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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to consider leaving my children for a year to study?

546 replies

secondcity · 06/02/2011 07:36

long-time lurker here. I am braving AIBU and am bracing myself for the onslaught....

I live in New York with my husband and children, We have been here almost two years and everyone is very settled......except me!

I have been offered a (fully-funded) post-graduate course in the UK in september 2011.

If I were to accept the course, I wouldn't bring my children, but I would aim to come back once a month, and they would obviously come to me for all the holidays. My husband is very capable and we would probably get some part-time childcare sorted (secondary aged kids)

I swing between thinking it would be absolutely fine, (their father used to work away for up to 2 months at a time!)to thinking what kind of mother would contemplate leaving her children.

Anyone have any experience or advice? Thank you

OP posts:
BuzzLiteBeer · 07/02/2011 18:56

it could be that in the US there is no ringfencing for overseas students? Or that you have to be a citizen, or even on a particular visa. Hard to say, but it makes sense that they would have different rules.
I couldn't say what my application will be for but I know its not uncommon for medical and science courses.

ThePosieParker · 07/02/2011 18:57

I'm sure overseas and exceptional students can get funding, but in the OP it simply says a course she applied for with the fact she's been a SAHM for ten years and lives in NY....I would assume that scholarships would be going to the brightest buttons with the greatest potential in their field.....I can't think that's someone who has been away from employment and describes themselves as a SAHP.

ThePosieParker · 07/02/2011 18:59

My parents live in China.

Normantebbit · 07/02/2011 19:00

Don't the students contribute to research? Isn't this the reason universities want to attract the best?

Northernlurker · 07/02/2011 19:02

Medical and science courses with the expectation of the candidate working in the UK or being sponsored by an employer or government. Not just out of the good of our national heart!

Anonymity is jolly useful isn't it - allows you to say whatever bollocks you think other people will swallow.

MillyR · 07/02/2011 19:03

PP, people making funding decisions are not prejudiced against SAHM. There are some types of funding that you have to have a recent qualification to apply for, but it usually says that the time limit does not apply if you took time out between qualifications to have children.

mathanxiety · 07/02/2011 19:06

If you have a green card you are entitled to apply for financial aid using the FAFSA form plus the individual college financial aid application forms. Citizenship, either by birth or by naturalisation also entitles you to apply for financial aid. Some universities in the US give need-based financial aid up to 100% of tuition, although this amount is normally only given to the most direly poor students. Financial aid is doled out on a sliding scale according to income/ family resources.

For employment prospects in the US or anywhere else in the world, I would fancy a US qualification over a British one unless an Oxbridge type university was being considered.

princessparty · 07/02/2011 19:13

Plenty of people send their 11 and 12 year olds to boarding schools. Even in different countries (like me). This is much better - they stay at home with daddy, see mummy for all holidays (long summers) and also once a month

That is different.Kids are sent to boarding school because their parents perceibve ot to be in the kids best interests (although that is a whole other debate).here the mother is acting in her own interests and putting them before the kids' interests.
I don't see how a kid that age could fail to feel abandoned, probably even more so than a younger child.I hope her course enables her to earn enough to pay their therapy bills!
I think it speaks volumes about her feelings for and relationship with her children that she could even consider doing something like this.

CountDuckula · 07/02/2011 19:13

OP,

I've just completed a 2 year postgrad course the last year of which my husband was posted 7 hours travel away (didn't go with him because of my degree and it would mean changing school systems at a crucial time for the eldest). My kids are between 10 and 14 now. They have missed me and they miss their dad. It's not easy thing to do for you or your kids or your partner. Most postgrads involve enough work that even doing it from home the time you can spend with children is severely cut down.

At the same time I think my children have learnt a lot from me doing this. Their attitude to study has improved and they are very very proud of me. And it has given them the confidence to go for things they want.

As for their relationships with their Dad. If anything they are stronger. Anytime we have together as a family is more precious. And each of the kids has benefited from having to really talk to their dad. Ds is 10 and speaks to him for about 30 mins each day. It's actually had the effect of making the relationship stronger.

Each family has to make it's own choice. For us it has worked out so far. There are suprising positives to being apart.

TheMotherOfAllDilemmas · 07/02/2011 19:19

She has a right to a fully funded place and even a stipend if she is good enough and eligible for a scholarship.

Scholarships are there not only as an act of good will, but an artifact to lure a higher number of quality students into applying. Most won't get the scholarship, but many will still attend a programme of studies after the scholarship they were aiming to get was unsuccessful.

International students are one of the main sources of funding to support postgraduate study in this country, if not the main one. Without international students many post graduate courses currently offered in the UK would simply not be able to survive financially.

Northernlurker · 07/02/2011 19:20

Buzz - no it's not a new thing but it being more closely enforced now. Visitors to the UK may very well not be entitled to free treatment.

ThePosieParker · 07/02/2011 19:25

MillyR....I am shocked and pleasantly surprised.

TheMotherOfAllDilemmas · 07/02/2011 19:27

Posie, I know people who have stayed at home for years while working on their own study interests, I know a couple of them who wrote books in that time and know about someone who even created one of the most ground breaking psychology theories while working from home on her own. Obviously, people like them have a strong case to be awarded a scholarship/recognition over other younger or less experienced candidates.

There are some very remarkable people out there working on their own, if you don't believe me, think Harry Potter.

CountDuckula · 07/02/2011 19:35

Posie, I was a SAHM for 10 years with a degree that is decades old. I will admit to doing one OU course to show I still had brains and a little volunteer work to show I could still work.

I was offered a fully funded post grad place with a decent bursary and childcare costs. And being a SAHM counted for me experience wise.

BuzzLiteBeer · 07/02/2011 19:43

Well I suppose thats what happens if you move to China.

I've been a SAHP for the last 6 years. I've also managed to study that entire time and am eligible for more than one funded postgrad. Its not luck, its very hard work. Smile Surprisingly enough, those of us who mange to do both are not looked down upon by the universities, we are often lauded. Its just our peers that assume we wouldn't be offered such things as we couldn't possibly be of use to anyone.

MillyR · 07/02/2011 19:45

BLB, peers as in other students or peers as in other mothers, or both?

BuzzLiteBeer · 07/02/2011 19:58

bit of both to be honest. Not the majority, but a minority of each. You get the students who think you are ancient and taking up a chair in the library with you wrinkly old arse, and you have the mothers who make pointed barbs about how you must never have time for your children.

I don't care, I've been doing this for years and its a huge part of who I am, and if all goes to plan I'm looking at a better future because of it. Smile

ThePosieParker · 07/02/2011 20:06

BLB...seriously. China and the USA, it's all the same tax and residency wise. My parents aren't complaining.

It's not the fact that the OP is just a SAHM, I am one and I have continued to be resourceful and entrepreneurial but she is a SAHM and a non resident, I just wondered where the funding came in. I don't think it's very hard to study and care for children, or do anything that you can do in your own time.

BuzzLiteBeer · 07/02/2011 20:09

You didn't wonder, you accused her of scamming, amongst other things, not quite the same thing.
And no, its not all the same at all.

ThePosieParker · 07/02/2011 20:26

Do Buzz off, dear.

quietlysuggests · 07/02/2011 20:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BuzzLiteBeer · 07/02/2011 21:04

funny.

Normantebbit · 07/02/2011 21:10

Perhaps another thing to bear in mind is a post grad is pretty intense and it may not be feasible for op to look after DCs in holidays.

But again, not a reason not to do it...

kissncuddle · 07/02/2011 21:11

Quietly I think you have raised an excellent point.

quietlysuggests · 07/02/2011 21:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.