To think that cash-for-internships shows what the Tories think about who should have opportunities

[Himalaya]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356469/Tory-backers-pay-party-2-000-buy-children-work-experience.html

Folks at tory party HQ don't think that it is a problem that access to first steps on the career ladder in jobs with influence in finance, policy, media, PR etc depend on who-you-know networks and the ability to work for free and live in London... In fact they think it's a good fundraising opportunity and have been selling off internships at top firms for 2-3K.

Tells you all you need to know, really about their views on social mobility and equality of opportunity.

Sardinequeen thank God there is someone on here who cares about children other than her own. You are totally right. Whilst it is a parent's instinct to do whatever they can to help their child, it is shameful selfishness to believe that their child deserves opportunties and others do not

This is so true.

All children deserve opportunities, not just those with sharp elbowed,selfish,pushy parents.

Why do parents feel they need to push? Is it fear that their child will not meet some standard that the parent has set and the child is unable to fill.

I often think that children with the parents with the sharpest elbows are the ones who perhaps should not be getting the opportuniteis in the first place.

My ds won a very coveted scholarship entirely off his own back. Lots of boys sat for this and I noticed that some of the more hideously pushy parents were the parents of offsring who should not have been sitting in the first place. The behaviour of some of the parents was shocking. Truly shocking.

at the idea that only the wealthy are intelligent.

Was it really off his own back? The mere fact he was applying for one in the first place shows that he has a parent who obviously cares deeply about his education and wants him to do the best he can. Those other parents were doing the same. There are those who would say that your son does not deserve to get such an opportunity in the first place as, by virtue of you caring, he already has an advantage that others don't. Would you consider that fair? If not, why would you think it's ok to state that children with the parents with the sharpest elbows should not get that same opportunity? You are doing exactly the same thing the quote you have used is warning against.

The difference being that all parents could encourage their kids if they wanted to. There is nothing about the scholarship system that excludes certain people. Unpaid internships effectively exclude people from low income backgrounds.

I didn't say it was just luck.

But if you can't recognise how much luck has played in getting you to where you are and think it's all because of how brilliant you are, then you are a self-regarding idiot.

Things like the circumstances into which you were born are not things you can take credit for, same with your innate abilities, your good health, your family connections.

It's well-known that people attribute more of their success and less of their failure to themselves than they should.

You can be proud of your achievements and how hard you've worked and still have the humility to recognise how much of it was down to factors that are nothing to do with how great you are.

Thanks for drawing our attention to this Himalaya. Going out to get a breath of fresh air.

Great post, Spidookly.

I have a semi-senior position in a Management Consulting Organisation

My husband is a Partner in one of the top city firms.

Neither of us could offer an internship to a friends child.

All internships in these sort of organisations are offered via a central department and have strict entry criteria and processes.

It really is not a matter of who you know.

I could also add that my husband is the son of refugees and I am the daughter of immigrants (my father had a corner shop and had left school at 15).

Neither of us needed to know anyone.

You certainly have an advantage in certain jobs if you know people or can do unpaid internships though thesethings. Nobody has suggested you can't be a success, just that some have an unfair advantage.

ambarth - but I think the number of areas where jobs are available to people who know people are diminishing

It is certainly no longer possible in big professionl companies like law, accountancy and management consulting. And believe me you do not need to be very old or very experienced to be earling £60k in these organisations.

They all have strict processes and timetables in place to even get a summer job let alone an internship.

It is probably only in privately owned business that it matters who you know.

Sorry - should have been clearer about the relevance of £60k.

I was trying to make the point that access to well paid jobs in these organisations is not only open to people who know people.

B

"The wealthy have privelege rather than buy it. I think you create your own fortune in life and sometimes advantage isn't always... an advantage. I have a friend who's a total idiot, drifting about in his Chelsea flat bought by barrister parents with a 3rd in politics (how is this even possible!?) and no work experience because he's never had to, he just takes bad drugs and buys women who won't ever sleep with him champagne... all because he is financially able to get away with this. It's awful."

It's not awful. It's pathetic.

Awful is when genius 16 year olds have to leave school because someone needs to be a breadwinner. Awful is having to send a sensitive, intelligant child to a sink school where he gets the shit kicked out of him because you can't afford to move. Awful is a child who has to rely on the school's dire reading book choices because there are no books at home.

Was it really off his own back?

Yes it was. Entirely. He approached somebody connected with the school and asked if they would help him. I was then approached and it was suggested to me. He was in dire straights at the school he was at as it was.
Actually I was dead st against it but he was so very unhappy where he was that I took the least worst option.

Of course I care about him. There is a huge difference in caring about a child and encouraging them and pushing a child and buying them opportunities that are not available to other kids that are not so unfortunate. And attempting to shut the door after. Quite where you would draw the line is another discussion.

As it is I am deeply uncomfortable with where he is, but hey ho that is another conversation.

I also volunteer extensively with deprived kids near where I live, because wasted talent to me is beyond tragic.

You know what, coldtits? All those things happened to me, and yes, it was awful at the time. Both parents died, I had to leave the private school I was at, ended up going to a failing school where I did regularly get the shit kicked out of me on an almost daily basis for no other reason than being "the new girl who thinks she's better than us because she went to private school" - that's why I intensely dislike the blanket attitude that some have applied to people that just happened to be born into circumstances different or apparently more affluent than their own. I had to use the public library to educate myself as opposed to the resources the school had. I eventually ended up homeless and it felt like life was over.

I of all people can see why some people sink instead of swim. But, having come from that, I truly believe that, in life, it is possible in more situations than people imagine to make your own luck. TheseThingsAreGoodThings is right when she says that in the popular professions she lists, it is not about who you know but what you have done and can do - getting through the recruitment process, especially for something like law which I'm going into is daunting, but the information is out there as to how you can do it and a lot of that information is freely available. Some are successful, some aren't, and that success is definitely not limited to who your parents know or how much your parents earn as some people on this board would like to presume/believe.

What I keep trying to say is that it is easy and convenient to simply point and say - well, his/her parents had money and that's why they do well. It just isn't as simple as that.

But nobosyisassomebody, it's not completely off his own back, according to some of the views on here, including yours on "pushy" parents. You had to approve it, you had to allow it and, in some way or another, your financial support is funding him through it (be that travel, food, uniforms etc). Some other parents would not have. Compared to them, that may make you a pushy parent. If he was in dire straits, why not work with the school to change it as opposed to taking an obviously bright child out of the state system and have him educated privately? Because you did what was best for your son, and, to me, there is NOTHING wrong with that, but some people on here would have you believe otherwise. I don't see why on earth you should feel uncomfortable about it.

I am sure that I read somewhere that one of the common denominators among very successful people was losing a parent at a young age so that will set my ds in good stead.

I think it might have been Malcolm Gladwell in "outliers"

If you can influence it yourself, it's not luck.

I don't have DCs yet, the silly city job is so I can have enough in savings/property to afford the school fees when they come.

TheMartorialist I tried working with the school, but they were adamant that they had taken him as far as they could and realistically I think they had. He had a number of issues and was becoming very depressed and deeply unhappy.
I don't assist financially at all, he is on scholarship and bursary and assistance with uniform as we are on such a low income.

I am uncomfortable because despite all this he is still not fully reaching his potential and is straing at the leash to be put up again. I sometimes wonder if another kid from a deprived background that wasn't quite so bright might make more of such a wonderful opportunity, but I am extremely grateful that the school are doing their best for him.

Really the best option for him would be home ed but as I work this is impossible. School is just a big playdate to him sometimes despite everyone doing their best.

Having read all the experiences of others on here of how hard it is to get internships I am mighty glad that ds wants to be a scientist

smallwhitecat - so what sort of world would you like to see?

How do you define "fair"?

smallwhite - meritocracy is not fair at all.

"If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get."

"So assured have the elite become that there is almost no block on the rewards they arrogate to themselves."

by Michael Young, the man who defined the term "meritocracy" on his satirical essay "The Rise of the Meritocracy".

Down with meritocracy (2001)