To consider retraining as a barrister?

[princessglitter]

I am a teacher in middle management with a fairly secure, reasonably satisfying career. I have always dreamed of a career in the law. Originally I considered becoming a solicitor, doing a conversion course and going down the LPC route.

However, at the last minute, I lost my nerve and pulled out of my college course. The idea of that amount of debt was horrifying to me.

I trained as a teacher, but has always felt unfulfilled if I'm honest. As I've got older, the idea of retraining as a barrister has become more appealing, but I am acutely aware that so many fall by the wayside. I have secured a mini-pupillage this summer, which I am extremely excited about. I am also going to apply for vacation schemes at solicitors' firms to enable me to make an informed decision.

I do have a strong academic background and an Oxbridge 2.1 - but I know that that alone will not be enough.

Am I unreasonable to take a risk (with my husband's support) and consider a career in the law? Possibly as a barrister, but I intend to research this thoroughly with some real experience in both areas and different specialisms.

Marsha I'm aware it's the holidays. Eight kids.

Xenia I've had eight close together and have never had help with the children and only very sporadic cleaning help too. None now. I do find cleaning and shopping and cooking a bore but if I could distil and measure the quality of our life it would be far poorer had I gone out to work. I concede that may be in great part because of the size of the family I've had. I could probably have combined work with fewer children and by outsourcing cleaning and care, but I'd have struggled hugely with eight.

We've lived for years in a very small house, three to a room, but in an exceptionally beautiful place. The secondary age children all go to or have been to an outstandingly good school. They all say they like their home, their life and having lots of siblings. I'm fairly sure they wouldn't swap their student debt for the childhood they've had if that had involved my not being a constant at home. I don't find it material enough to dictate their mother's choice, nor do they.

It's not necessary to be bored or boring. I happen to work in term time in unpaid work which is extremely interesting to me. It doesn't buy the children the latest clothes or a palatial house or private school fees or foreign holidays but what you don't appear to grasp is that once women have made their choice then there is plenty of scope to arrange that life to make it as full and interesting as the world of work might have been.

I quite liked Balamory but I loathe peekaboo.

I knew that post was coming. I knew as I typed it - definitely am ready for a break from the holidays, last day then dh off. Hence too much on mm today.

Anyway of course there are loads of happy, fulfilled sahms. Mn is full of them which is why I welcome a different view point. Nothing any one posts on here makes me feel defensive about my choices even if it's a different way.

Well then you asked for it didn't you Marsha! (It's only seven actually, silly mistake, one's gone to China).

No-one content with their choice needs to defend it as the only route to salvation. That's what Xenia does. I do the exact opposite. You don't seem to have taken that in.

I get that Xenia won't move from her view point it, it's now one of those things on here I quite like.

And yes, I did ask for it. But it's four o'clock and ds2 is finally asleep. Finally!

I only have two children Xenia and a three and a half year gap. When they were tiny I was never bored. We have a huge house and it was always tidy and usually I had done all the jobs by 9.30am (have a cleaner for the heavy stuff so only really tidying and a bit of laundry for me). We were usually in the park at 10 for a good walk and a romp, we had a play date once a week usually at least and as the first got older had more structure with a singing group and a toddler morning. And I loved it and made two of my closest friends that way, a nuclear physicist and a young doctor (now a consultant paediatrician at our local hospital). I will add though that I was at that time governor of a large failing secondary school in South London and as a result of a formal complaint I was appointed to a formal health related body for my area became the vice chair of it and sat on the maternity liaison committee for the district - and achieved the appointment of one of the country's first breast feeding counsellors hired to train m/wives and h/visitors. The nanny of a local family helped out when I had meetings and the LA paid for my childcare to attend them. It's different horses for different courses Xenia and had I been able I would have loved four or five children but after five pregnancies and three births that was never going to happen for us. What I don't understand is if you find babies and childcare so boring, why on earth did you have five? I had my me time for reading etc., in the afternoons from 2.30 - 4 when ds had his sleep.

I said I adore an hour two with them as most men do and plenty of women. It's just doing it all the time must be very boring.

Also it's always the women doing all this and plenty of them don't adore it despite what this thread suggests but they get pushed into it because they wouldn't earn mroe than childcare or they were brought up to think women should stay at home or they marry a man who wants them at home.

Anyway if we're all content with our choices then we can be content but listen to other points of view. It's one of the good things about the internet, you hear other view points. I've never read a single comment by a parent at home that ever made me wish I had given up work.

Xenia I doubt very much that even comments from your own children would persuade you otherwise.

They have never suggested I should give up work.

Homework for today then, Xenia. How about you ask them. 'Would you prefer mummy to spend more time with you or would you prefer mummy to carrying on working all hours and spending far too long on mumsnet?'. It's only fair. You've generalised so much on here, and in the process insulted many women - how about you ask your children what THEY would have wanted you to do. After all, they have had the supreme benefit of being raised by a WOHM mum with such staunch 70s dinosauresque feminist views. They will of course say: mum, we don't want to see you much, we're much happier when you're not around, you're so boring - how can we bear to have a mum around who can't be bothered to sing to us.

You, after all have branded raising your children full time as boring (even though you have never actually done it). You will surely be able to take whatever they might throw at you.

That sounds like a fixed referendum question. Most of the arguments are always about how the question is phrased. Some of the children have given interviews about working mothers so I know their views.

it is boring to be with babies 24./7. Most women with under 5s and men work in the UK and always have and that's part of the reason. Even if they don't work if they can afford it they find help with it. My youngest are almost leaving prep school so the issues are totally different but I certainly think they have hugel benefited from having working parents.

They certiainly would never call me mum though... heaven forfend.

It is boring in your opinion Xenia and your opinion is not the only one that matters. How can a successful woman who has reached the top cope without other men and women performing menial tasks on behalf of her and the rest of her family. Somebody has to clean the lavatory, make the lunch, care for the children (I hope you wouldn't suggest that your children's part-time classics teacher at their fantastically brilliant independent school is boring because she works for about 16k and part-time), act as midwives, do the plumbing, do the decorating. A little respect for other people and the situations in which they find themselves, some very happily. I find it very difficult to imagine how you became so successful with you apparent lack of empathy and emotional intelligence.

I am bowing out of this thread now because it has lost it's point of advising Princess Glitter and I hope she is OK and busy preparing for the new future she has chosen. I really hope that best wishes for Princess Glitter are what ends this thread.

I think PG has long since gone....But yes, best of luck.

But Xenia(apologies married):

1. All of my children call me 'Mum'. I'm their mother. What's the problem with that?

1. I had four under five and didn't work and had no help. Looking after the children didn't bore me and I'm as educated as you and I believe (on the basis of your contributions here and elsewhere) rather cleverer too.

1. My childrens' outcomes haven't been trumped by those of yours and apart from a small wodge of student debt which they'll pay off on very fair terms you've failed to point to a single real disadvantage that my not working has brought to mine or to a single real advantage that your working has brought to yours.

1. And apart from saying that you appear to be a colossal, crashing, tedious, small-minded and unimaginitive bore (for which there is clear evidence on the thread and countless other threads too), I've been steadfastly polite. You on the other hand have called me (and others like me) thick, with thick children and a whore (I think you'd be scratching around for evidence on all three counts if you specifically targeted me).

That's right Xenia, you just don't have the guts to ask YOUR OWN CHILDREN what they think of YOUR LIFESTYLE and how IT AFFECTS THEM. what a cop out. And it totally undermines everything you have to say if you can't bring yourself to ask them.

Mum, maybe not. Crashing bore as described earlier, certainly.

Can't understand why anyone's still bothering to engage with 'Xenia'...

Point taken. Signing off b

I ask them all the time. We talk about everything. Full time working fathers and mothers can be very close to their children believe it or not. They are very pro my working. Why would they not be? Most women and men work and children benefit hugely from that.

Life is not a competition to produce a kind of child although that is another area where some over achieving stay at home mothers yet again damage a child as they are seeking to produce a perfect finished product and their all goes into the child and they treat it like a work product. That's orobably abotu item 75 on the list of 100 reasons why children are damaged by having a housewife as mother. There are many more.

Do you recognise your childrenXenia as you seem to spend little time with them

You are actually now saying that children are damaged by having a SAHM!?!?

How would my daughter be better off at 2 and a half by me going back into teaching, her going into institutional care and us barely making more than it will cost to have her there?

This way in her early years she will form a secure attachment (with me) and we have both enjoyed watching her grow and develop. Yes it is jolly hard work and yes I would love a cleaner, but nothing would give me back the lovely time I've had with her!

There was a recent study referred to in the Economist that said that boys with working mums did the same as those with stay at home mums - and girls whose mums worked did better.
Here it is.
Not my opinion but found it interesting reading. Sure it is flawed as these things always are - I think it depends on the personalities of the child, mother, and childcare chosen in my view.

Yes, of course emsies. Why not? Working mothers are told every day how they damage their children but we k now it's not true. There are at leat 100 reasons why children are much better with working mothers. If I can convert even one I will have done my work.

The press never say it. Have you ever seen an article - housewives damage children or children of working mothers do best and yet it's the truth and yet round the country we have loads of martyr housewive mothers who don't like the loss of status and being taken for granted by their chidlren and husband doing boring jouse stulff all day or holding a crying baby 24/7 and their only supposed comfort is it is better. Yet it isn't better. It just suits their parents society and their husbands to con them into thinking they are doing the right thing.

I've done quite a bit of research on this in the past and it appears the most important thing in the first few years of life is a secure attachment bond with a primary caregiver. In our case that was me, and I suspect in many cases a caring mother is often well placed for this - in the case of someone who is wealthy that will be a good nanny.

However if I was back at work while my daughter was a toddler it would just be a nursery and I can't for the life of me see how that would be better for her than being at home in my case! Not even if I squint and try and see that one differently. It isn't as if it would make much economic difference to family, and she will get input/socialisation at pre-school.

Once the children are at school I fully intend to go back into teaching (A level psychology and philosophy) and will enjoy the stimulation of work (possibly part time if we can afford it) as well as being a mum.

Still can't see how it could be damaging for me to stay at home while little though - all research I've read seems to suggest it would be positive in my situation (non neglectful, non abusive, well educated background etc).

I respect others choices completely, even those with differing values to mine, but am actually shocked anyone would think being a sahm for the important first few years would be damaging short of in an abusive situation!!

Damaging indeed, my Aunt Fanny.

Xenia your kids have turned out the same as any number of other kids at their school, they certainly don't seem to have outstripped loads of kids of SAHMs even those with a vastly lower income and with state education like mine, which is interesting.

The crusade was over years ago, thanks to others. 'Your work'? Bollocks. You're justifying your own choices, don't big it up.

Nothing exceptional about you or yours except that you seem much more deeply insecure than the rest of us.

Please tell me what's so offensive about kids calling their mother 'Mum'. I'm pretty posh btw (because I know you have a thing about accents and class).

Mummy is what we say but people use different words.
The basic points are that the best indicator of childhood outcomes is family income. Therefore the best thing a mother can do is earn say £100k plus and send the children to the best day private schools.

However the most important issue which is not relevant to this thread is that children most of all want happy parents, not moaners so of course some children of houewives and house husbands do fine. A lot is down to genetics too.

However it remains the case that there is nothing like the right amount of publicity in the press putting the case for chidlren doing better if mother works and it is about time it was out there. It rremains very hard for many woman to obtain positions of power even if they want them. Even at the lower income end we had a huge number of very important equal pay cases in the North ni the last 2 years. Women have hardly begun to be where they are entitled to be and every woman who becomes a housewife makes that process harder. It is a political choice to play second fiddle in a servile role at home and to suggest it is personal is just wrong.

They call you Mummy and you object to Mum! Wow, snob! I assumed they at least called you 'Xenia'.

I conduct the entire orchestra Xenia, I'd never accept second fiddle.

£100,000 gross wouldn't cover day school fees for my family and they go to as good a school as yours, better in many respects.

I think you're struggling to justify your choice, this isn't political but it's certainly inimical to freedoms hard won on our behalf a couple of decades ago.

Did your own mother work Xenia and did you go to private school?