..to think there is nothing wrong with being a "pushy" parent (Part 2)

[Xenia]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1770750-To-think-that-there-is-nothing-wrong-with-being-a-pushy-mum?pg=40

Just in case anyone wanted to continue the thread which just got too full.

It's all about balance surely. A mixture of things your kids love and will happily do without being asked and things you encourage or even make them do because you know it will be good for them. So long as neither takes over, I don't see the problem.
In my reception class dd's last report, her teacher pointed out she doesn't much like PE and will often refuse to do things. Her strengths apparently are on the performance side. So we have enrolled her in a gym class because I do not want her compartmentalised at the age of four and believe her aversion to PE is because she feels she isn't any good at it. Hopefully the gym class will build her confidence. I don't see this as being pushy, just supportive parenting.
When I was younger, I had extra lessons in Maths, Biology, Economics, Chemistry and Literature. I can directly attribute these lessons to my current professional job. While I hated them at the time, I am extremely grateful to my parents for making me do them. Well maybe not the Chemistry , that was just pure evil.

Clifton - you probably would have gotten a lot of 'you are such a wonderful mum' virtual hugs if you said that you were WC. Better still if you were a single mum.

Unfortunately men perspire, women glisten, MC parents are pushy, WC parents are supportive.

There is certainly an English thing that if you can make your effort look effortless you are "cooler". I am not sure if that spans all classes but well it might.

That is such bullshit, habba!

Very eloquently put seeker.

Me n 'im indoors have under and post graduate degrees from Oxford

Admissions tutors really don't give a shit if you play instruments or sport.

They want people who love the subject. I agree. However plenty of employers like graduates with a full range of hobbies, some prefer those who play sport well etc and being fit means you are less likely to be a total skiver who is off work at the first sniffle.

Poshlost - I agree about the music. Not so sure about sports though. 6th Former at our school got an Oxbridge offer whereas many higher scoring pupils didn't. Being a county class rower probably didn't influence the decision makers

You're right, they probably didn't. Agree with poshlost that admissions tutors don't give a crap about music or sport. Colleges are interested in admissions for colleges, not university sports teams. The one exception is if you play the organ, but that really is the exception. If you are determined to push your child to Oxbridge and think that extra curricular activities will help, then you'd be better off getting your child to learn the organ than anything else. Even then, it won't make that much of a difference, since there's no way of knowing which applicants for which subjects also play the organ - and they won't take an unsuitable candidate just because they play the organ.

MC parents are pushy, WC parents are supportive.

Totally disagree with this, and any claim that I made any generalisations about all or most MC parents.

sorry, I'm poshlost (ballsed up a name change)

Yes, you can win an organ scholarship, but it is competitive and there's only one per college each year.

Best way into Oxford is classics.

Oh, and Xenia, I must live in a different universe, but having worked for two investment banks, and two blue-chip media outlets, no one has given a shit about my lack of sports prowess or asked about the instruments I play, or don't play. I have had health checks, but that's slightly different.

I'm astounded that Heads is being accused of trolling for expressing a very valid viewpoint.

Class and class anxiety, very much does come into this issue and to ignore that would be incorrect.

Also, anyone who mentions cultural capital is on the right track, IMHO.

for two investment banks, and two blue-chip media outlets, no one has given a shit about my lack of sports prowess or asked about the instruments I play, or don't play. I have had health checks, but that's slightly different.

I agree with this too. At the high end of graduate recruitment, most companies take their lead from American companies, which have an extremely intensive, but very fair, recruitment strategy - completely focuses on candidates' ability to perform well in the job. This attitude is becoming more and more prevalent in the public sector too - most candidate assessments are entirely competency based.

As poshlost said, there are organ scholarships, but only one per college and they are competitive - and whether or not an admissions preference should be given to these candidates is questionable anyway, imo.

Graduates that make it into our 'high flyers' training program get a starting salary of £40k plus a two year graduate training program that includes postings to various parts of our empire. Obviously there are no shortages of highly academic applicants for the limited places.

Faced with a stack of CVs of candidates with Oxbridge Firsts we have to dig down to the next level. Being a highly skilled musician brings little kudos but being an accomplished sportsman does. It's not surprising given that the decision makers are a bunch of alpha males they inevitably recruit in their image.

Other things that we look for is examples of leadership positions and being elected to positions by your peers.

No one really cares about instruments played or your level of proficiency but that is not too say that the other stuff doesnt matter. For a lot of coveted positions there is no shortage of highly academic applicants with gleaming certificates. In this scenario we make subjective decisions based on something like how the guy biked across Vietnam in his gap year for example. Not fair I know but hey ho

I should add, however, that Oxford was a joy to attend in an of itself.

Shame I can't say the same for my savaging of the violin, piano and trumpet.

It is depressingly Gradgrindian to only aim for university/sports/instruments as leverage for some stressful 12-hour-a-day desk job.

But then I probably stand at the opposite end of the spectrum to Xenia!

Indeed. My 3 oldest have graduated and I know what employers look for once they have sorted the wheat from the chaff on academics and are talking to you in an interview. If you can find common ground with the person interviewing you then that can work well because on a daily basis you are going to need to build relationships with clients and customers and must be able to do the same thing with them.

Once you are in a job then I don't think it matters too much whether your hobby is card collecting or macrame if you are very good at it, although it can do no harm if you can stand it (I can't) to play golf, drink etc etc. I am sure my grandfather who became a mason, JP and county councillor helped in his local business community (more's the pity). I do serve on one committee where at least half of us sing in choirs which is interesting and fairly unusual and doubt most of us would particularly know except it once came up. I don't see it as a work advantage although for smaller children learning instruments does help their academic ability elsewhere and my children have a cousin who has a choral scholarship at university and I don't it damages the CVs of 3 of my children to have won music scholarships. It is always going to go down better with universities if your hobby is that kind of stuff rather than playing computer games for 5 hours a day or drinking in pubs and watching films which is very much the main hobby of many people in the UK.

Would you like to be stranded with this person at an Ulan Bator airport for 20 horus? Would you like their chat? Do they make you laugh? Are they interesting or would be trying to avoid their BO and finding them unable to maintain a conversation? I am sure HR would hate that as a test but in practice it can be a wise one if two candidates are otherwise equal. None of us wants to work with people we cannot stand and with whom we have nothing in common.

It's not surprising given that the decision makers are a bunch of alpha males they inevitably recruit in their image.

This is an attitude that ought to be challenged on some level, not just blithely accepted

Not fair I know but hey ho

This too.

Most graduate candidates applying for positions these days are encouraged to demonstrate their experience in the sector, or other ways in which they demonstrate aptitude for that specific role. This is right and fair. When corporations refine their recruitment procedures to focus on competency based assessment strategies, they find that they get better people.

On the other hand, there are some less forward-thinking sectors who rely on older models of recruitment, and have more old fashioned ideas about what skills and attributes are desirable in candidates. It's wilfully naive to claim that class doesn't come into this. Either you know that it's a factor but you choose to ignore it or deny it, or you know that it's a factor, but you don't care, because you think it suits you in some way.

various parts of our empire

Gutting myself at this.

Heads - the point that you seem to be ignoring is that for some jobs there is no shortage of highly qualified and highly competent applicants. In situations like this the selection process tend to favour the DCs of pushy cv building parents.

That is not to say that I agree with those who think that starting violin and Mandarin at 3 gives their DCs an advantage. However, at the same time it's kind of naive to think that a First with an average list of accomplishments will land your DC that coveted job.

I meant business empire. No need to ask what you was thinking off.

Being a 'pushy' demanding parent can actually make things worse for a child and lead them to not being chosen for things. It can give the child and family a bad reputation. It is also very stressful for the child.

However if a parent is supportive, helpful and encouraging that makes a huge different.

Bad family reputation? Not being "chosen" for things? I am not sure what you are talking about puffin.

I think p just means in school.
None of us need to over emphasise class, accent, the right hobbies as most big employers first take applications on line so unless you have enough UCAS points and pass the on line maths test or whatever you don't get in. At interview stage plenty of them do a day of assessments which will not be looking at your school or connections and some operate reverse nepotism - if you have a connection you can be out rather than in.

However if you have nothing to talk to your interviewers about or cannot use English properly or would not be right for the relevant customer base then you might fall down there.

I am sure most of us want our children to find hobbies they will enjoy for life in their sport and music etc It is certainly not done mostly for any kind of career ambition although children who succeed at a lot of things have as good CV and those who major on 6 hours computer games a day and no work will not be helping their CV.

Sorry Habba, but I am sure we all know loads of people with great jobs who do not have a string of extra curricular accomplishments, so it's not naive to think that happens. Moreover, most recruitment procedures these days don't put the kind of emphasis on extra curriculars that they used to, and are moving towards competency based frameworks. This is far fairer in many ways, because the student who can demonstrate insight into an industry through part time work, or work experience, has demonstrated a greater drive towards that particular role than someone who spent years getting really, really good at the banjo.

When it comes to students applying for medical school, and later med students applying clinical placements, for example, it is absolutely true that they need to show more than academic excellence, but the people who get the placements they really want are the those who are able to show commitment through relevant experience. The students with the edge are the ones who have volunteered at care homes or raised funds for Cancer Research - not the ones who play badminton at a high level.

As I acknowledged above there are some less forward thinking sectors who don't seem to have very focused or relevant ways of distinguishing between highly qualified candidates. The real trouble with this is, that with the lack of a thought through recruitment procedure, comes a tendency - as you pointed out yourself - for people to recruit in their own image, and prioritize candidates who do the kind of thing that they enjoy. Xenia seems to think that this is quite a good idea, and argues that "None of us wants to work with people....with whom we have nothing in common." I disagree with this. I know that I, personally, have worked very well with many people with whom, on first glance, I may appear to have nothing on common. More and more businesses now are beginning to realise the benefits of having a diverse workforce, and I don't think many of us would claim that this is a bad thing. So the danger of relying on extra curricular activities to distinguish candidates, is that it's very easy to fall back on looking for candidates who look like you - and it's evident that class plays a role in this. This is what I'm wary of. I'm not saying it doesn't happen - what I'm saying is that class evidently plays a part in it, and that these anxieties about class motivate this particular type of pushy parenting, and the hysteria around this kind of competitiveness actually makes things worse - and a lot of companies and institutions have a vested interest in whipping up parental anxiety about these issues and overestimating the impact they will have on a child's job prospects.

I'm not saying that the anxieties of the kinds of pushy parents are not real - but they are bound up with class in all sorts of ways - and that pushy parenting perpetuates anxiety about the problem. As to the fact that class is a covert factor in these issues, the best way to deal with it is to call it out, and be frank about it, and make it an open issue, rather than just ignoring it.

CG: Yes I meant in school (i.e for parts in plays/sports/solos etc). For example if a child had been chosen for a lead role and the parent had been very difficult, demanding, interfering and questioned everything the teacher did, then a teacher may think twice about giving that child another solo/part.

I agree with Xenia