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.

PPS and "oh crap", we use the term "bog roll" in this house and I went to finishing school but must remember to wipe the coal dust from DH's brow later.

Yes, never let the word mum be said in this house.. ugh...

I'm being misrepresented by some above although it's prettty clear where it is being done.

Yes, most couples where both work do all those things, pay blls and the like.

Also all parents of both genders who work full time believe it or not bring up chdlren except we do it better not worse than the housewives on the whole, that's the only point I was making.
Of course as I have said contented parents, genes, and a host of factors determine if children (a) happy and / or (b) "do well". However family income has a big say in how children turn out and as we all know 50% of the best places at univesrity go to the 6% of children in fee paying schools. Mothers who work tend to be able to pay school fees better than housewives and most women would much prefer to earn their own money anyway than livnig off male earnings which is morally pernicious.

I don't see why people need to know what school I went to but it's not a secret. I went to a fee paying day school.

Keep it coming, keep it coming! You are such great value!

Xenia I much prefer Mum to Mummy, even though my Dad had a title: a chacun son gout. Your exclamations of heaven forfend and ugh are just funny: what lurks there that makes a modern woman like you so hung up on these things?

The 20% of Y13's at our state school who hold offers at Oxford and Cambridge show no correlation between parental income and success and, as far as the girls are concerned, no correlation between career mothers and success. Of course I realise that's micro level, but it's a start.

Was it morally pernicious for my DH to rely on a shedload of my money in the early/ middle years? Or for marrieds DH? Just give it a break and start looking at men amd women as individuals, not as two separate species, or you'll never get the hang of this equality thing.

This is just hilarious - I'm beginning to wonder if she really is for real! I used to teach at a very good (state) grammar, and the students all did very well.

I think a grown child calling their mother "mummy" sounds very babyish to me but each to their own.

As for mothers working - you really are only thinking about those couples in high income jobs. Remember the average wage is under £30 grand. If I was to go back to work we wouldn't be able to afford school fees so that part of your argument wont work for probably over half the population.

Many many many mothers do work just to keep things at home afloat. No it isn't a case of nannies and private schools, but often 2 parents who pass in the night, a lot of stress struggling to make ends meet, exhausted at the weekend.

Your argument really only works in your case, and those like you. BUt do remember the vast majority of the population are not earning in that league, many work because they have to and find the long hours for little pay very hard.

"
Also all parents of both genders who work full time believe it or not bring up chdlren except we do it better not worse than [the housewives] Stay at home parents on the whole, that's the only point I was making."

Please could you point me at the peer-revewed research (longitudinal study into adulthood, with one parent e.g. staying at home until child is 5 vs both parents working from age of 6 months would be best as it most clearly models the differences we are discussing here, rather than e.g. long term workless who remain workless after having children) which demonstrates this? My understanding is that the research on thi is equivocal, with other factors such as poverty (many families with 2 working parents are still in poverty), parental level of education etc playing a part.

Please can I be pointed in the direction of that research too Xenia?

You can't extrapolate from studies based on extremes of income. That's why looking at a micro sample from a state grammar is useful and contradicts everything you've been saying about working women like yourself being overwhelmingly more likely to produce daughters who clean up on the bulk of the top university places and then on all the top jobs in their field.

In fact, a micro study of maternal occupation at Oxford and Cambridge colleges might provide material you wouldn't like, likewise maternal occupation at the top of any competitive and academic sector such as medicine or law.

I expect there would be no more than a marginal link.

The Oxbridge college question is interesting, as I can remember the maternal
occupation for many of my female peers and friends.

• The majority were SAHMs, though all of these were also very active in voluntary educational, charity or church spheres.
• Several were employed in education e.g. teachers or lecturers.
• One was a member of the House of Lords.
• One was an engineer.
• One was a speech therapist.
• Several (principally of the medical students) were health professionals of different kinds.

I do not know whether any of the employed mothers had taken career breaks while their children were small. I do know that many of my female contemporaries from my Oxbridge college have chosen to take career breaks while their children were small, though almost all have returned to or started very successful careers again afterwards. Perhaps it indicates a self-confidence amongst these 'extremely able' women that they can choose both to devote themselves to children when they are small and then be successful again in whatever they choose to do afterwards?

The Oxbridgers are by definition exceptional people. The average among us cannot achieve as much in a career with a break of several years as we would have done without such a break.

In any event you cannot know how much the career-breakers might have achieved without a break, and how much less the non-breakers might have achieved without one.

Andrew, I entirely agree with your post - though actually I would say that us Oxbridge types are just the same as the rest. I did not say that my cohort of 'Oxbridge educated temporary SAHMs' are 'as successful' in career terms as they might have been if they took no break, just that they are still successful in 'absolute' terms.

For those of us who choose to take a career break / change to look after children, then that is a choice we make. We judge the potential 'disbenefit' to us in 'career' terms to be absolutely worthwhile.

Nobody's life has a single dimension. Career success is not a measure of happiness, nor is income a measure of happiness, success or fulfillment. I may, by staying at home when my children were young, have caused my 'career dimension' to be a different shape to that which it would have had if I had remained childless or used childcare to ensure that I could work as I did before I had children (13+ hour days, a week abroad every month).

The expansion of the other dimensions of my life (and the expansion of my children's lives and intelligences) has absolutely compensated me for this.

Does this make me 'less successful' than Xenia? Does it disadvantage my children? No, it is just different - and I respect Xenia's choices in life, I am simply asking her to respect that fact that others make choices with equal carefulness and consideration and intelligence but that are different. Not better, not worse, just different.

And roll credits.....

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/women_shealth/8711373/Supermums-more-likely-to-be-depressed.html

Princessglitter and all the other ladies of the Bar. Please advise...
I am 37, mid re-training following ten years in broadcasting. I was about to take GDL exams when I fell pregnant and horribly ill..
Stupidly, my brain loves crime - the rest is a legal blur. I have a scholarship to pay for my BPTC.
I face GDL exams with a six month old - then the prospect of a career with no cash and it appears no space for a working mother. It seems more than a little unfair. Do I give up before I even begin? Advice please!

Do you want to have more children, cakeface?

Thankyou for the advice ladies - really really appreciated. Wellwisher - i think I'll see if this one is happy and healthy first - and if the cash stretches to another one. Probably not, as it stands at the moment. babybarrister - i was on the way to the bar when the pregnancy happened. I agree re the Criminal Bar, but to give up halfway seems counter intuitive. I wonder what the advice would be to a younger woman. What else does a girl working towards a GDL do? Really stumped here.

Bumping zombie threat in the faint hope of an update!

jesus christ! why not just message the OP if you're that interested?