Those who are blessed with impressive yichus bear a great responsibility to live up to the example of their ancestors. If they fail to do so, their yichus becomes nothing more than a mark of shame.
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Based on the many sources cited, covering the gamut of Tanach, Mishna, Gemara, Midrash, and halacha, it is clear that the we must change our definition of ba’al teshuva to “one who repents for any sin.” The connotation of the term must also change from negative to positive.
I further suggest that when singles are confronted with this question they should respond that they are indeed ba’alei teshuva and have been such for as many years as they’ve been alive. After all, how could any self-respecting Jew, one who goes to shul every Yom Kippur, not consider himself a ba’al teshuva, and who would want to marry such a person? If enough people have the courage and reliance on Hashem as the true orchestrator of marriages to respond in this fashion, the question will quickly become irrelevant, if not eliminated entirely.
It̓s certainly understandable for singles to seek assurance that potential shidduchim who did not grow up fully observant are now stable in their religious ways. This assurance, however, can be gleaned only by getting to know the individual, and has little to do with the number of years since becoming observant. (Often, those who “drop out” do so not because of a lack of seriousness, but because they are turned off and turned away by the community after sacrificing so much to enter it.)
We see all too often that even those who grow up in observant households carry no guarantees of continuing that tradition. If anything, newly observant Jews are generally more passionate and sincere in their observance, to the extent that they put the rest of us to shame.
Judaism does indeed have a lower class: those who fail to earn the privilege of being referred to as ba’alei teshuva.
