to think that you cannot work full time and support your children's education?

[IslandGirlie]

I've tried to juggle FT work and 2 DCs, they are in Reception & Y1 and failing miserably!
This month I've missed a few school request/ preps for events & kids are having to rush to get things ready for said events. Teachers sending notes to remind things..
I feel like I'm not supporting them in their school work / not spending quality time with them.
Is it possible to be on top this and work full time? School sends at lest 1 email a day! Most days it's two!! There's is always a leaflet in the bag..
DH works full time too and he is helpful as much as he can do. I can't stop wondering that it's not possible to work FT and support children.
How do you do it?

motherinferior bobochic is confusing causation and correlation. It is no surprise that parents who have the resources to deal ŵith last minute school silliness (Amazon prime, nannies etc) have children that do well.

While there is a clear correlation between parents who are uninvolved and lack of academic achievement, I imagine that the difference in outcomes between the children of average working parents who support the school where it is reasonable and practical, and the children of very involved parents, is probably relatively small (and the balance may well be in favour of more pragmatic, slightly less involved parenting).

There are lots of relevant issues here but the most important one is making sure men always pull their weight and never accepting even for a day lack of fairness at home. The child who builds its own castle at home as mine would have done is much prouder of it than some child whose parents built it and ditto the school costume.

Most of us seek a balance between full time work and helping with school stuff. I have spent many an hour supervising and indeed playing the piano to children from grae 1 to 8, in various instruments for the last almost 30 years. I am not saying because both parents don't put in effort in some areas but pointless cookery and costume stuff is where a lot of us draw the line.

"I imagine"

I observe, however, that the difference in outcome is very great between the children of professional/educated parents who plug gaps systematically and those who don't.

Try reading some of the recent French studies on this issue.

Well I observe that my DC are doing well educationally ( and emotionally and socially ) despite me having the audacity to work .

Just because you value music over crafts and cookery doesn't make it more worthy Deo A lot of children from less privileged backgrounds than your own would maybe benefit more from learning to cook, sew, make things out of nothing. I'd make sure that some of that was done in school though rather than placing the expectation on parents who may not have time/resource/experience from their own upbringing to support that at home. Not all people can afford private/boarding school and nannies etc. Some people are working hard on minimum wage, have no partners, have suffered domestic abuse or neglect as children, are dealing with disabilities etc. Maybe their children are still proud of them?

My DCs have done well educationally because they have the advantage of me. The tan leggings didn't cause my son to be very good at maths and physics.

Of course you can work FT and support your DC at school. But you do have to accept that you cant do everything and then choose and do the important stuff. I am a LP who works FT in a fairly high pressure job. I have never baked a cake for school in my life, I never did craft fairs and when it comes to costumes amazon has always been my saviour. The teenage DC now log in on my account and order their own stuff for school if they need it.

I have done as many sporting fixtures and plays as I can and my DC have mostly got their homework done. I used to do reading with them when they were small, but I haven't supervised them for years as I figure it is their homework, not mine. And you know what, they are doing OK, one has 2 scholarships and the other has just finished GCSEs with mostly A* and A grades.

FWIW I don't think the DC are proud of me working, in fact I am pretty sure they have no clear idea what I do for a living (management consultant), but they do know that it pays the bills and supports their education.

I have a lot of SAHM friends with wealthy husbands and as far as I can see there is absolutely no difference between the academic achievement of my DC and theirs. My advice is to not get guilt tripped into doing stuff you don't have time for and just do the best you can with the stuff that matters.

Our school informed us (about 7 years ago maybe) of the first of a number of long range studies which revealed that reading to children as infants was the most significant difference you could make to their educational outcomes. Children who were read to as infants immediately leapt up to two years ahead in reading ability when starting school. No matter what interventions and support happened after that, children who hadn't been read to very much never closed that gap. :(

My children are rarely proud of me, their pride in me has remained confidently low whether I worked full time or spent my time pottering round the house

Consistently low

I have no idea whether my children are proud of me, but they do know how proud I am of them, every minute of every single day.

you don't become a parent to win a popularity contest....

"you don't become a parent to win a popularity contest...."

Exactly.

Needy parents who want their DC to be proud of them and supportive of their lives are called narcissists on another popular MN thread.

To be fair I do occasionally remind them about stuff I do for them but that's more in the way of "I'm giving up my time to take you to X so could you a least get ready when you are asked?"

I'm thinking that until they have houses, jobs and children of their own, they wont really get it but may, at some point in the future, think, "my parents did a lot for me when I was a child" but actually, all I'd want is that they are happy and also that they put effort in with their own children should they have any.

As myother just said until they have their own children they don't get it - which was virtually what my oldest who has just had a baby said at lunch yesterday.

I agree that reading to them tends to make them do better in life than making tan leggings. I never cooked for a school in my life. Always remember Shirely Conran's famous line - life is too short to stuff a mushroom. Do the big things - cuddles, breastfeeding, reading to them,listening and talking to them and leave school costumes and parental doing of homework to other fools.

I'm sure there are parents who require their DC to cheerlead them, be it about their working achievements or the sacrifices they make as SAHP.

But most of us parent for the love not the glory I would have thought.

We do what we do freely and because we want to ( not because we're afraid of some vague repercussion ).

If our efforts are rewarded by happy thriving kids then we've won the jack pot . If it comes with a side order of respect/pride/gratitude then that's an added bonus!

Congrats deo ! A grandchild. How lovely.

Martyr parent is never wise. Too many people some men as well as women adopt that life stance - I work so hard for you, I've given up so much for you etc etc on and on day in day out.

(Thank you. She's lovely. They are so small and cute at that age; not that my teenagers aren't nice of course).

A random request to pop out to the shops to buy bread and jam... for a working mother who has a busy evening ahead of her?

I'm trying to think about how that request would be received by all the mums I know who have a toddler/baby as well as a school-aged child. Seriously, it takes about half an hour just to get everyone rounded up, shoes on, strapped into car seats.....

Exactly, SheGot. A bonus. And one that quite amuses me too.

I i don't think that previous posters are demanding that their children are proud of them or being needy, I don't think it is narcissistic to like the fact that your children are proud of you.

OP, just do the stuff that matters and ignore the rest. A quick skim of the thread shows that others have already mentioned the stuff that matters: good food, early bedtime, a little bit of one on one reading. Just be proud of doing the rest in a half-assed manner.

My son once needed to do a dress up at school (it was for a special thing where they were getting their photos taken as their future self), anyway he hadn't mentioned it. He remembered in the morning after he'd left for school, he was 10 and getting himself out in the morning. Anyway, he left a message for the teacher with a friend in the playground, ran back to the house, got himself a shirt, tie, jacket and a trilby hat and a gaming controller as a prop and ran back to school and dressed up as a game developer. It was fab and I was so proud of him. Yes, he'd forgotten to tell me, yes the school hadn't told me either, but he did remember sort of in time and problem solved his way out of it. I felt a successful parent that day even though I was at work.

I posted near the beginning of the thread and have read some in the middle, but the other problem with expecting parents to have the time to do all the extra stuff is can we all afford the extra stuff the school want of us. This week we have had to send food for parties and the dc all need Christmas jumpers for tomorrow which I have refused to buy (apparently, according to school, you can get them quite cheaply in the supermarkets). For last weeks school plays I had to provide costumes.
DH and I work full time for a basic kind of life style, it's not fancy and believe me if there is £30 spare it's not going on sodding Christmas jumpers.

I am well aware Amazon prime can deliver tomorrow to my place of work, but can everyone afford Amazon prime? Not everyone can afford all the extra costumes/dress up days/charity days/baking. My heart goes out to the parents struggling to put a meal on the table each night in a cold home, then reading the letter telling them their child needs to be provided with a Roman army costume by the end of the week, when they are already struggling to see where they are going to buy a small Christmas present for their dc. The state needs to remember that education is meant to be free and we are not all in a position to be providing all the extras school seem to see as essential.

I agree with maryann. It is not reasonable to expect people to be able to bear the cost. I could buy a cake for school cake sales (although I am very proud in 25 years with children at school never to have manned a stalll.... thank God) but lots of people would not have the budge to buy them and might not even have the time or an oven to bake one. usually there are enough parents with time that it's fine if one child just brings in the pack of chocolate fingers or nothing though so it tends to even out.

The big problem is if you have a perfectionish child who feels they have to have something better than everyone else. I don't seem to have bred those children so it's fine here.

I suspect if DCs school asked for every child to wear a Christmas jumper there would be a riot!

The parents are all wealthy but they take being forced to waste money very badly indeed.