Paying For Private School- Part II

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
"Henry V" (5.3.44-51)

A little more than a year ago I wrote a post called The Day School Dilemma- Paying For Private School. It is a simple post in which I expressed some of my concerns about the challenges of paying for a private school education.

So here I am halfway through the second year of his private school education and I find myself asking some very tough questions of myself. They are not easily answered. They are not the kind that you can say yes or no to, at least not in good conscience.

Part of me says what the hell am I thinking paying this much for school. Part of me says that if I am really interested in acts of masochism it would be far cheaper to take one of my Zippo lighters out and just set my hair on fire. Not only would it solve the problem of how to wear my hair it might improve my tan.

But then again when I consider all of the options here it becomes clear to me that I have to fight to keep him in a day school. Here is why. Being Jewish is very important to me and I want to do all that I can to see that my children grow up with a Jewish identity and raise their children as Jews.

In the interest of anonymity I am intentionally obscuring things, but let's go with this. One of his great-grandparents has many great-grandchildren. Not one of them is being raised to be Jewish. Every one of them is being raised to be Christian and I find that to be unacceptable. I can't guarantee that my children won't fall off the derech, but I can provide them with a foundation that makes it less likely.

Second point. The local elementary school just isn't up to snuff. It is not good enough. It is a good school, but it is lacking in a number of areas and I just can't see sending the kids there. I have looked into moving, but at the moment the options just don't make sense.

So at the moment the choice isn't much of a choice. Soon I shall be forced back into the breach. For you Tolkien geeks it feels a bit like Helm's Deep. I keep fighting but the battle isn't going well. Every day I look for the White Rider and wonder what is going to happen.

Every day I wonder.