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

Off to pick up dd from nursery - then I have my 5th weekend on the trot home alone. That's Forces Life for you.

And before Le Queen suggests dd is at nursery so I can fold napkins and plan my next dinner party I can assure you that is not the case.

leaving aside the armed forces issue, I have to say that all the ex BS adults I know are, as another poster said, the sort of people who have to keep busy and while they have all sorts of social graces honestly sometimes it's like talking to a piece of wood for all the honest straightforward inetraction you can get outof them. they're very tribal, only really register other BS people as worth talking to. I have a friend who is sending his eldest to boarding sixth form because although both he and his wife had terrible time at BS , 'the truth is BS people recognise each other ' (must be the clenched buttocks) 'and BS people still run the world' . so if she's going to get on - or marry someone who will - then it's that BS finish for her. I was speechless. anyone else out there think like this?

LeQueen, do you think the women on this thread are so stupid that, leading the lives they do, they haven't considered all angles when it comes to maintaining a family life,or do you really think you are offering a solution they haven't considered?

It might look that way, but you are, as you say, an outsider, with no current experience of HM Forces, so you wouldn't know what it is really like.

MN is always quick to support single mothers; that is effectively what you would like to condemn service wives with kids into being - single mums, and in most cases without family support.

The other thing you are ignoring, is that if you don't have your own home, then you have to move to maintain your home, as you will not be allowed to stay in an MQ in Warminster for example if everyone in the regiment has moved to Catterick. Those rotating into Warminster will need the MQs you are living in.

Perhaps you'd like those who don't have their own homes to live in Ghettos for married unaccompanied service families.

"But to the outsider it seems that this compromise seems very much to favour your DH, rather than your children?"

Compromise always favours someone - there's always give and take.

It appears that way to you because you're not in the frankly unenviable position in which many Forces families find themselves.

Look, I know I have a lot to be grateful for - my husband earns a good wage, he has a great pension (so long as the govt resists the urge to tinker with it), he has guaranteed employment until he's 55 and all he has to do is survive whatever warzones to which he's deployed. However, it doesn't change the fact that some aspects of Forces life are hard and alien to those outside the wire and I refuse to apologise for or jusitify the allowances and compensations given to us or the compromises we (as a collective group) make.

DilysPrice I would not go on holiday whilst my kids are away at BS, I know that would upset them. However I have been known to take them away to grandparents for a week whilst DH and I go away to recharge our batteries and relationship after a long deployment (but never straight after always a few months later so the DCs can see him)

Le Queen, You are STILL missing the point. Most primary DCs are in their local school. Honestly.

Secondary kids SOMETIMES go to BS if there is a (high) risk to THAT FAMILY that moving will be likely during the exam periods or any other reason pertinent to THAT FAMILY. So to avoid that, they can board. Thats it.

I have been with DH for 20 years. The only 2 primary DCs I know of went to BS because their mum left them (and him). That's it. They are the only one of hundreds I have known of.

Ther is no way to sugar soap it up.........If you are in the services and you put your child into BS and you go where your OH goes you have put your OH before your children.

END OF.

IF YOU CAN LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT YOUR CHILDREN WILL ALWAYS KNOW THIS [BUT NEVER ACTUALLY SAY IT] THEN WAY TO GO.

But don't expect others to agree, and I do not care how good said school is or how ''talented'' said child is.

sorry for caps.

Have to disagree Rex, I married an ex Boarding school man who is warm, loving, humorous...and I went to comp!

I have taught him to be rather than to do as well.

mumof..................so even when the children can be with you, you ship them of to the grandparents after a long deployment, god the mind boggles.

Personally, no amount of good pension or job security etc could ever compensate me for having to live apart from my own children

me neither

Gosh Mrs Chips you are thoroughly unpleasant as well as a fool.

End of your ability to make a cogent argument, perhaps.

Some posters on this thread must be massively insecure, as all they seem able to do is attack other families choices.

And it's a seriously bad day to be having a go at Forces families. To those of you with serving family members; many thanks for all you do, and I hope those involved with the current operations and the new one announced today stay safe and do a good job.

mrschips as I said a couple of months after and you know what it is better than us having a marital breakdown, everyone need downtime. If you don't then you must be a saint. Oh and grandparents is a real treat to them as they get thourougly spoilt, do your kids never see yours, mine live so far away that it has to be overnight at least!!!!

"Ther is no way to sugar soap it up.........If you are in the services and you put your child into BS and you go where your OH goes you have put your OH before your children."

It isn't that simple as children v husband (and God, do I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall here)! It doesn't matter how loud you shout "End of", the vast majority of Service boarders are of secondary school age and are old enough to at least participate in a discussion about their education and its value thereof.

I don't know a single Forces family who took the decision to board lightly or easily.

Mrschips when my husband defends the nation I will make sure he is doing it for people who appreciate him not for you, guess you would like to see him shot as at least then I would have to be with my kids all the time!!!

LeQ sorry I was out of date by the time I posted.

Thank you for sticking with it. i think you have got some of our ishooos at least!

jcscot Im going to cook supper and leave this I don't need to justify myself to bigoted people nor should you :)

Leave Mrschips to it. I don't think she can listen and I think she has the empathy of a gnat.

Supper time here, too. Time to give the little ones a small treat to make up for the fact that Daddy isn't coming home tonight.

Extra bedtime stories all round, I think!

"empathy of a gnat."

That much, wow you're generous!