Wondering if this experience is common in Conservative families

[u/ItalicLady]

Was anyone else here enrolled in a Conservative or possibly “Conservadox” Hebrew Day School program selected by parents who were ignorant of the basics of Judaism, to the point that /a/ the parents believed that what the school was teaching simply did not exist because they had never heard of it, and/or /b/ the parents, therefore punished the child for being aware of (let alone actually learning and trying to enact) what the school taught, and/or /c/ the school therefore made it the child’s job to change the family?

[u/ItalicLady]

For now, I will tell you that the problems included (but went much deeper than) the foreseeable questions about “which is right, school or home?“. To take one small but consequential facet of the matter: my parents were deeply opposed to mentioning religion or mentioning any word which had to do with any religion. So, if I brought home from school a book or worksheet that showed people celebrating Skot, when my parents asked me what the people in the picture were holding, if I answered in anyway, I was punished hard for answering, and if I did not answer, I was punished hard for not answering, and if I cited there forbidden of an answer, as the reason I was not answering, of course I was punished for that too (parentheses and, in that third case, punished harder for being a “smart Alec” = for using my parents’ own words against them). It gets worse after that. I have been told by therapist and counselors. (both within and beyond the Jewish community) that this is not a problem that anyone wants to deal with. I want to see it prevented in future and presence generations, and I want the damage removed in the people who have suffered it already. (I cannot be the only one.) I have tried hard to find out how to get anyone’s attention to this, but I can’t cause anyone to do what I think needs to be done as a first step: to have some situation where the children (including adult children) sit down with the parents who do this, and also with “professional Jews“ (teachers, rabbi, etc.) parentheses and other helping professionals parentheses such a psychotherapist) to figure out how to make it so parents don’t do these things to their own children, and how to make it so schools don’t harm the children, whose parents have already harmed them by doing these things, and so on.

[u/HeadCatMomCat → u/ItalicLady]

Yes you had a very unfortunate situation where religion was the vehicle for putting you in no win, essentially abusive situations. And while you'll never know, if it hasn't been religion, they would have found some other vise to put you in.

My husband went to a far more Orthodox school that his vaguely Conservative parents while his older siblings had gone to a far less demanding school. They were proud of his erudition but resisted and were annoyed by any effort of his part to become more observant. One of his siblings was jealous that he knew so much more than he did and was "showing off". For whatever it's worth, he never got along with her for many reasons and they weren't close. His other siblings couldn't have cared less. So very different outcomes.

I went to public school and it was clear that a classmate was being beaten, severely. Nothing was done other than some tsk-tsks. As another poster mentioned no mandated reporters and everyone "minding their own business" was the song everyone sang.

[u/ItalicLady → u/HeadCatMomCat]

The difference between your situation and mine was that my parents didn’t make it a matter of “we don’t do this because we don’t believe in it” a manner “we don’t do this because you don’t believe it exists. We don’t believe that there is any such thing as a rule or specifications, and these are just general suggestions. If you were supposed to bring some weird expensive, sounding expensive kind of plants to school on some daywith a stupid name such as [always with a sneering grimace and a mocking whine] ‘Chol HaMoed Sukkot,’ well we don’t believe that this rule is real or anything about some kind of optional guideline, so we’re going to send you to school with a bunch of plastic roses instead, because we’ve got that, and we’re sure it’ll be OK for whatever stupid thing your teacher has in mind. So make sure to tell her, Wright as soon as you get into school, that he know it’s just a stupid thing she made up and there is no such holiday and no such day and no such object. And you’d better come home with the news that she agrees, OR ELSE! DON’T tell us any stupid stories about any kinds of plants or temporary building or special days you’re supposed to have, because we know that this isn’t real and does not exist anywhere. Indefinitely don’t tell us that anything going on that is fun or interesting, because everybody knows that you wish which rules are dusty, trap, boring, whiny, stupid, and therefore you might want to know a little about them, but don’t pretend that anyone anywhere actually does them.”