Interestingly enough, as a kid, I encountered far more discrimination AFTER becoming a ba’al teshuva than before it.
When I was in first grade, my parents were not frum. Nonetheless, my mother wanted me to go to yeshiva and so I was enrolled in HILI — an Orthodox school in Long Island. In fact, my rebbe that year was Rav Nachman Mandel. Despite the fact that we weren’t shomer shabbos, the school took me in with open arms. To my knowledge, I was the only kid in the class who wasn’t shomer shabbos. Rabbi Mandel never singled me out for it — on the contrary — he showed me the same love and caring that he showed the other kids in the school.
Fast forward to seventh grade. My parents had since split up. My mother became frum (along with my sister and I). My father remained (and to this day is) not frum.
When my mother tried to get me into a yeshiva, she encountered all sorts of problems. Most schools simply weren’t interested in welcoming a child of divorce who was a ba’al teshuva. One prominent yeshiva in Brooklyn was willing to take me on condition that I have absolutely no contact with my father. My mother turned them down flat.
Eventually, my sister and I found my way into a yeshivos (incidentally, for me, a yeshiva that was very wrong for me, but that’s another story for another time) but until she did, it was very difficult. There was definitely discrimination against her and us.
The Wolf