I was reading the Flatbush Jewish Journal this Shabbos, and had to laugh out loud when I read the Ask the Shadchan Column. It was illustrative of how parents can potentially sabotage their children’s shidduchim before they even begin. The parent, I presume, mom, writing the letter was disturbed because the boy wanted NOT to go through the shadchan to make the call to arrange the date, but to speak to the girl himself! Horrors!!!! The mom was sufficiently bothered by this and it caused such agita, that she felt compelled to address this awful breach of frum etiquette, in a shadchan column forum.
To her credit, the shadchan told the parent there was nothing wrong with this, it is how we did things in decades past. BTW, the daughter had NO problem with this – it was all coming from the parent. Can you imagine if this guy is perfect for her daughter and the mother would refuse to allow the shidduch for such a reason?????
We need to stop infantilizing our children. If they are old enough to be in shidduchim, they are old enough to make and receive phone calls from people trying to date them. They are likewise old enough to say to their date if they do NOT wish to go forward in the shidduch, rather than put the onus on the shadchan to so their dirty work for them.
People get turned down in many areas of their lives every day. They don’t get hired for a job, they don’t get picked for a team, they don’t get called on in class every time they know the answer. This is part of life, and the sooner our kids understand that rejection inevitably happens to all of us at some point, the sooner they will be able to deal with it in shidduchim, as well. We are treating our children, not as the grownups they are supposed to be, but as the immature tykes we still believe them to be.