today, no doubt. I do know that I got a first class education, one that gave me pretty much a free ride in the public school that I went to for the 3rd through 6th grades. It's not that my public school was lax, it was terribly strict by today's standards, we were not allowed to talk in the cafeteria! As for discipline, I felt the principal's paddle more than once (we didn't have Ritalin in those days!) but the nuns could do the same thing by yelling like drill sergeants!

Your child probably has a firm grounding in his Jewishness, and the contrast of Catholic teaching will give him a close look at another belief system to compare and contrast his teachings from you. Besides, the Jewish faith has a long tradition of study, contemplation, and discussion, and doesn't simply rely on "believe this or die."

It sounds like the adults at the school will be supportive, and they know that having your son there will be educational for their students, Catholic kids used to grow up thinking everybody else was wrong, and that we were the only ones who were going to heaven. When I was a kid, we were forbidden from even going to another church for a wedding or a funeral!

Best wishes to you on making the choice that is right for your family.

The only "risk" you will encounter is your youngster may decide that he wants to become Catholic, more likely in later years. This is a real possibility. What you have to decide is how you'd react to that. 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.
On the other hand, if what religion your son chooses is not so important to you, and you could live a happy life with a Catholic kid, then by all means send him. But you'll have no guarantees that he won't "find the Lord". If you can handle it, go for it.

Dear Yaelle,

When I attended Catholic elementary school (a very long time ago), I'm not sure there were any non-Catholics among us.

When I went to Catholic high school, there were some Protestants, and even a few Jews. It seemed a positive experience for them. I believe a few did ultimately become Catholic.

I believe that most Catholics will respect the fact that your son is a Jew, and I doubt that there will be serious attempts (at least on the part of faculty and administraton) to convert him.

Nonetheless, if the situation were reversed, I doubt that I would send my children to a non-Catholic school. Period. I don't really care how academically excellent a school is, in fact, the better it is, the less I would like it.

Children are impressionable. If I send my 12 year old son to a non-Catholic school, especially a very good one, especially one where a non-Catholic religion is openly adhered to and proclaimed, he cannot help but to be impressed by these others, who are very good at what they do, firm in their faith, and not Catholic. My sons, too, are homeschooled. If I sent my sons, then, to a school, for the first time, they would experience a competing center of authority in their lives - their teachers and administrators. They would be impressed by this new source of authority, because children are impressionable.

It'd be their first experience with the competing authority between home and school with which other children grow up, and have learned to mediate well by sixth or seventh grade. Without any active effort on the part of their teachers, I believe that my sons, in this situation, would be at least very curious about the possibility of adopting the faith of their new authorities. Especially if no active effort was made by these new and exciting people in their lives.

If I were in a similar situation, I would explain to my son why we would continue to homeschool.

sitetest

I have visited the school and spoken with the principal.

The one suggestion I can make would be for you to ask the principal if he has other non-Catholic parents who would be willing to meet and speak with you about your concerns. They would probably be the best resource you can find for how it might work out, especially for the younger ones. I went to a Jesuit high school and many of the students were non-Catholic and it worked quite well. The comparative religion classes were greatly enhanced by their presence and they had no problems. Granted, that was high school, but I would hope the faculty would be even more respectful with the younger ones.

Good luck however you decide to go.

Based on my personal experience with Parochial school, I'd say go for it. I remember when I was at St. Joe's, there were a few Jewish kids. There was never any push by any of the students, parents, nuns or preists to ever "convert" them. In fact, having the Jews there always prompted more discussion about their faith, if anything. Your kid will be forced to study the New Testament though, so you'll have to take that with a grain of salt.

I'm sure you know already too, public "screwels" are hardly an option anymore, unless you live in a rural area (and even those are becoming quite 'anti-religious' anymore too, but not too bad yet). In urban areas though, forget it. So, if you really do need to put him in school, then go with the Catholic school.

You won't have to worry about him being tied down and forced to take the Eucharist. hehe

There are not a lot of Jewish families in our immediate area, and they seem to mostly be either very assimilated liberal Jews (we are very conservative!) that don't even fit with us as friends, or the Lubavicher sect of Orthodox Jews, who were very friendly to us once and then dropped us like hot potatoes when they found out that my conversion was not Orthodox (I grew up with a Jewish father and Christian mother and fully converted to Judaism as an adult as a formality, according to the Conservative tradition; I already "felt" fully Jewish).

So it's not easy. I appreciate the suggestions though!

I would not feel very comfortable with sending my (Catholic) children at this age to a school with very different beliefs. It's a phase in life in which they are redefining the authority of their parents, and also an age when they can be extremely susceptible to peer pressure. (In fact, I think it's a terrible time for any young person to be in a school AT ALL.)

It's one thing to learn about another religion from a social or historical standpoint - "Jewish people believe this." "Wow, cool, that's different!" - and something else to have another faith's dogmas taught as absolute truth, and to be required as a student to have an active participation in that religion.

If the school has strong religious education, students in the 6th grade would be involved, among other lessons, in understanding why the Church considers its beliefs to be true, and differing beliefs to be erroneous. I think that would be difficult for a student devoted to another faith. And if the school doesn't have strong religious education which teaches the Catholic Faith as the truth, then it probably does not have the kind of moral environment you're looking for, either.

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?

Oh, and moving out of CA? I'd do it in a heartbeat, but all my family is here, and I already left the country for 10 years... I am a homebody and the kids love Grandma and Grandpa. Yes, we are surrounded by liberals here. At our extended family's Chanukah party gift exchange, no joke, my husband has received Bob Dole's joke book for two years running now. He is hoping for another copy this year, LOL. I guess liberals buying for Pubbies are not very creative.

To be honest, it depends on the school. Some Catholic schools are frankly better than others. As a non-parishoner, you'd be expected to pay more in tuition. Some places have taken a lot of religion out of the schools, which bothers a lot of us. It's up to you, but there have been a lot of compromises and the schools aren't what they used to be.

I am Catholic and probably would not put a child in Catholic schools, mostly because of the social environment in the schools here, but the academics are slipping in places. They're too homogeneous, too. And I'm not happy about the lack of religious instruction.

Just some things to think about.

Ignoring the contrarian side to your response...I attended St. Andrews Catholic School in Indianapolis, Indiana and had three different male teachers as well as a supposed Male Catholic Priest that performed morning service.

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...and religious doctrine.

Some of us Catholics grew up and became real Christians.

But thanks for the input.

Like Judaism, it's not an evangelical religion.

That was why I felt comfortable choosing Catholicism. And I read an article written by a nun/teacher at a Catholic school, saying how she felt that G-d had guided her to teach all the kids at her school, Catholic or not, Christian or not, and I really liked her way of thinking. He IS the same G-d.

We will be motivated to stay very involved with our synagogue if we go there, especially when my little fellow would go.

There is an excellent separate program in our local public high school that I would hope our oldest could get into when it's time. Drinking and sports is better than the general population at our local schools! Give me drinking and sports over guns and crack any day!

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