The real reason Ortho kids leave

I read this today in the Jerusalem Post and while I have mixed feelings about Shmuly Boteach as he fails to admit a key factor in kids leaving the fold: hypocrisy. Kids are being taught "do as I say, not as I do" and thus have no role models. He points out that parents leave the religious education to the teachers but there are many instances where the teacher is not a role model either. When a school or a parent emphasizes the importance of modest dress to a child and then the parent or teacher commits an act that is far from modest, what kind of message are we sending our children? It's not okay to wear a skirt that is above the knee but it is okay to commit tax evasion or welfare fraud or arson or child molestation. At some point a child will grow up and eventually read a newspaper or come to his senses and realize the parent/rabbi/teacher/neighbor was not away on a long business trip but in a federal penitentiary. Kids have come to realize that it is better to act like a mensch - pay their taxes follow the laws of land and be upstanding citizens than to wear a skirt below the knee. I also believe that just because a child does not follow the exact rules that were imparted to them by their educators as the proper was to be a religious person does not mean that child has left the fold. It means that child has chosen to practice Judaism as he believes is the right way for him not the way a teacher/rabbi/parent believed was right (as many usually have agendas of what is right and wrong and it's usually my way or the highway). Rabbi Boteach failed to mention that hypocrisy and lack of role models is the real reason children are leaving the fold. A parent can be home all day with the child teaching him Torah but if the parent is not living Torah than everything he is teaching the child is for naught.