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.

See Xenia I agree completely with this:

"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."

and this:

"It rremains very hard for many woman to obtain positions of power even if they want them."

but not this:

"It is a political choice to play second fiddle in a servile role at home and to suggest it is personal is just wrong."

It may be a political choice in the sense that it affects others who want to be WOHM. However your solution - i.e. making women WOH even if they don't want to and don't need to - will simply have the effect of exchanging one group of unhappy women (those who want to be high flyers but find it difficult) for another group of unhappy women (those who want to be SAHMs but, under your solution, have to WOH). What is the point of that? Oh, and I don't agree that being a SAHM is servile or second fiddle - it's an equal role without which the WOHP could not function.

I do agree that in the case of some women it can be harmful if they are SAHM. For example if a woman is unhappy as a SAHM it does neither her nor her children any favours for her to SAH. But I think most women will work it out for themselves if they fall into that category and will return to work.

This popcorn is very tasty.

Yum yum. Munch munch.

More Xenia please, you're so entertaining!

Xenia,

A few points:

While I was at home, I was not a housewife, I was a mother. Please use the correct terminology to describe the job.

I have always been better than all my male peers at all the jobs I have done (admittedly, as SAHP, there was only one male peer - my OH - but as he did the role for a while my children will cheerfully state that I was better than him at it), so my choice of being a SAHM for small children was not in any way because I was 'less good than a man' - it was because I have always been the best at everything I do and wished also to be the best parent I could be.

You keep referring, incorrectly, to babies when you demean the role of a SAHM. I was only ay home with just a baby for 9 months - for the remaining 6 years, I was at home with toddlers and then young children. Most working mums take maternity leave that keeps them at home with small babies, so a woman only makes an active choice to be a SAHM with older babies, toddlers and children. I freely admit that tiny babes are boring. Toddlers and young children are endlessly interesting and the task of bringing them up and educating them is entirely different to the task of looking after a small baby.

I should also be clear that there is no one 'right' answer to the 'SAHM / WOHM' debate. It depends entirely on the family concerned and I absolutely resepct everyone's choice. It sounds as if you made the right choice for you - at least, your insecurities suggest not, but your actual words and the fact that you don't seem to like your children much suggest so - and i respect that. All I am asking is that you respect the right of others to choose differently and have their choice respected.

Xenia, does it occur to you that it is women in the poorly paid area of childcare that enable you to have your oh-so-wonderful career ? If there were no nannies who would have looked after your children while you worked ?
Without the poorly paid and stupid your amazingly glamorous and exotic lifestyle would collapse.

I would also question your point that the best thing for children is to earn a lot and send them to private school.

On other threads about private vs state schooling, the consensus seems to be that education (in its widest sense) is a partnership between a school and parents - while a very good private school may give a child all kinds of opportunities, a child may succeed just as well through even a not-great school given suitable parental support, encouragement and effort put in e.g. to transport a child to sports clubs, music etc.

I have personal experience of this through my family, in which all the children - the one who spent their entire secondary education at an outstanding private school, the one who attended a mix of schools and the one who went to an ex-secondary modern and very ordinary state sixth form - all got to Oxbridge and all ended up with top class degrees. Why? Essentially because our parents were Oxbridge graduates who ensured that our all-round education and ambition were fostered whatever our schooling.

I appreciate therefore Xenia, that given your children's education in the home from their earliest years has been in the hands of low-paid carers, that the best option for you has been to place them in a good private school to compensate. On the other hand, because my son had been at home with a highly educated and very interested mum, always available to answer every question he chose to ask, he could e.g. read fluently, read 7 digit numbers, and add and subtract 2 and 3 digit numbers mentally before he started school, and work with negative numbers while in Reception. Despite now working, because I remain 'child centred', any potential deficiencies in his school education can easily be rectified through availability of out-of-school clubs (he plays sport to an exceptionally high level and is an able musician) and through interested discussion. Again, I respect parents who make either kind of choice - but again, there is no universal 'right' answer.

This is intersting because these God like housewives seem to think they and only they on the planet can make little Johnny into a genius. These women always seem to lack the humility to accept they might be worse than a nanny or the chidlren's father or gradn parents at child care and that the child might benefit from childcaer from a number of different people.

I don't accept the housewife is an equal role without which the working parent cannot function. Working mothers function with full time working husbands. Yes you need low paid low grade skills to dust a house, wash shirts and entertain toddlers when they aren't in nursery school or big school and someone dull enough to do a lot of driving around and collection of chidlren day in day out but that doesn't mean that person is key to the spouse earning £1m a year. It just means those services need to be outsourced to someone.

Munch munch munch.

Keep it coming Xenia, you're priceless!

"It just means those services need to be outsourced to someone"

Who, exactly ? When we're all in our Xenia-encouraged super careers ?
Your brand of feminism is hilarious, Xenia. I bet you don't pay your cleaner/nanny/gardener/whatever any more than minimum wage, do you ? Don't care about the little people, as long as you get ahead. I would love to know what salary you pay your cleaner.

My children did have childcare from different people - he went to pre-school from the age of 2.5. Shock, horror - a state funded village pre-school. Totally brilliant care and socialisation for 2.5 hours per day, exactly what he needed at that age.

And when I said that I was exceptionally good at every job I have ever done, I mean childcare as much as my paid first, second and third careers. Without doing nannies down, none that I have met have the same level of education that I have - and as a bright 4 year old's conversation can easily spin off into quantum mechanics, evolution, religious belief, ancient history, Latin and a deep knowledge of paleontology I have found a surprising amount of my education useful in conversation with my children. DH was a SAHP for a while - while I did my final teaching practice - but frankly I'm better at it. And the grandparents, all being highly educated and - despite my mother having been a SAHM when we were small - having chosen to be still very gainfully and enjoyably employed in their 70s, weren't available!

I am very sorry for your children that you regard their upbringing as a 'low grade skill' to be compared with ironing. I understand that you, if you were at home, would be a housewife, as you focus solely on those 'running the house' skills and attach no importance to the children. Luckily, SAHMs aren't housewives in the same way, as their focus is on their children.

I really struggle with your priorities. It is important that you earn a lot, and that your OH earns a lot ... I presume because earning a lot makes you happy ... but your children's upbringing is NOT important or valuable to you, except that small part of it which takes place in school in which case you siddenly want 'the best'. Your children will outlive you and your riches - what can be better than investing time and thought and love as well as money into their future rather than focusing solely on what you as an individual can achieve for today?

Grin. She's barking!

Teacherwith2 - looks like I might be following in your footsteps a little. I was Oxbridge educated, and since got a first with an OU degree. Certainly not short of a braincell! Hopefully I will keep mine as stimulated as you have in the future - sounds like you're doing a fab job :)

In my case hubby doesn't earn a lot but in our situation we wanted to create a good family with the best start we could and for us that meant me being a SAHM and I don't regret it! If I was to go back to teaching p/t it would bring in something like £16 grand I suspect, not £100!!

emsies,

What matters, in the end, is that you are happy and fulfilled and that your children are happy and fulfilled. Everyone has a different route to achieve that - in fact most people will have several routes they could take to achieve that and chance may well affect the one they take. Good luck!

(My first teaching salary was exactly the same as my first management trainee salary, almost 20 years' previously - butr I get happiness and fulfilment from being exceptionally good at something, not from any monetary reward that comes along with it)

Xenia there is a lot that can be outsourced, if you have the money. (And I agree that keeping small DC entertained is one of them). But there is a lot that can't - even with loads of money.

Looking after the DC when the nanny is ill. Looking after the DC when the child is ill and wants a parent not the nanny (however much they love their nanny). Interviewing nannies. Visiting potential nurseries and schools. Supermarket shopping. Remembering what the DCs need to have in their school bag, permission slips etc. Buying the DCs clothes. Dealing with utility companies. Dealing with the boiler breaking down, or the roof leaking, or the car breaking down. Dealing with the child who is miserable at school and being bullied. Talking to the DC about their GSCE/A Level/university choices. Talking to the DC about sex/friendships/drugs/whatever. Looking after aged parents. There are loads of things that you just can't outsource.

PS and I hope this doesn't sound patronising, but Xenia I do admire the way the way you come back and argue your case, despite receiving flak from all sides. Others would be whining about being bullied by now, but not you.

Just wish you would concede on your less good points so as not to undermine the very good ones!

This thread reminds me of The Mousetrap of which it is said that that the size of the theatre and the theatre-going population is such that it can rjn for ever!

I don't see that Xenia argues her case, she merely tries to grind down opposition by repetition, which makes me seriously doubt her intelligence.

On that subject Xenia, you've just made another groundless assumption. I personally have never had a game plan to turn my own little Johnies into geniuses and I'm very unpushy (or lazy). I'm far from convinced that genius = happiness, which I rate far higher. Mine are clever enough but that's neither the reason for my being at home or the result of it.

I think the single greatest harm you do to your cause is your insistence on using the term 'housewife'.

What was your own education, Xenia? I'm still curious and wondering if your offensive putting down of content and successful SAHM's is the product of (clearly unnecessary) social or educational chips that you're trying to work out of your system.

At what point does a thread become so long it has to die?

999 messages

That's disappointing.

My popcorn's run out. Anyone for hotdog?

Apologies, I am guilty of letting Xenia's particular ... style ... get in the way of the point that I wished to make.

Xenia has stated that the 'best / most successful' way of bringing up and educating children is to outsource childcare from the earliest age to a low paid, potentially poorly educated (and in her view low-skilled) childcare worker. When the child is school aged, they should then be sent to the 'best' (by which she means most expensive, as in her world view money = quality) private school. At no point should a parent be actively involved except for a short period of 'play' for babies (children have never been mentioned, I presume they do homework before going to bed) and as money-providers.

I wanted to make the point that there are other successful ways of bringing up and educating children, which share the responsibilities for upbringing and education more equally between an intelligent, loving and time-rich parent and a school (which could be equally excellent but of a different type).

Other families will have equally successful models that result in equally happy, successful and fulfilled adults and children.

Also entirely agree with Yellowstone that the main criteria for success in bringing up children should be the long term happiness / contentment / personal fulfilment of all concerned.

I do not mean that in the weak 'it doesn't matter as long as they are happy' sense. I mean it in the strong 'deep, long term contentment and satisfaction' sense that transcends the occasional bad day when the baby yells all day, or the period of hard slog that precedes and is required for success in an exam or a work project.

In this sense, I am happy. My children are happy. My OH is happy.

And if in Xenia's case, she, the father(s) of her children and all her children are also deeply content with their lot in life, then that is sufficient justification for her choices in life.

It does not mean that other families would be happy if they took the same choices. There are many alternatives.

I've spent too long on facebook ... I'm looking for the "like" button for teacherwith2's last 2 posts!

Two observations, so many responses after I tried to close a thread when so often I have said something really really provocative and the thread has died.

Secondly and, as my 16 year old would say, "ROFL", Xenia you said the success of the children was dependent on family incomes and that 100k of income was worth more than a SAHM. Darling, I gave up a 100k to support a DH. Had I not given up work at the stage I did, I think we would now probably have a joint family income of about 250k. The 100k I gave up has, I believe, been quadrupled at least, especially in recent years .

PS: Our children call me mum .

married that is (sort of) the decision I am in the process of making. Stay in well paid job myself... or support DH so that he can stay in his job even after we have DCs.... bearing in mind his job is much better paid than mine and has the potential to be much, much better paid.

Unlike Xenia I do not believe that it is possible for us both to stay in our well paid jobs. The hours are far too long. They are much longer now than they were when Xenia was establishing her career. And there is too much that cannot be outsourced. Something has to give. Either we don't have DCs (not an option)... or DH downgrades his career so that I can continue mine (which is an option, but not one which will be most financially beneficial) ... or I downgrade my career so that DH can continue his (looking best so far, also happens to coincide with what we both want to do).

PS my mum also does not like being called "mum". Just like she doesn't like the words "toilet", "lounge" and "pardon"...