To feel between ' a rock and a hard place' with dh and ds...

[Andonandonamdnn]

Dh is 62 .
Ds , 25.
Ds is doing a funded post grad professional on the job qualification which means that he gets a minimal.wage ( not a grant) whilst he trains and works and quaifies.
Dh and I both worked all our working lives in public service jobs and in early 60s ( took pension then ) we have a pension for life , of 1.5 k pm dh and 450 pm me.
. We both work ... Me pt ,he 3/4 time in minimum wage jobs to top up income .
Borh dc thro uni , then ds decided on post grad as above. ..
Dc could not afford rent ( v high in area on the temp wage whilst training) so we pay a proportion of his costs and rent to.help him which has meant the need to earn more income.

.. he is texnically a student/ dependnant ?.. he could have lived in cheaper place with students but as he now is doing a professional placement via a school.. we/ he felt he needed a quiet ish flat not one with undergrads who want to party as he needs have quiet to prep in evenings for class. Etc.

Dh works 5 days a week. I work 3 to in part faciltate this and it means we have to be careful.with money.. we cant travel.abroad as hopes/ plannes etc. As we send money eaxh month.. Ive offered to do more work but dh says he does not wantme to as i do a physically hard cleaning job and have some health issues.

.The rock and rhe hard place is this.... ds need s finiancial support till he qualifies next year in order to .stay in this decent quiet ish flat to study etc and go.to.work.5 days a week in school( v few available in a uni city were most places are busy student undergrad places) .. dh has started saying things like .". he is 26 years old .."." when i wasthat age" etc" ,i am in my 60s."." when will.the support end.". hes said to ds he is looking forward to the time he can work less.. he is grumpy a lot.. i think he resents the commitment of the support as he is tired.. its that he feels adult child of 26 wd not need ongoing £ support at this stage of life and whilst he wants to.support him , he also.resents it and it comes to.surface ? I dont know what to to.. he is withdrawn with dc on phone( notes by ds) as he is tired , resentful? , fed up, but also feels he should help.. it seems to.be increasingly hard for dh to do his.
. Ds has said to.me.why is dh like this ( withdrawn on phone) and i feel.stuck between the need to support ds and dh s wish to help him but the fact that this is coupled with tiredness and occasional ( what feels like resenment/ anger/ wanting freedom from supporting adult dc/ occasional pride in it. Its as if the wants tohelp ds but is tired and is starting to resent it at the same time. I dont want either dh or ds to feel bad . Plus we have said we will help.ds and the last thing i want is for ds to feel bad about it.

Ffs! At 26 he should be supporting himself.

Are you not even slightly annoyed/irritated/resentful/feel taken advantage of OP?

Cos you’re not coming across as such.

More just perturbed that your DH dare express some of his very valid feelings to your Son

I strongly believe parents should do everything possible to support their children through university.

Your son has had that support. He is doing graduate work/placement. He is 26 years old and nothing you have stated says he is not healthy and capable of extending himself. You are in your 60s and working a physically demanding job for minimum wage so that your able-bodied son doesn’t have to get a weekend job. That is insane.

I lived many quite lean years post- university and I never thought of asking my parents for any money. They helped me through university. Their job was done. Grad school was my choice. I lived with them for 3 weeks between university housing ending and my next housing beginning and they graciously didn’t charge me for that. I knew they would have helped me in an emergency, but I would not have taken money from them regularly.

Yabu. The norm for people doing a pgce is to live in shared accommodation if they don't live at home
My dd will be doing a masters next year, she'll work and live in a shared house. No financial input needed from me.

@Nothappyatwork

i think you have to be careful not to overcompensate though.

Mollycoddling and infantilising does no good whatsoever.

The man in question is 26!!

What were you doing at 26?!

At what point does a person become an adult accountable and independent and their parents can focus on making themselves happy with stuff like retirement and holidays?

Or is stuff like that completely off the cards in your book if you chose to have children 25 years ago?

Fallulah. Thanks. I am trying to make sense of what this means he is doing!
He was a ta but the school asked him to apply for this , other ta s internally and externally went for it , so it is somerhing a ta would apply for though? . He definitley has his own class. There are two ta s in it due to.the needs of the pupils who have challenging behaviours, mild learning difficulities and autisim. He is not acting as a hta but as teacher. He doea parents evenings and class plans etc and has his own class.
What is confusing is that you say that this route is usually for people who have taught before. ? He has worked with kids in schools and coached them but not in a classroom.setting.

How does he learn in this setting.. who teaches him to be a teacher?!
He is about to go into mainstream.placement and I dont know how he knows what to do.! He just says he learns on the job ! It does not help that he lives far away.
When I did my professional degree , it was 4 years of practice ( 3 placements ) very strongly linked to theory.. this seems much looser.?? But then again its something I kmow little about and I clearly dont ask the right questions!.
Is he likwly to be on 20 k with this scheme and what scheme does it sound like to you please? Are there regional variations .. and how does a ta become a teacher via the school normally please.( would the fact that its a special needs school make any difference )..

We have an HLTA (higher level teaching assistant) doing this at the moment. They are paid on the unqualified teacher scale (up to 28k). HLTAs cover classes and can have their own classes, which ours has been doing for a few years, hence we’re putting her through the assessment only route. It’s a requirement of teacher training that you complete a placement away from your main school, which is even more important if your main school is not mainstream. Our HLTA will also do this for about a month to six weeks I think.

What he’s told you sounds perfectly feasible, I just don’t think it’s the route I would take if I was a TA wanting to qualify as a teacher, and I’m not sure why it’s going to take longer than a year.

I feel we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole with the discussions on types of teaching qualifications.

OP it shouldn't have to matter to you what route he had chosen to take. Fact is he is an adult who you supported through university already. Whatever you thought you signed up to, circumstances have changed. Cost of living had gone up, but conversely there are loads of ways for your DS to increase his earnings and easy to cut his costs by sharing.

Exactly rookiemere the what qualification/course he is doing is just tinkering around the edges, the salient facts are that you, OP, and your husband cannot fund this, it is inconceivable that your son is living the life he is living part funded by you whilst you are struggling, THAT is the issue. He not only needs to move to cheaper accommodation he needs to PAY HIS OWN WAY and if that means he has to give up partying on the weekends and find work instead and work in the holidays that is what HE needs to do.

UQT Assessment Only is a short route (often only 12 weeks) which is for those with experience.

I don’t think he’s being assessed yet.

My guess is the reason for it taking 2 years is that they have said, look - carry on as a TA / cover teacher now, and once you’ve actually got experience, we’ll be able to UQT you. So a bit like creating their own training scheme but… without actually having to meet the requirements of a proper training scheme.

UQT is not a Sep-Jul full academic year route. So why did you say it was?

Honestly it’s hard to tell what he had got wrong / lied about / left out and what you simply assumed.

I am certain though that your still don’t understand the full picture. I was surprised that you mentioned having your own degree and professional training, because your total lack of understanding of what he was doing reminds me of my sister, for whom anything over GCSE is too blah blah blah.

Like a PP, I’d love to know if you know what he actually earns.
You mention he said “between a TA and a teacher” - which sounds like you don’t know.
And if you don’t know, you sure as hell shouldn’t be giving him £500 a month!!!

I don’t buy all this, “it all happened so fast” nonsense either. He got a job, then he moved to his old uni city (so he knew it already) then he wanted his own place - so it was quite spread out really. This is a man whose already been away to uni, and been abroad, and was set up to work abroad. Yet doing a perfectly normal thing like getting a job in a city you know well is things happening fast?!!

I find it really really odd that you’re not just asking him all this. Why is that?

Testina i said my own professional degree was very practicwe based alongside a very strong link to being able to understand and evidence the link between academic theory and practice.
With ds course it seems vauge.. also class based mostly which is not like my own learning . Also, I did my degree with the added on qualification in the 80s.. a lot has changed since !

Yes, but it’s not that I think his course is going to be identical!
It’s that you come across like someone who has no understanding of any degrees or professional training. Because of your experience, you should understand a website explanation, or in person explanation.
The easy way to know how his works is to ask him and I find it odd that you haven’t.

I could not understand a web site explanation as did not know what course he was actually doing until today. Also , his course format did not actually match what he had verbalised about it.. i was only in the last few posts where a person who works in education ,has been able to interpret what version/ package the school has decided to offer ( in that it may be that they are allowing him to first gain further experience as a ta ,( as in at the moment) , and then putting him through the training for experienced ta s or unqualified teachers when he fits that brief more .. this combination did not appear to match the courses on line..... . A person in the field was able to clarify that perhaps more than one thing may be going on , which is leading to eventual experience, then qualification rather than he was simply on a course( hence why this path is longer than the course only). As for not asking ds .. he tends to tell us v little .. something I need to.work on .

So has he actually told you what he’s earning?

As for not asking ds .. he tends to tell us v little ..

He tells you very little, but expects you to fund him regardless?

Your DH is right. You need to cut off the money supply, and your DS needs to learn to cut his cloth. Everyone starts out in house shares or similar to start with - it's normal.

Tbh, at 26, he shouldn't need to describe the exact ins and outs of his course structure to the OP, because at 26 he shouldn't require funding from his parents

Told you enough to get £500 a month out of you though, aye?

It's good he is looking for a cheaper flat. I think you have been very kind but at 26 he should really be able to support himself. He could get a 2nd job if he needs extra money. Yes, it will be busy. But plenty do it. When I did my nursing degree plenty of people did a job on top of 12 hour shifts, lectures and studying for exams and assignments as well as looking after their DC.

@Andonandonamdnn

Not sure the answer is him is looking for a cheaper flat, he needs a flat share….living on his own is a luxury he cannot afford right now.

I'm not sure if you made clear how much your DH was involved in the decision that your DS needed his own private flat, or whether that was a decision you and your DS made together.

It bothers me that you both had clearly stopped working, you're not in the best of health, and your DS thought it was OK for you to go back to work, and didn't pick up on why his father was pissed off at the whole situation. I'm not sensing a lot of natural empathy there on DS's side.

You say he tells you very little, but if you're financing him as an adult, that's a grown up privilege he doesn't get to have. If he wants to be supported as a child, he has to disclose what's going on as a child.

I'm all for parents supporting their children even when they're adults, if that's something they can afford to do, but you and your DH are sacrificing the quality of your life to subsidise a choice that your DS made.

You also sound like you have a case of classic mum pleaser syndrome, where you want to make sure everyone else's needs are met apart from your own. Please stop. You've done this for decades and it's your time to enjoy yourself more. It's time for you and your DH to enjoy retirement together, and for your younger and fitter child to crack on with his life with emotional support only, rather than emotional and financial.

PS I earned more at DS's age and I still lived in a house share. Did I want to? Hell, no. But just because you're 'an adult' doesn't mean you have the right to your own space. You have to cut your cloth accordingly, not make your ageing relatives do physical work to fund the lifestyle you believe you're entitled to.

As someone who has studied extensively, I'm with your dh. If your ds is such a delicate soul that he can't accept that his lifestyle choices comes with responsibilities that may lead to him working at the weekend, then he won't do that well when you finally stop bank rolling him anyway.
Better to let him stand on his own two feet, the fact he's not looking to says something too.
I'd ask where your sons dignity is as well. Allowing you both to have less of a life to subsidise his life isn't normal.

www.ucas.com/teaching-option/assessment-only-route-qualified-teacher-status-qts

I’m not sure the link will help OP much. It’s the link I used to discover that UQT AO qualification was generally about a 12 week programme. I then deduced that if he’s talking about “approx 2 years” that the school are probably training him in-house first, with a view to then helping him go through the UQT assessment. In the meantime paying him what they want to. OP then described me as being in education, rather than simply someone who can use Google 🤷🏻‍♀️

As this is this only the assessment, it doesn’t refer to pay scales.

That’s the key for me here. It’s not the son’s fault if he was over confident and thought he’d be ready for the assessment sooner than he is - or maybe, even lied to by the school. Who knows, as it appears OP doesn’t ask.

But even with that more friendly interpretation of mummy’s boy’s behaviour, the fact we have is that he’s taking £500 a month of his parents when they don’t even know what he earns! Little con artist, really.