To think that there is nothing wrong with being a "pushy" mum

[CliftonGirl]

Just that really. I used to be a "relaxed" mum with DS1 which I regret, but thankfully I switched to a "pushy" mode when he was in year four. As a result he moved from a bottom-middle set to a super selective grammar and doing brilliantly. I am very pushy with the younger DCs.

I've noticed a lot of people on mumsnet think that we are still in the 20th century and you can get to Oxbridge from a mediocre school without much effort. AIBU to think that the world is much more competitive now and there is no choice but to push DC to achieve?

Ps, English is not my first language, so please don't flame me for the spelling mistakes.

how many parents do you actually know who think that there is a socio-economic payoff to playing an instrument?

Well, the OP for a start, who has been very blunt about the fact that she believes learning an instrument will give her DCs a strategic advantage by the time that they are 'competing' for university education, which she sees as a conduit to a middle class profession. Other posters have expressed similar views.

Well, my dd and her friends make a small fortune busking- is that what you mean?

Heads - that is hardly a socio economic payoff.

In any case, MN is full of parents giving advice about how to make DCs more 'attractive' to uni admissions or prospective employers. I'm talking about MFLs, Duke of Edinburgh, volunteering etc. But as soon the advice has MC connotations then the sound of rolling eyes is most audible.

My ability to play instruments kept me in funds throughout my time at uni - busking, paid gigs, pit work, bit of teaching. :)

Actually though there is apparently research that studying an instrument as a child helps develop the brain. www.effectivemusicteaching.com/articles/directors/18-benefits-of-playing-a-musical-instrument/

But I don't think that's why most people do music, really. There is one family we know where the kids are forced to do music and utterly hate it. But that's the only family we know like that.

There's certainly no kudos in being good at music at either of the secondary schools my kids attend. It's slightly different at the primary school but not much. All very different from my youth - I went to a school where music was THE thing. These days Govian attitudes are more prevalent (although for my old school music is still The Thing lucky old them).

" But as soon the advice has MC connotations then the sound of rolling eyes is most audible."

I don't understand this.

There is a real cultural divide, which is not constructed on class grounds, around music. There are a lot of posh people who think it's a waste of time.

As Russian says playing an instrument has been shown to help children with school work. Also it can be difficult and taxing your brain with difficult stuff can be good. It also shows employers that you can stick with something - you practise for years to get to grade 8 on most instruments.

Hobbies can help as when you have day long assessments for jobs if you can get beyond the paper application stage you will be mixing with people all day long and want to find things in common with them. If you have a wide range of interests that assists. I sing and play the piano because I like it. However there are some work things I've done where there are for some reason a lot of singers (probably because of the types of schools and middle class backgrounds of those people) although I doubt it's earned me asingle extra penny but perhaps it gives you something in common. My older one got talking on an assessment day about horses (she spent her teens show jumping) and the person she was chatting to kept and bred horses. I am sure she was there because of her mostly As in exams but I don't think it did any harm to have a common hobby. Skiing is another one - when people are chatting at work if you can find something you do and they do that helps. I even found having a baby at age 22 was helpful in my younger career as the older people with whom I mixed, customers etc tended to have children so it was a common bond we had whereas my contemporaries who tended to have babies at 38, not 22 did not have that.

I would simply advise that education is about giving children enthusiasms for life, not just exam results. If you expose them to a range of hobbies they can then choose which they enjoy. If it's not the same as you that's fine too - none of us really want to produce production line clones which would be terribly dull. One of mine is now playing lacrosse for England. All 5 turned me down last year when I suggested we all entered a day of choral singing and that's fine - obviously it might have been lovely had all 5 enthusiastically agreed but I don't want clones and I want them to find what they like and in a sense I succeed if they are different from me.

I think the best thing is for DCs to have lots of opportunities to discover all the wonderful activities and interests that humans throughout the world use their mind and bodies to enjoy themselves. I am a huge fan of the traditional American summer camp and made sure DD got to go at the earliest opportunity. She is going for the second time this summer. There are some 60 activities on offer at the camp she goes to and she can try anything she likes and pursue one or two activities doggedly if she wants to.

MN is full of parents giving advice about how to make DCs more 'attractive' to uni admissions or prospective employers.

here is apparently research that studying an instrument as a child helps develop the brain.

It also shows employers that you can stick with something

Hobbies can help as when you have day long assessments for jobs

These are exactly the sorts of attitudes I am talking about. Seeing developing musical talent as instrumental in improving exam performance (with University as the goal) and in making DCs attractive to employers, and generally giving them the cultural capital which some parents feel is necessary to elevate DCs into professional middle class environments. Y'all are just reiterating this schtick.

No I'm not. I pointed out that there has been lots of research (I don't know how well conducted it has been, obviously) but then said clearly that I don't know anyone who 'makes' their kids do music because of this. My kids all want to do music and demand ever more musical opportunities because they all want to do something connected with music for their careers. Probably because they have grown up around musicians.

The family I know that make their kids do music when they don't want to is not, I think, doing so because of any academic research.

Personally I shouldn't be surprised if to find there can be some pay-off to playing an instrument: teaching students from a wide range of subjects, I have noticed that the music students almost invariably do very well; their discipline is unusually good and they are never daunted by boring or repetive work.

Having said that, I think is wrong to regard music or anything else as a box you have to tick or else they won't let you on the train.

There are hundreds of ways of learning discipline and expanding your mind and encouraging creativity. No one parent can offer their child every single one. No one child could take them all up if they were on offer.

Ime students from unconventional backgrounds often do extremely well, as long as they are sufficiently motivated and talented. Being the only student in your class who works hard to get to university is probably another excellent way of learning discipline and delayed gratification, perhaps just as good as playing the French horn.

But that doesn't invalidate the French horn either.

And clearly, students from very conventionally academic/MC backgrounds also often do extremely well if sufficiently talented and motivated.

Mind you, since I strongly feel arts ed is a positive Good in and of itself, I don't care why people might be interested in it. I just want to see people opposing the new Govian paradigm.

Heads - whether you are applying for a job at the Foreign Office or WH Smith's, a CV that list going to the pub and playing COD as things you like to do isn't going to land you too many job offers.

Yet (once again) you choose to make it a MC thing. Why?

@seeker -

On a typical Saturday morning there are legions of parents taking their kids swimming and to football club. Dads will be on the sideline shouting 'advice' to his team or to the ref. Mums will often come on MN and talk about swimming awards and levels.

All the above is considered 'normal' but when the conversation turn to activities considered to be MC the eye rolling is quite audible.

Apparently driving your kids all over the place for football, swimming, karate is you being 'supportive' but driving your kids around for music lessons and orchestra practice is being a pushy MC parent.

Wanting your DS to go to football training is a great way to make friends but wanting your DS to go to orchestra is so MC parents can network and meet other MC parents/kids.

Basically, my point is that so many people have a "men perspire but women glisten" mentality when it comes to anything that they perceive to be MC.

In a way it's kind of funny. One poster went on about how the MC propagates the feeling that WC people won't like or fit in at Oxbridge. This poster has spent most of this thread projecting her WC prejudices about MC people. She is doing a fine job of discouraging WC kids from applying all on her own

Habba, I think that there are millions of great reasons for learning an instrument. And I do not think that every parent who facilitates their DCs learning an instrument is doing so with very narrow aspirations for them in mind. All I was pointing out is that the rise of pushy parenting corresponds with increased access to higher education, and is very often bound up with anxieties about class. The false perception that kids have to excel in musica, or other extra curricular fields can have the (hopefully unintended) consequence of making other people feel that the bar to entry really is this this high, and can put otherwise able DCs off applying to certain universities or professions because they don't believe they have the requisite cultural cachet, though they have the brains. That's my problem with it.

And I'm not choosing to make it a middle class thing. It's not coincidental that many pushy parents of this university/job admissions focused type decide to 'push' their DCs towards emblematically established mc hobbies and interests. And the perception that it will help them develop their cv and impress employers is all about catering to perceived preferences of professional employers.

It's news to me that musical ability should help you get a job in WH Smiths. Of course it shouldn't actually help you to get a job at the Foreign Office, but there's more of a perception that it does. That perception is not my choice.

"One poster went on about how the MC propagates the feeling that WC people won't like or fit in at Oxbridge"

Same poster, Habba.

And I do not have "WC" prejudices. At no point in this thread have I said anything to indicate that I self-identify as working class.

And there it is again Heads, the MC prejudice.

I want my DCs to be good at music. Why is that any different from a WC dad wanting his son to be good at football?

Can you explain exactly where this 'prejudice' is rather than just implying that it must be there?

The majority of the boys at DS's private school play brass instruments as opposed to string. I wonder if those Yorkshire brass band members realise how posh and MC their hobbies are?

Seriously, Habba - can you point out exactly what I've said that is indicative of 'prejudice'?

I've said several times that there are millions of great reasons for learning to play an instrument. What I'm dubious about is the notion that DCs should learn to play an instrument principally because their primary goal should be entering a middle class profession, and that musical ability will prove strategically advantageous.

There are also lots of great reasons for learning an instrument that have nothing to do with career aspirations. I'm not against music.

Habba ^And there it is again Heads, the MC prejudice.

I want my DCs to be good at music. Why is that any different from a WC dad wanting his son to be good at football?^

It's not any different. Both are equally wrong. The point is - it's the kids who should be doing the wanting, and the parents who should be doing the quite possibly reluctant and resentful facilitating under not so silent protest. I will shortly have to be taxi service of mum and dad for the second (but not the last) time today, taking Dd1 to a rehearsal. Who is doing the pushing here? Not me. I'd prefer to spend the entire day not driving. I plan my weeks, when I can, so that I have a rest day from running on a Saturday precisely so I have the opportunity to be properly lazy. Sadly my kids don't let me be as lazy as I'd like because they insist on doing all this activity stuff.

My biggest ambition is for my kids to develop hobbies or interests which would facilitate me having a lie in on a Saturday. There seems little chance of that. :(

I also agree with Russians that the "wanting" would be equally wrong in both scenari, since the kids who should be doing the wanting.

Heads - how many people do you personally know who is getting their DC to learn an instrument for no other reason than to enter a MC profession?