Frum N' Flipping

"I come out of the bedroom, in my nightgown, and she points at me, at my bare legs, and tells me I'm not Tznius. Can you believe it?! She's only three! What are they teaching her there? I don't know what this Bais Yaacov is drilling into her head. Tznius is important, but this is bordering on obsessive." "Relax." I tell her. "Girls take in more from their families than their schools. Look at me, I went to the most extreme school possible, and I'm normal, no? My friends are all the same. With girls it goes by the home, not the school. It's the boys you should be worying about." She puts down her fork, leans across the table. "No, The Talmud Torah is fine, they barely teach Mussar or Haskafa. In boys' schools the focus is entirely on Torah learning, nothing else. It works out great, the boys listen to us, and there's no contradiction with what they're getting at school. "Wait till your boys begin Yeshiva Ketanah....

I'm happy, sitting by the window, typing away. A little face peers into mine, mouths words I can't hear. I pull the headphones from my ears, and Matisyahu stops pounding. "I want to sit here." She points at the seat next to mine. I look across the aisle, at where she'd been sitting quite comfortably with her sister. The older girl still sitting there looks back at me, and shrugs. I pull the purse and coat into my lap, clear the space for the little girl. She clambers into it, settles in. I slide the headphones back in, wake my IPod up from sleep mode. The girl climbs off her new seat, disappears into the back of the bus, comes back a moment later with two activity books. "This one's mine, and this one's my sister's." She shows them to me proudly. I turn off the music again. Someone has obviously decided she's my new friend. She opens the books. Shows me which pictures she's colored in. I admire them. I offer her a pen, so she can d...