To not want my daughters' primary school to run a Nail Club (fingernail painting)?

[Bodkin]

It's one of the official after-school clubs. All the girls want to go. It's so popular they've had to limit it to years 5 & 6.

I've nothing against nail varnish, just think it's not a suitable primary school club and the time could be better used.

I really want to say YANBU - how can they limit the social sphere of girls in this way?

But then I wonder what I'd really rather do after work one night a week given the choice? Go to the educational and very worthwhile entrepreneur club or sit and have a girly chat and paint my nails all pretty. I therefore realise IABU.

OK. And there's something wrong with beautiful nails? And there's something wrong with introducing the concept of what has become a very good small business? Perhaps you would prefer a thousand ways to wear a Kaftan and weave lentils? If the school had started a "young doctors club" you would be concerned? Rather more girl will enter the beauty and leisure industry I think than will become doctors.

My sister is a nail technician.
She also has a history degree and was going to study law until her first dtwins were born. Her husband had an affair and walked out.
She had severe PND. She was depressed for a long time. She tried to get back into studying but it was very expensive.

So she is now a mobile nail technician and studying to be a legal secretary. Her plan is to go to law school when DCs are older so she is saving now.

Theres no need to judge a person by the job they choose to do as you have no idea who they really are. Even if you think a nail technician is a joke and beneath contempt, my sister is the most amazing woman I know.

Of course being a nail technician isn't equivalent to a chemistry gcse, but neither does following a solely academic and intellectual route make you a well rounded person.

How many brain surgeons and rocket scientist are on MN? And of those, how many paint their nails? The notion that beauty=thick/shallow/inferior is infuriating.

Not every girl in my daughters school has the capacity to take chemistry to A level, let alone degree level. But some could make a good living as nail technicians, earn some money and get some job satisfaction and self esteem.

So what do you do? Curl your lip and sneer at everyone who isn't on route to Oxbridge?

Believe me, if your child is en route to a Noble science prize then a nail painting class at primary school is NOT going to derail her. I am just glad I didn't have a cats bum faced mother pouring scorn over every childish and ultimately utterly harmless activity I fancied.

Organise another club if you don't like it.

humph my mother was a ballerina, then a model. What she taught me about grooming and presentation I'm quite sure got me my first job in the City. If I hadn't been the girl she made me I wouldn't have got the break.

We are talking about primary age children - 9/10/11 . No one is suggesting that Nail Art isn't a great career for an adult, I don't think.

Yes, they are not 4 or 5. At that age you decide what they do. After 7 they are capable of exercising some free choice.

Seriously, its not middle class kryptonite, nor will it lead them to a life of pole dancing or tattoos.

Some snobbery going on here I think. I wanted to do lots of irritating crap when I was 9. Thank god I had a mum who let me. That's how I learned a whole bunch of stuff. And still got a degree.

Yes, but did you do the irritating crap in an afterschool club?

"neither does following a solely academic and intellectual route make you a well rounded person."

Why not? I know some academic and intellectual types who are well-rounded people, despite having no apparent interest in popular culture, fashion/beauty or any pastimes which don't require intelligence (not including myself here BTW!)

"Rocket scientist" is a mythical job title so there won't be any on MN. Might be a few aerospace engineers though?

Can't remember. But if you are so worried about what one club a week is going to do to your daughters sense of self, you are over reacting.

My daughter has been a fan of make up, leli Kelli shoes etc for a worrying long time. Do I pout and force her into robust hessian undergarments?

No. I educate her in many other ways. I expose her to as many different views, activities as I can. That, in my view, is a far more effective strategy than making something forbidden fruit.

Like I say, you don't like a club, you and other like minded mothers can organise something you consider more worthy and less corrupting. instead of complaining about someone giving up her time for free.

I'm not against my children having their nails painted. It's not forbidden fruit. There is no snobbery. But I don't feel it's a suitable afterschool club.

If my teachers had been more in tune with popular culture and that includes grooming I might have been more inclined to be academic and to listen to them. Did I want to wear a tweed suit and brogues and have a very frumpy hairstyle? Nooooooo!

My mother was a wild child - she taught me well and passed on nouse. My MIL was a well behaved school teacher who became a frustrated, bitter and well behaved and worthy deputy primary school head. Guess whose daughters rebelled and have never held down a decent job, looked after themselves or conformed. I appear to conform, but actually I don't. They appear not to conform but actually do.

What spero said. All of it.

Hang on. I'll just go an tell DD that she must paint her nails in order to awaken her inner goddess and spend some time rejoicing in her feminity. She'd rather be riding a horse but hey...

Sorry. I forgot the

9 year olds chose they wanted to paint their nails? HOLD TIGHT KIDS IT'S THE PATRIARCHY AT WORK. MEN ARE TRYING TO SEXUALISE THEM BECAUSE NAILS ARE SEXUAL AND EVEN THOUGH THEY CHOSE TO PAINT THEIR NAILS THEY DIDN'T REALLY CHOOSE BECAUSE OF REASOBS. ALSO LIPSTICK COLOURS YOUR LIPS TO LOOK LIKE A VAGINA PATRIARCHY BRRRAAAGHHHH

If you let your daughters paint their nails, they will get pregnant and die.

I loved painting my nails when 9yrs- my older cousin used to do it for me. I have never done it as a adult-it was just fun at the time.