Unfortunately it is parents who have turned the shidduch world into crisis. Yes a pamphlet and discussions in shuls by their own Rabbonim to prepare them for shidduchim is very much in order. Parents look for their ideal son-in-law or daughter-in-law. Parents look for their ideal mechutanim. Parents look for prospects they would be proud to show off to their friends and family. Parents in many cases look for a match that will agree to make the type of wedding they feel they deserve to have to impress their friends and family. Parents think their children are perfect and and a gift to the world instead of realizing that no one is perfect and their children are gift Hashem gave them not the whole world. And that each child is only truly half a person until they find their “better half”.
There are many an older single who’s parents got them to that point by rejecting one prospect after another without even discussing or presenting them to their child. Let me give you an example. When my own daughter was dating, a relative was chasing after this bochur and finally after 8 months got a yes and presented the shidduch to me. I was told that the mother wants the mechutanim to pay for his law school. Her concept was that she brought him to this point and when he got married the mechutanim should take it from there. I rejected the shidduch. My relative was very upset. She said, what’s wrong, why won’t I let my daughter date him. I said because the mother is nuts. When her child gets married does it mean he is no longer her child? Since when is it the mechutonim’s job to teach the boy a parnasah, that is his own parent’s responsibility. I was appalled by her chutzpah. it wasn’t that they couldn’t afford it, it was that she held her son on a pedestal and expected the mechutanim to do the same. I said that this woman would never value my daughter the same way she valued her son and I didn’t want to subject my daughter to that.
Well can you figure out the end of the story? My daughter was married ten years with 3 kids before we heard he was finally married. This falls into the same category as the stupid question issue. People who are looking for reasons “why not” to allow a shidduch. People who are looking for why “they don’t live up to our standards” or who hold themselves up to a higher madreigah. We need to understand that we are all equal in the eyes of Hashem. And that what we are looking for might not be what Hashem has planned for us. So we might need to get off our high horses and take a better look in the mirror. We are no better than the other human beings that Hashem created.