To think boarding schools are an expensive version of neglect? MARK 2

[colditz]

LeQueen "Can someone please explain to me why living apart from your DH damages your marriage...but living apart from your children doesn't damage your relationship with them in anyway?

Please ...I genuinely don't understand."

Because your children can't have an affair, LeQueen

Writer: for the umpteenth time - this allowance is available to all Service personnel and is not in any way, shape, or form related to a) whether that person has a spouse/CP or b) income.

Sorry for exasperating you meditrina, I know I'm not quite getting it. I really don't see how what you're saying is relevant. Yes it's available to all personnel but my argument is that it shouldn't be available to all personnel. Where the service man/woman has a spouse or CP that spouse or CP should look after the children and not expect the state to pay for the children to go to boarding school. If the service person has no spouse or CP then the allowance will be necessary as there really isn't much alternative.

the cost of the state school place, writer - they are not free at point of delivery

plenty of people with a working spouse are entitled to housing benefit/tax credits etc - all depends on level of salary, really.

yes, flights home are provided - not sure what amount. but if you were expecting a family to live apart completely, all year round, then I would expect flights to reunite the family at a higher level than is currently given (speaking form experince of living abroad, not forces, but private business, and the amount of flights home we got)

the spouse could get a part time job, of course, but not always that easy to find, are they? there are plenty of single parent families who struggle to find employment to fit around school time - so why would it be any eaiser fo ra forces spouse?

I don't think the amount of benefits you would be looking at would be insignificant, tbh.

but i am not a forces wife, and I do not know salary/level of CEA/etc.

I don't see why you think forcing a family to split up and live apart fo rthe vast majority of the year (far more than just school terms) is any better than sending children to boarding school, either.

sorry, my post was meant ot say that state schools are free at point of delivery, but not zero-rated for cost. (I get exasperated by this "schools are free" point, having had ot argue that the difference between dd1's private SN school, and the state SN school placement is not 100% of the private fees - the state SN school costs the government too. and the difference once you take costs into account is often far less than you think)

I think it's better silverfrog because I believe a child should be with a parent rather than a paid professional and that it is better for husband and wife to be apart than parent and child.

A state school place costs a lot less than a boarding school place, and even if you add tax credits on top of that (which incidentally isn't benefit, it's actually paid out of the taxpayer's own tax) it still wouldn't add up to the cost of boarding school.

All the forces people who have posted here have stated that the pay is good and that's one of the main reasons why they don't want their spouse to leave the forces so I doubt they would qualify for housing benefit, which is hard to get even if you're unemployed (I speak from experience).

And yes it is difficult to get a part time job but that's the way life is. People who aren't in the forces don't get subsidised because getting a job is hard, so why should forces personnel be any different?

WriterofDreams: an interesting standpoint. Why are you so keen on enforcing the breaking up families only in one particular way, instead of permitting each family to make its own choices in the light of its individual circumstances, and under the T&C of current deal for serving personnel.

Are there any other parts of the T&C and Military Covenant you'd like to remove at the same time?

Writer of Dreams: "why are the Forces different?"

Asked and answered at least twice on previous thread.

people who aren't in the forces aren't aske dot live abroad in places that may not be suited ot raising a family, either.

I have no idea about most of the benfits system nowadays, but surely a family can end up receiving more in tax credits than they pay in tax? how is this not a benfit

state school places are not as cheap as the government lieks to make out they are. not once you take everythign into account. I found it illuminating, to say the least, to dig around and find the figures in order to fight for dd1's private place (i had ot include costings of her being placed at a ms state school with support, vs state SN school, and private SN school). honestly, the differences are not huge once the full picture is there (full picture in forces instance including flights etc)

I do not agree that forcing a child to live apart form one if its parents fo rthe whole year, apart from holiday form job, is better than said child ebing at boarding school and with one/both parents for (rapid calculation based on my boarding school experience) 18 weeks of the year minimum. the two are not comparable. you cannot just write one parent out of their children's lives like that.

I suspect that those critical of forces children boarding would also be critical of forces children movung schools every couple of years without notice.

The only thing they will countanance is spouse to stay in UK with children as (essentially) single parent with services spouse visting a few times a year...actually they seem to be saying actually that service personel ought not to have DC.

Lets keep this to Janet and John level WoD, then you might understand.

1: Service family posted abroad
2: Wife moves with husband
3: Wife gets job abroad
4: Wife doesn't pay UK tax as subject to foreign tax regime, so it doesn't matter if she works or not.

or:

1: We live in a free country
2: There is no legal requirement for a service wife to stay in one place and do full time childcare
3: Many wives move and work, if jobs available
4: I wasn't aware as yet that service families had to be penalised by virtue of their service to this country
5: I wasn't aware that service families were second class citizens and only deserve to be split up
6: I was not aware that service wives had no right to have a career as we have to provide childcare.
7: If you don't like the fact that we can get CEA, get your dh to join up and you can claim it too!

There will be a cost to the taxpayer however our children are educated, and if you want the wives to stay at home then there will be cost to the taxpayer in providing accommodation etc to our husbands which will cost more than CEA, so you pays your money and you takes your pick.

The Services do not pay for parents to go home and see their kids, they pay a proportion of the cost for the child to travel to see parents three times a year, and that has just been cut.

"The only thing they will countanance is spouse to stay in UK with children as (essentially) single parent with services spouse visting a few times a year...actually they seem to be saying actually that service personel ought not to have DC."

It is all very well for people to say that Forces families should live apart - have they actually tried doing that? We're doing it right now and it is bloody difficult. I'm in Scotland with my three (very) young children and my husband works in London. We had to fight to get INVOLSEP (status that recognises that due to our individual circumstances we cannot live together in a MQ) which ensures that my husband does not have to pay for his accomodation. We do get an allowance to help with costs incurred in travelling home.

My husband works in a very "niche" environment with a heavy workload. Despite being geographically quite close, he cannot come home every weekend due to the demands of his job. As of today we have not seen him for three and a half weeks and we've just been told that his planned two weeks' leave, due to start today has been cancelled courtesy of the current situation. He manages to get home every two to three weeks.

It is incredibly difficult to maintain that life - when he does come home, his focus is, quite rightly, on our children but this leaves us little time to ourselves. When he's away, I am a de facto single parent and I bear the brunt of caring for our children (one of whom has a physical condition requiring close supervision and daily physiotherapy).

Now, no one forced us into this situation - we chose to live apart because it suits our family needs right now. I very much doubt we will continue to live apart, however. While our children have plenty of time with me, they get little time with their father and they all miss out.

If we decide to move back into quarters, we then have to uproot our children every two years and shift them around the country (or perhaps abroad). We think their education at primary level will withstand such disruption but we do think they will require more stability when it comes to the secondary years which will leave us with the choice of living apart again or of choosing boarding school. I have no crystal ball and cannot tell what decision we will make but we will make the decision that suits the child concerned and we do that without reference to anyone outside of our family unit.

For what it's worth, I don't work right now - and I fail to see what that has to do with whether my children attend boarding school or not.

It's obvious that the vast majority of people on MN have absolutely no understanding of Forces life whatsoever.

I suggest you walk a mile in any of our shoes before you criticise us so severely.

how does it matter if the "trailing partner" is stay at home?

jcscot - when I pointed out that dh and I has not weekended but 'six weeked' between Brussels and Cornwall, I was very patronisingly told that that was the right thing for ds, my job and the taxpayer!

You just don't get it jcscot - we are second class citizens because we are married to military men, and because we can see that the conventional one size fits all doesn't apply to all families at all times.

I'm happy to leave parents to judge what's in their children's best interests, and think that Forces' parents are just as sentient as the rest of the population in gauging their children's happiness and well-being.

jcscot: I'm so sorry the insensitive posts are continuing on what must be a difficult day for you. I hope your DH stays safe.

"No, but I think it would appease their children an awful lot, especially those ones who were unhappy aytbeing sent away to BS."

The reality of Service life is that there is no easy answer to providing stability - you either separate the serving spouse from the family (imagine trying to commute from Cyprus or Germany!) or you remain in quarters and either educate your children at boarding school or move them around from pillar to post.

There is no simple solution - there is always going to be someone losing out. So far the arguments put by the non-BS brigade have been reductive, emotive and not based on any real understanding of Service life.

Swinging cat, there are those on here, WoD in particular who think that Forces families should be separated all the time, and the wife should do all the childcare/rearing, irrespective of if your spouse is at the opposite end of the country, or indeed, in another country.

You and your children should only be allowed to see your spouse when he has leave, or if he can get home at a weekend.

Apartheid is alive, well and on MN.

'imagine trying to commute from Cyprus or Germany!' tried it from Brussels to Cornwall, and it just doesn't work, even on a weekly basis.

"You just don't get it jcscot - we are second class citizens because we are married to military men, and because we can see that the conventional one size fits all doesn't apply to all families at all times."

I know - imagine having the temerity to suggest that Service families make their decision based on the best solution for their particular set of family circumstances? I must be too dim to see what exactly is wrong with that!

"...and it just doesn't work, even on a weekly basis."

London to Glasgow just isn't possible on a weekly basis, especially given my husband's job, never mind commuting from overseas.

I think in times to come, we will see sending junior school children away (so under 11s) as a form of neglect. I can't see how you could justify sending an 8 year old away to board.

'I must be too dim to see what exactly is wrong with that! wink' That's because you're not a Navy wife, I think on the previous thread it was only Army wives that were dim !!!!

"I think on the previous thread it was only Army wives that were dim"

It's so hard to keep up with all the negative stereotypes being flung about!

To the pro-BS crowd: you are saying that by expecting the non-forces spouse to stay in the UK with the children I am expecting to "separate the family," but that if the non-forces spouse goes with the forces spouse and leaves the children behind this is not "separating the family" I really really don't get it. Also if a child is in boarding school does he or she get to see her forces parent more often than if he or she was at home with the non-forces parent? How does that work?

For example if the dad is in Brussels and the mum and kids are in Kent and the dad comes home every six weeks then the kids see mum every day and dad every six weeks. If both the mum and dad are in Brussels and the kids are in boarding school in Kent then the kids see both mum and dad only once every six weeks. So how is the boarding school scenario better??

I know! I hope that your dh will get some leave seeing that Gaddaffi has backed down for the moment.

Dh was down the bunker when Kosovo kicked off...busy time.