Having a sibling far out weights being privately educated?

[tryingtobemarypoppins2]

AIBU??

Pretty much anything outweighs private education.

It's nothing but a massive confidence trick played on gullible parents in order to extract an obscene amount of money from them.

The real arena for social and career advancement is when they are expected to do internships. A parent is far, far wiser to save up for when they'll need food and shelter whilst they're expected to work for free.

If a parent has spent it all on a private education beforehand then they may as well have thrown the money down the toilet.

I don't think it is sad at all to make a decision to have just the one if private education is very important to you.

Personally I don't believe you need a reason to not have a child, you only need reasons to have them.

Everyone has different priorities.

Fantastic most parents able to pay school fees will also pay for tertiary education and support while in internships (they will also secure the best internships).

The majority of parenst however will not be in a position to do any of these things.

I love the way that people do something and think it best for everyone!
Some people hate their siblings. I would rather have more than one and state education but seeing as I would still use state education with one I'm not the person to ask and get a balanced view! I can see that some people would rather have school fees and one DC and why not?

Not really an AIBu. It's your opinion, which you are entitled to. BBut YABU if you expect everyone else to think the same.

see, a quick search shows that the OP has more than one child so it would be interesting to know the context behind the question. This is possibly about someone elses choices? Ultimately I think it's unfair to suggest that anotehr person should have more than one child - whatever their reasons.

As a basic question I think getting hung up on private education is really silly. Choosing the size of your family based upon what you can afford is not.

@wordfactory

• if it's a choice between sibling or private education, we're talking about someone with a finite amount of money.

Someone who's probably being led to believe that private education in its own right is a magic ticket. Which it isn't.

If we never had another child, I still would not send DD to private school.

My reasoning is that if she goes to the local school here, she will build up a network of friends in the neighbourhood. These kind of friendships have lasted my DH and his siblings their entire lives so far, and I would love my DD to have that. I never did as I went to a school further away.

If a child will succeed at school, they will do so anywhere. If not, well, education is not the be all and end all, in my opinion.

I can understand flapperghasted's post. The use of the word 'sibling' clearly indicates the important of having brother's and sisters, of being brought up in a group of siblings rather than 'alone'.

I think those people who choose to have one child or can only have one often feel criticised by the view that only children grow up as selfish loners who have difficulty in groups and will have to bear the burden of their elderly parents all alone. It is hard not to feel like you are damaging your children when this view bandied about.

If you have to ask the question then I suspect you are not too bothered about having more children therefore what is wrong with saying that you just want the one.

I must be living in another world

I would have happily swapped my sister for a private education as she was and still is an utter nightmare.
Needless to say, my DS is an only and very likely to stay that way. I do sometimes worry that he will have all the responsibility of DH and I in years to come but having a sibling is no guarantee of help - my sister hasn't been in contact with our parents for years, so it will be down to me anyway (which I have no problem with, I hasten to add).

Amazed at how many people here are unhappy with their siblings. I'm in the same boat but was always afraid to voice how I felt about my brother. But then if you don't do it on an anonymus internet forum where would you do it!

I would LOVE to have three or four children but I doubt we could afford to. We only have one at the moment and whether we could afford private education for two is one of the concerns that I have when I consider having another. I'm an only and hated my experience at my comprehensive in London.

A range of issues meant that only one child was sensible for us. A side effect of that decision was that we were able to choose a private school that is very different to what is offered in the State sector. This really suits my DD and she thrives there.
This helps to mitigate the guilt I feel over the inability to provide DH with the cricket team he originally wanted. Very often it is really quite complex, certainly the case with the other singletons in DD's class.

Many thanks for such interesting views on this question. I meant it as just thatm a question really.

Many of my friends are currently pondering about having their first baby, second or third and the one concern they all have is about the cost of living and having the option to choose different education if they need to/want to. We have a very mixed range of state/private education locally but equally the cost of housing locally has rocketed. This I think has focused many of us on the question of "how many children can I afford".

Its also hard as many of our first borns are about to start school and so the choice of state or private has suddenly popped up and there is a feeling (I feel this) that those who can afford private are giving their child something better than I am.....and if we have more children I can't have the option of changing to private and therefore not giving my child the best, as I have chosen to put my feelings of wanting another baby first..... BUT as many have said having a sibling can be wonderful....

flapperghasted's post - I am sorry but I really don't understand what you are upset about. In fact not a single post has said being an only child is wrong etc???

Once again really interesting views, thank you......

I suspect flapperghasted feels a little upset to read that there are some only children on here who were sad to not have siblings. It is something many parents of only children worry about at times, especially when the choice has been taken out of their hands.

But then there are also only children on here who have been happy to be so, and others with siblings who don't like them. So, as I said before - you never can tell.

I had dd and was planning for her to go to a private school. I was never having any more children (single parent) so for me I could afford it. Never wanted any more children, one was more than enough for me, felt so lucky when some people are not lucky enough to have been able to have any, my dd could not have been more loved/cherished/adored.

Then her brother makes a suprise appearance and seeing the two fo them together you could not put a price on.

I am of the opinion that if you have a good education then you can do anything you want to, whether you chose to use that education is then up to you rather than not having any choice. Having said that I went to state schools but I found things easy peasy, didn't have to try it just came easily to me so think I would have done well anywhere given the encouragement and support of the schools that I had.

I would rather we lived on beans on toast as a family of three than a gourmet dinner for two any day of the week. Having said that, it still grates when we go to Haven insted of Centre Parcs

I am prepared to go out on a limb and say I find it completely repugnant that anyone would choose not to have a second child based entirely on whether or not you could afford private education. Basically it sounds as if you are saying it would be better not to be born than to be state educated. Which, if you think about it for a nano second can't possibly be what you mean. I hope.

I think you're wilfully misunderstanding seeker. A parent might choose to give additional material benefits for a child who exists rather than bring another person into existence.

I've chosen not to have six children for many practical reasons, but that doesn't mean that I think it's better to be dead than to travel around in a minivan or share a room with two siblings or have a mother with no career.

So do you think no-one should consider any economic impact of having a child seeker? Because I know people who have chosen not to have another child because they don't have a spare bedroom for example and people tend not to turn a hair at that logic, but when you put it as 'it would be better to have not been born than to share a bedroom with your sibling' it sounds about the same. Where do you draw the line? Because you're sounding dangerously close to wanting to ban all contraception with your line of reasoning.

Seeker I know of a couple who have chosen not to have number 3 because they wouldn't be able to privately educate them. They aren't sure if they could continue to meet the fees for the older two, but are pretty sure they can't afford 3 sets of fees so no more babies.

So for them it is a case of private school or don't have the baby.

Yeah my mum was an only and she found it sufforcating. My first child was an only til she was 12 and she was dying for a sibling or two ( which I duly gave her ) I think meh to private education personally, but that's cos I know a) quite a few privately educated people who can't spell simple words, and b) a teacher who works at a private school and says that our kids at a state school get a far better education. She says the only thing that's almost always better in private schools is the food.

So do you think no-one should consider any economic impact of having a child seeker? Because I know people who have chosen not to have another child because they don't have a spare bedroom for example and people tend not to turn a hair at that logic, but when you put it as 'it would be better to have not been born than to share a bedroom with your sibling' it sounds about the same. Where do you draw the line? Because you're sounding dangerously close to wanting to ban all contraception with your line of reasoning."

How on earth did you get from me thinking it's outrageous to think "it would be better not to b born then to go to state school" to I want to ban all contraception?
if you can't afford to feed and clothe a child then should of course think carefully about having one. And if you don't yearn and long for a child you shouldn't have one. But if you yearn and long for a child and decide not to have one because you can't afford to give it it's own room or a private education, then that shows a very skewed sense of priorities.

Surely, Seeker, people make these economic judgments all the time: they just don't talk about it.

I might have liked having 7 children, but I drew the line at two. Money was one factor: we did not have more children than I thought we could afford to take travelling to Sweden once a year to visit relatives and keep in touch with our roots- this to me is very very important. But if you put it as "it would be better not to be born than not to have foreign holidays" it sounds far worse than the state school argument.

People aren't going to have the same priorities, life isn't like that. And it's always going to sound absolutely brutal when you spell it out. I also didn't have more children because I didn't think I'd get too tired- now try couching that one in terms of "it is better not to be born"...

Reminds me of the chorus of Die Frau ohne Schatten where all the unborn children lament their fate. There's an awful lot of them...

People's ideas about feeding and clothing vary hugely - for some it's eating out often and designer labels, for others it's value food and whatever can be afforded from the charity shop for most it's somewhere in the middle, but we probably all have a slightly different threshold. Arguably with our benefits system, no-one can't afford to feed and clothe a child in some way in the UK. So that just leaves the yearning element of your argument, before contraception becomes taboo. Yearning is a very important consideration to be sure, but again there is a spectrum of degrees of it from the 'I can't possibly live without another child', to I'd really rather like another, or I know I'd love it to pieces if I had one, but I can also be happy without. I still think you are dangerously close to mandating as many children as possible for all with your arguments.