Several weeks ago, I published two letters from concerned parents regarding the escalating expectations of children regarding gifts upon their marriage. Since then, however, I have received many other letters on the subject. It appears that those letters touched sensitive nerves among parents who find themselves overwhelmed by the financial demands that accompany the engagements and marriages of their children. While I received many such letters, I have chosen to publish two which shed some additional light on the subject.

Letter #1
Dear Rebbetzin Jungreis:
With great interest I read the two letters you printed last week regarding the excessive gift giving that has gotten totally out of hand. I echo the sentiments of those eloquent and passionate individuals who penned these letters. I believe that we are doing our children a tremendous disservice. We are inadvertently setting them up for dissatisfaction and unhappiness in life. Showering them with numerous luxury items while they are young, we are setting an unrealistic living standard for them. There are no guarantees for anyone in this world. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. We must distinguish between our needs and our wants.
One fact though, that we do know and hereby acknowledge, is that joy in life does not come from having and accumulating. Joy comes from giving and sharing with others. Joy comes from the sense of accomplishment of a job well done. Joy comes from acknowledgment of the beauty and bounty that G-d continuously bestows upon us. Joy comes from exercising our G-d given skills and talents that make us uniquely special. Happiness does not come from accumulating possessions. As it is written, “One who has one hundred, will want two...” Once accumulating becomes our goal, there is no end. This is a lesson we must teach our young ones from the cradle!

Please help bring our brethren to their senses. We have set up a system that is wreaking havoc amongst our families. Parents simply cannot afford to bestow expensive gifts upon their newly engaged and married young people. We are creating tension and dissension among our families. Who will have the courage to stand up and proclaim, “Enough!!!”

Letter #2
Dear Rebbetzin Jungreis:
It’s about time someone took a stand and had the courage to tell it like it is! We parents, and I include myself, just succumb to pressure and go along with whatever is asked of us, no matter how outrageous the demand. Why do we do this?

I can’t answer for others, but I can tell you why I fell in. My daughter was fast approaching the age of twenty two with no shidduch in sight. I panicked and gave in to all the demands which were conveyed through the shadchan. I realize that the letters published in your column were written by mothers of sons who felt put-upon by the unrealistic expectations of their prospective daughters-in-in-law. However, I would like to say that it’s not much different when you have to deal with a future son-in-law. If anything, it’s harder. Just consider some of the obligations with which parents of girls must deal.
In addition to outfitting their daughters, which nowadays is no simple matter because the girls all want designer outfits for sheva brochas - never mind the gowns, accessories and trousseau. Even those girls who come from modest homes (like mine), the pressure for the “best” and the “finest” is on.
Then there is the wedding itself, equipping a new household and the huge responsibility of support. In addition to all this, the girl’s parents are expected to present lavish gifts to the chosen: sterling silver Judaica such as a menorah, esrog box, seder plate, and chosen watch. All these items are very costly....but if you don’t “deliver”, it can generate a lot of bad feeling, and I have even seen cases where it ended the shidduch. So, for fear of jeopardizing the relationship between chossen-kallah, parents sacrifice and find the money for those gifts. At least, that was the case in my family and with many of my friends as well.
If it were up to me, I would never have bought an expensive chosen watch (which runs into the thousands). Rather, I would have put that money to better use toward my children’s support, but my daughter carried on that all her friends bought expensive watches for their future husbands and she didn’t want her chossin to be odd man out.

In addition to my daughter’s story, I would like to share with you my experiences with my daughter-in-law. When my son became engaged, a ring did not suffice. I had to buy her all kinds of gifts - bracelets, a watch, a necklace, earrings...and my daughter-in-law wasn’t just satisfied with any piece of jewelry. She knew exactly what she wanted, and I had to deliver!

Once again, I succumbed to pressure. Why, you might ask? Because I didn’t want to lose my daughter-in-law. So many of my friends have difficult relationships with their daughters-in-law and once that happens, it spills over to the sons and the children - and I wanted to avoid that.

So here I am - with two married children and with G-d’s help, four more to go (my daughter who is next in line is seventeen), and I don’t know how we will do it. My husband earns a good living, but for this, you have to be very wealthy, which we are not. I was working part time, but now I have taken on a full-time job and I’m afraid my younger children are paying for it. They come home from school and I’m not there to greet them. When I get home, I’m exhausted and I don’t have the patience for them that they deserve.

And I would like to point out yet another problem: It’s not only with financial expectations that our children are spoiled, but their entire attitude is wrong. This past Chanukah, all my children came home for Shabbos. I worked like a slave and never got out of the kitchen, and neither my daughter nor my daughter-in-law moved themselves to help. They just sat around socializing with friends who dropped in while I worked cleaning up until midnight. And no sooner was Shabbos over, than they went out for pizza, and once again left me to clean up. I don’t know what happened to this generation. I can’t understand it.
You might of course ask why I don’t tell my children that I can’t afford to go on doing these things. Well, at one point, I did, and they were offended, and a terrible scene ensued, so it’s just not worth it for me. I guess what bothers me is not only the financial burden that this has imposed on us, but that “It’s coming to me” attitude of my children. Where is Hakores HaTov - gratitude? I just don’t know what went wrong...why we failed to impart the values that our parents imparted to us. I do think that even as the Rabbis made takonos that weddings should be simple and low-key, takonos should be made these matters as well.

Please publish this letter in your column. Perhaps if more people were aware of the problems it might just be brought under control. But please do not publish my name.