To not want my PIL to pay for my DC private school fees?

[swimmerforlife]

For context, I get along with DH's parents perfectly well, they are absolutely loaded though and DH (along with his siblings) were privately educated from reception onwards. I grew up on the breadline and was state educated for all my schooling.

It was always the plan for our dc to be state educated as we couldn't afford private fees, however the subject of schools came up in conversation over the weekend and PIL offered to pay for both DS1 and DS2 fees if we decided to go private (DS1 will be 4 early next year).

DH now desperately wants DS1 to be privately educated and is willing to accept PIL offer as he thrived in private school, whilst I am not totally against private schooling, I feel my DSs will learn and be educated just as well at state. After all I am University educated...

Also, I don't want to feel I / DH or the DSs 'owe' PIL anything because the paid for our DSs private education, I really don't want to have that hanging over our heads for the next 20+ years.

Besides, DH had no qualms with our DCs being state educated before PILs offer. Now DH has gone and changed his mind after everything was practically agreed.

AIBU?

If my child was so badly bullied that I felt I had to remove him or her from school I don't think I would automatically assume that a private school would be any better. Frankly, I would probably home educate- such a child would probably be too traumatised for school anyway.

mycat but my parents followed the method you advocate (along with about a dozen other parents of kids at my school)...and NOTHING changed.

So why should it be any different now? Or for this OP?

Isn't this putting ideology above what is the best for the child?

If my child was so badly bullied that I felt I had to remove him or her from school I don't think I would automatically assume that a private school would be any better. Frankly, I would probably home educate- such a child would probably be too traumatised for school anyway.

Same here.

Why wouldn't you put ideology above what is best for your child? If your position is that private education leads to a profoundly unfair system which perpetuates privilege for the few, why (how, even) would you suspend that belief in order to give your own progeny a leg up?

Surely if you don't put your money where your mouth is, your 'ideology' is reduced to the dispassionate fodder of some hobbying debating society.

FWIW, I was sent to the local failing comp rather than allowed to sit the entrance exam for a selective school on account of my mother's principles on the matter. At 11, I resented it. Even now, I suspect my life might have turned out very differently if id had that opportunity. But I don't resent that decision at all any more - I respect it, actually. And I can't say I'm not proud to have learnt the apparently rare lesson that principles are more important than getting your sharp elbows out for your own snowflake.

Private is not necessarily better. We state schoolers achieved better than our privately educated cousins. Suspect our Mums may have been pushiest?
We've had both our DS in both types of school. It's what's right for them, and what might fit one child won't necessarily fit the other.
If you have options just explore them all. Kids being happy confident independent caring adults is the main thing after all

"Why wouldn't you put ideology above what is best for your child?"

Really? You don't understand why anyone wouldn't put ideology ahead of what's best for their child? Have some imagination!

You can't possibly be a parent if you don't understand that. Most parents would understand it, even if they personally think this particular 'ideology' is more important.

Well, yeah - I can imagine that it's tempting to want to stockpile all the very best things (or what one perceives to be the very best things) for one's own child at the expense of others. Kind of like unconstrained selfishness by proxy. Perhaps I didn't phrase it clearly enough - I think I understand it, but I bloody judge it. I think it's a lazy and inadequate justification for acting with total disregard for other people.

If I do end up sending DS1 private, which I very much hope not to do, please explain how I will be acting with "total disregard for other people".

Some fairly frantic virtue signaling here.
You're all wonderful people. Private educators like me are scumbags. That doesn't trouble me one iota, perhaps because I have more important issues than my moral purity to think about.

I would jump at it.

I was state school educated and did well, got excellent degree etc.

However I look at what some of my work colleagues or husband's friends were able to achieve being really nurtured and encouraged to thrive with more attention and a much more rounded education and wonder what I might have done given that chance.

Not sure the debate about whether principles always over-ride what might seem best for an individual will really help the OP.

The thing with strongly held principles too, is that often when there are 2 parents to make the decision, even if one has such unshakeably strong principles in one direction, the other person often isn't quite so ardent.

Surely the important thing is for the OP and DH to really talk about what is important to them and work it through....together. Someone might have to make some compromises, regardless of principles.....that's what is often involved in relationships! Before they even get to deciding if they should accept the offer of the GP or even pursue discussing it further with them to see if it's actually practical, they need to clarify their feeling about state and private and visiting local schools of both types would certainly be good to help clarify both attitudes as well as what might be best for their individual child.

Most people do have principles, but those principles are rarely held so strongly as to be unshakeable. Most people are a bit pragmatic in reality.....and yes, as someone said up thread, it does reduce those principles to fodder for debate, rather than being meaningful and promoting real change in society. However that is the reality (clearly a pragmatist here!) and by nature, strongly held principles which someone will always act on regardless of personal circumstance, will change society are held by the very few.

I'd be very interested to hear back from the OP about how the discussions with DH are going, if they are visiting schools and if they have further discussions with the GP. I don't think there is a correct answer, but having received the offer the OP needs to ensure the necessary conversations and research are carried out to determine if or not this is a good idea for their family. It's quite possible it won't come to anything, for all kinds of possible reasons...but it might result in the GP being financially involved in the children's future in some other way......possibly benefits which could be significant and worth exploring.

As I said earlier, it's a shame that the kids who would most benefit from what a good private education can give are vanishingly unlikely to get one.

clearly some people have little understanding for the private school education in this country having experienced both sides of the coin I can quite honestly say that the parents at my Dc private school where all working damn hard to provide the best education and enrichment for there children they could some where farmers,nurses, soldiers, teachers, council workers no one had an air of entitlement there where sixteen children in my dd year which was fairly multi cultural and included children of white Asian and black backgrounds and of various religious beliefs it was none selective like many private schools we looked at and all three of my children are badly dyslexic and were never treated like the 'poor' kids of course there are good state schools that exist and poor private schools but if you have the chance to choose I think it is sensible to do it without pre conceived ideas and prejudice

As others have said---really important to sit down with the parents and make sure they really really really understand just how expensive this is going to be. Because you do NOT want to pull them halfway through if they are happy.

A generation ago, a comfortably off but not super rich pairsay, a doctor and his stay at home wifecould probably put a couple of kids through private school without too much financial hardship. These days it's not like that at all. The prices have soared, and there is no sign that this trend is being reversed or slackening off. It's possible that your parents in law have not really understood this, because they are thinking back to their day, the it it was not really THAT big a deal to go private.

In the meantime, uni fees have soared too, and the rising cost of housing mean that most people want to be able to help their kids out with purchasing a house or flat as well.

Sit down with them and look at the fee structure of the schools in generalnot just reception age, but right up to age 18 (there will be BIG differences). Then get them to read the private school/fee inflation threads here so that they have a clear understanding and how and why fees tend to rise over timenot just for different age groups but also from year to year, due to things like rising pension contributions for teachers who are living longer and longer.

If they are pretty wealthy and are still comfortable doing this, you can certainly consider taking them up on this, and your kids will most likely do well.

I would be the last person to deny that on average, private schools do generally provide a certain amount of "extra added value" over and above a good state school--not to mention the convenience of getting academics, extracurriculars and so on all coming together in a single reassuring "package."

But calculate the total sums needed and get as much money as possible earmarked or put away somehow. A trust, a designated account, or whatever.

And if the grandparents start going "hmmmm....." when they see the figures on how much this is going to cost them in total, talk to them about doing some educational enrichment for the kids for the moment, and putting some money away for a possible move to private between 11 and 16, depending on how your secondary options work out.

The "gap" between average private and average state can almost certainly be plugged in cheaper and more frugal ways. That is what most of my middle class friends in the UK have plumped here--including those who were privately educated themselves.

Also pick schools well. We chose very academic day privates. Habs Girls for example charges £14,400 a year so about £30k for 2 children. Seniors is £16,400 a year. If these parents are very wealthty then about £30k a year will NOT be a huge commitment for them and they may well be happier to pay that than say cash towards your mortgage which the wife could rip from their son if there were a divorce, whereas a divorce will never result in a spouse robbing already spent school fees going on the children in that sense. The one thing the state can never rob from my children is their private school education. It is with them for life even if a spouse could take their cash, property or whatever.

Sorry u are mad to say no, establish rules about decision making first and explain how you might be uncomfortable and then bite their hands off. We had to give up half way thru unexpectedly. Just do it but have the chat