to think that this view is unfair on children?

[Horseradishes]

A friend of mine said that if she'd forked out thousands to pay for a private education for dc, she'd be disappointed if at the end of it the dc decided to do a fairly 'menial' job that required no qualifications. She added that she'd have loved a private education, which a friend of hers squandered allegedly.

I said that I don't agree, as it's up to parents to choose an education and dc should be free to choose their own path as adults.

Aibu?

YANBU

Not at all. You can't direct someone else's life, even if that person is your child. It's their life and they have the right to choose how to live it.

It sounds like she's projecting her own issues - she wishes she'd had a better education so she's assuming that her DC will want the same thing, but they might not.

I agree I think the parents need to choose the education not so much thinking about what job their DC might do but for the benefits as a whole. Besides, education doesn't define your entire life, you can always take more qualifications, there is always more to education than stepping stones towards a job too. Social benefits, life skills, general knowledge.

I think a lot of people do think like your friend, though. And there is an idea that paying in to education has a payoff, leading to a higher paid or higher status career.

YANBU. You can't relive your life through your kids. Give them the opportunities you wanted, sure, but that's all

Whether or not is fair depends on just how disappointed she'd be.

Woudo she show her disapproval and pressurise her children all the way through their education to be something that they don't want to be, or would she support and encourage whatever they want and then just confess a little disappointment to her closest friends only?

What Ptolemy says, exactly. It is merely human nature and honest to admit that if you spent a lot of money on your children's education, you would hope/be disapointed if they could not, for one reason or another, make the most of that education.
If she could applaud and be happy for her children whatever they did, and genuinely love and nuture the relationship....it matters not if privately she is a jot disappointed that they did not become the 'professional' that she may have hoped for, whether for herself of for her offspring.

I agree that paying for a better education would make me want it to result in a better or good job. Otherwise, why pay the additional money? It's the same as going to uni, it costs a lot, so you hope that it pays off.

But yes, unfortunately you cannot control another person so if they decided to then be a nursery worker/painter/air hostess/whatever else fairly low paid job, where they'd struggle for money forever, you'd have wasted your money.

Not the child's fault though, it was your decision to send them to the private school.

YANBU. Not least because of the pressure it's putting on her dc.

I would never show my disappointment, but, yes, if I'd spent 120,000 pounds on private education for my child, I'd be expecting them to aim higher than a menial job.

If private education came with expectations from my parents then I would rather not have it.

I think yabu in the sense that if you are paying a load on private education is would be very disappointing if they chose not to do something worthwhile with it. However they will choose their own path and you could only hope that they make wise decisions.

Hopes would be OK, but not expectations.

I used to work with a lady who who worked full time simply to pay for her son's education. He did well in his GCSEs and flunked his A levels. She was understandably disappointed.

YANBU. I had a private education and my parents went without a lot in order to pay for it. I'm hugely grateful for that, but they have always put a lot of pressure on me to do well. They only want the best for me but as a result I feel a huge amount of pressure to have a career which they approve of (which I have). I'd love to give it up and do something less stressful, which makes me happy and which doesn't involve working 60 hour weeks but I couldn't face their disappointment or comments about how I've "wasted" my education. It would be never ending. It doesn't help that I'm an only child. The pressure has already started from them about sending DS to private school. He's 3.

I can see her view tbh. We all want ten best fir outer children and if id paid a fortune so I could get them a superior education to what is offered locally then yes I'd hope that they would have all manner of options at the end of it to keep them out of the kind of crappy jobs I gave had.

I'd never express that and pressure them and ultimately I'd just want them happy but it would upset me in that I'd hoped for them to do more than I did.

I can also see her viewpoint, how many go to school, college and even uni and either chose not to work or do something basic as it's the easy option. It's a waste of education so if paying private to give your child the best possible start in life I imagine most would want the education used to secure a good job and future.

I had a boyfriend whose parents put this kind of crap on him. He knew what he wanted to be bunt it wasn't good enough for them. They pretty much forced him to do law at uni which he hated and wasn't very good at. He floundered for a good few years, until eventually moving abroad and doing what he had pretty much always wanted to do. In the process, they caused him years of unhappiness and wasted thousands of pounds.

I think I'd feel the same if I'd paid thousands of pounds for a private school and the pupil ended up in a job that didn't need qualifications. I don't think regretting the money spent is unreasonable.

It WOULD be unreasonable to voice that disappointment to the child, since it wasn't their choice.

If the child did end upworking in a menial job that anyone could do, then the parents would have been better putting the £120k-£200k they'd have spent on private schooling into buying the child a home so they could live without having to pay rent or a mortgage, it would make the child's life easier (if that was the goal).

I see her point, but YANBU. It has to be up to the child/young adult. If they make a choice they later regret, that's life.

My mother dictated my A-Level choices. Apart from one, which I only took because she told me not to! If I had chosen what I wanted I would have got much better results. Mine were average to say the least. She was utterly fixated on Oxbridge and vetoed anything not academic enough (in her eyes).

After I buggered up my A-Levels I went through clearing. I could have done so much better if I had actually been committed to my subject choices.

Dh was persuaded not to do A-Levels at all. His father demanded that he do a GNVQ in engineering, and then do a degree in that subject. His father told him he had to give up on the idea of A-Levels as he probably wouldn't get very good GCSEs. He did just fine and more than exceeded requirements for A-Levels. His predicted grades were good enough too but FIL was having none of it.

He did his GNVQ and made three attempts to do an engineering degree. He quit, took a year out, then went back to do the degree he had in mind when making those A-Level choices. So it worked out, but I think what FIL did was wrong.

YANBU. They are assuming that the whole point of education is to get a good job. What if the child enjoys learning but doesn't want a job that is well paying. Would the money have been wasted then?

I'd be grossly disappointed too. I don't see why anyone has to be right or wrong about this. It's an emotional thing.

YANBU; private education is a parenting choice and not should not put any particular expectations on a child.

However, if a child decides to go to university and the parents are helping out financially, they are allowed to be cheesed off it the child isn't bothering at that point.