To think you don't need to be a maths whizz to be chancellor of the exchequor and to be annoyed with ex mil?

[theduchessstill]

Have just got the dc back from a visit to ex mil's with their father.

Ds1 has been quite subdued and I have just found out that it is because he told ex mil his ambition is to be chancellor and she has told him that he is not good enough at maths for that. I obviously don't know the exact words she said but that is the gist of it and he clearly feels cold water has been poured over his hopes.

I'm annoyed because who does that to an 11yr old? I'm not one for telling dc they can do absolutely anything they want if they just believe, but he is good at bloody maths! In the top group, exceeding expectations and often getting full marks or dropping just a couple of marks on practice SATs papers. She may not know that, and he prefers English/writing, but why say it if you don't have all the facts?

Also, I don't think chancellors are generally maths obsessives are they? Other skills are involved, as well as luck, and ds may well not make it to that particular role, but cutting him down like that is unnecessary imo. I'm pissed off with ex in general, but wibu to have a word? I know from when we were married he is well aware of his mother's propensity to negativity and it annoys him, so he may well like to know this. And I'd like her to be told not to piss on my dc's fireworks all the time (she has form, obviously).

I love the fact he has a top ten chancellors list - that should tell him he already knows more about it than his gran. Out of interest has she achieved anything of note?

I'd like to see this boy's list. How does he rate chancellors?

You'd be amazed what stays with DC at that age. It's not so much supporting the "always go for your dreams" tricky ambitions as just not trampling on their confidence. That's what your MiL has done. Please build him up again because this could stay with him for longer than you know.

My ambition aged 11 was to be a barrister, criminal law. My parents told me that it was very hard to get into, I'd never make any money and we didn't no know anyone and that was the important thing. I internalized this very deeply and stopped wanting to be a barrister or to do any legal job. It didn't make me feel determined, it made me feel like I was thinking above my station. I really believed I'd never get anywhere, even when other people around me did it. Any mention of it got smacked right down for years so I gave up. I had no idea what else to do and drifted. I did very well at school but had less direction afterwards.

My mother now admits that she was trying to frighten me out of criminal law (out of genuine concern) not all law but laid it on a bit thick for my age and didn't make distinctions so it rather turned me off the whole thing. I never bothered asking for advice because I thought everyone else would laugh at me, too. It still really hurts and is an incredibly raw subject.

That’d be funny if it wasn’t so mean. You definitely don’t need a maths degree to be chancellor!

I love your DS. A top ten Chancellor list indeed. Fucking brilliant

You have to be a natural-born US citizen to run. It’s why Schwarzenegger couldn’t be. There was a bit of a question mark over McCain, who was born in Panama, and an even bigger one over Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father (who later became naturalized). There’s no way a Brit could be POTUS.

I suspect you will have far more success if you train DS to ignore Grandma than you will trying to train Grandma at this stage.

At 11 he is old enough to understand that she is clearly batshit and that he shouldn’t listen to her. I’m sure you can put it in a more tactful way

Thank you for all the nice comments about ds! I completely agree that I would be better off working on his confidence and ability to refute DG’s put-downs than trying to change her mind. Surprisingly she is a respected academic, so no idea why she is so keen to put him down. But her negativity is renowned in the family.

I don’t know the ins and outs of ds’s top ten list, but he is very left-leaning. He came downstairs in tears the other night because a book he had been reading had failed to acknowledge Clement Atlee’s contribution to British history fairly in comparison to Churchill’s, in ds’s opinion.

I love your son .

John Major didn’t have maths O level and he was chancellor and PM. Ignore MIL

Tell him to look into parliamentary trips with his MP now or parliamentary work experience / internship when he is a bit older.

A top 10 Chancellors list! Hastily compiled

1. David Lloyd George- introduced pensions
2. Stafford Cripps- post war
3. Denis Healey
4. Hugh Dalton- at the time of the NHS starting
5. Roy Jenkins- had a budget surplus
6. James Callaghan
7. Nigel Lawson
8. William Pitt the Younger- introduced income tax
9. Henry Goulburn- at the time of the Corn Law repeal

10. Sir Richard Fowler

Duchess you can’t change her, but you can help your DS deal with her.

Being able to deal with difficult people is a very useful life skill (as the pages of MN show).

Talk about potential responses, role play them out.

Explain that he can push back while remaining respectful.

I think we spend so much time telling our children to behave and be polite that we need to give them permission to disagree with and challenge adults.

It’s not rude to say that you disagree with someone or assert yourself in your own defence.

If people were better at this as adults there would be about a third less MN threads.