College rant

Yesterday I found a English girl's blog. In it, she complains that girls aren't encouraged to continue their education so they can get good jobs, because of the co-ed environment, etc. I've heard people say that it's too tempting in college, too loose and free, etc, and people will go off the derech. Isn't that dumb? Shouldn't we be strong enough to survive outside the borders of our neighborhood? Shouldn't we be able to withstand temptation and not run free the moment we're unsupervised? Shouldn't the schools and parents realize that many girls don't have a strong basis to be frum and THAT'S the problem, not that "they'll run wild when they get the chance"? Give them the strength/reason to stay frum and let them live! You know, v'chai bahem!

I went to college, not Brooklyn or Touro, and had no problems there. I had my "daled amos" around me and wasn't asked out because I was obviously frum. My friends in my majors classes went out to drink or to shoot pool or whatever after school, but I didn't join them. They were people to talk to in the classroom and halls and the tutoring area, not for my daily life. I saw them about a year ago at a majors/alumni meeting, where we talked about our jobs to the current undergrads, and it was nice to see them again. They're still single, of course, because who gets married before their 30s these days, right? And I have 2 kids. :)

The not-frum girls I befriended became more interested in Judaism; I didn't become less interested! I saw a couple of them after graduation, and both were wearing sheitels and pushing strollers. Another, totally unaffiliated to any "brand" of Judaism, married a Jewish guy, which she hadn't considered important before, having dated "outside the religion." Before I got married, she came for Shabbosim and kept Shabbos with us. She visited me when the princess was born. I went to her wedding when the little guy was a baby.

Isn't that the way life should be? Why shelter kids so much that they are overwhelmed by how much life is out there when they see it? So overwhelmed that they don't stay strong, because their frum background was just, "My parents said I had to so I am, but now they're not here so I'm doing what I want."

Sigh.