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 he is withdrawn with dc on phone( notes by ds) as he is tired , resentful?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 Ds has said to.me.why is dh like this ( withdrawn on phone) and i feel.stuck between the need to support ds and dh s wish to help him but the fact that this is coupled with tiredness and occasional ( what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.

Nooo-OP please don’t tell me a grown man is doing a PGCE part time and not working alongside it??

Your DS has to learn that if he chooses to work in a challenging career(I take it it is education) then he needs to sort out his own “down time” , because it isn’t going to get any less challenging for a couple of years. He can’t expect you to tiptoe around him and support him as though he is made of glass.

Agree with the general consensus. Your DS needs to move into more affordable accommodation and cut his cloth accordingly.

You and your DH should be enjoying your partial retirement, winding down and having nice holidays.

I'm pleased you've managed to talk to your son, OP and that he's looking for cheaper accommodation.

You're right to want to help your children, but you can only help as far as your finances allow and honestly, it's good for them to stand on their own two feet and make their own adult choices. I would suggest discussing with your husband and then both of you with your son, about when the financing ends. It will help you all know where you stand and what your committments are going forward.

Good luck OP.

I trained as a teacher when I was early thirties. I already had a house then so had to take a mortgage holiday and cut everything to get by on the £14k a year I was paid for my training route (I did school direct salaried). I then took a job in hospitality every Friday night, Saturday night and sometimes Sunday night too, to make sure I could afford my bills. I recognise how lucky I was to do it that way as I didn’t have fees to pay. It was really tough and I would of course have liked quiet down time but needs must. I actually continued with the part time job for a couple of years after I qualified too.
Post grad teacher training is a year (3 terms) on all routes, apart from perhaps Teach First, so if it’s going over a year he’s not meeting a standard somewhere (I’ve just mentored a trainee whose placement 3 has been extended so he won’t qualify until Nov/Dec), he’s only doing it part time or some guidance is being misunderstood somewhere. Most teachers qualify in July and the nicer schools pay them from August 1 on teacher salary when they get their first job.

I don’t understand the Sep-Sep training comment and why that means a whole extra year of you supporting him? Into 2023.
You said because of when he started - when did he start?

It’s weird that he went into this not actually knowing how long it takes!

Any teachers on here.? I dont know the scheme he is on. He has not done a 6 wewk placememt yet. He started work there as a ta then had interview to train as teacher.. his wage is not minimum but betwewn that of a teacher and ta.. he says that the school have said its next sept he will be qualified as he has ro do.a full sept to sept.. i think he started sept or octlast year. So assumed finish this year.. but i cannot be sure about that till i ask him to.clarify.
Anyone know about the schemes.. he pays no fees , he school.pay.a wage and he works full time... no lectures .. learna on rhe job .

I’m sure there are a few of us teachers on here-we are the ones confused by what you are describing! If he started last September, he should be nearly finished.

I don’t think he is telling you the whole truth.

He’s 26 years old!!!! Don’t ask that question on here, phone and ask him! And if he can’t tell you, make it his 26yo arse’s responsibility to find out!

That said, I’m curious… When he started Sep/Oct last year, was that as a TA? So when was his interview to train in school as a teacher? It makes perfect sense that their training scheme runs for one academic year - so his interview was in advance of that.

I’m just confused as to why he’s his sprung this on you!

It appears he is misleading you and then got the cheek, living it up and then got the cheek to ask why his Dad in his mid 60s ‘is being like that?’

This is one of those threads where I hope it’s not true.

I clearly need to find out when he stopped being a ta and when he started having his own class on a trainee wage! I will ask . !

DD has been offered a sponsored QTS post where she would work as the equivalent of an HLTA and learn on the job. It's a two year arrangement starting in September. She isn't taking it up and will do one HLTA year again next year to take up a masters in speech and language therapy starting Sept 2023. The HLTA role has been paramount in the application as has voluntary work with those with communication difficulties. She arms about £24k and is living at home to save.

If she went the QTS sponsored route she could do it living at home. There are so many opportunities at present I don't understand why your ds can't do it local to home.

When did you believe this ‘post grad’ course started and finished and when does he say he started it and will finish it?

How long have you been funding him on this Post grad course?

Doesn’t sound like Teach First as I think that’s 2 years. SCITT wouldn’t pay a salary from school I think… so it sounds like he was interviews for School Direct, to start September 2022.

Right about the time he should have stopped mooching money off his father and delaying his retirement?

When I was 26 I was on a PhD stipend which is the equivalent of minimum wage your describing here.

I lived in a house share as no way I could afford my own place. Postgraduate houses are not full of freshers and were full of pretty hard working people. Your working to subsidise the lifestyle he wants. Also I worked extra hours as a teaching assistant to get a bit more money.

If its teaching is he in a term time contract? Can he pick up other work in the holidays?

Give him a heads up of a couple of months to find a new place and say you just cant afford it anymore.

Your husband is right. Your son is a grown adult. He needs to support himself. I say that as the mother of a 28 year old and a 25 year old who are both completely self supporting. My son began supporting himself at 19 and my daughter at 20. Both have uni degrees and professional jobs.

Stop coddling him. Academia is not so hard that he can't earn extra money during evenings and weekends.

Teacher training full time doesn't take this long surely. I know 5 ex-teachers and all of them did uni, PGCE, NQT then were teachers by 25. Even with the 2 years off yours had - where's the extra year until 2023 come from?

I worked 16 hours a week while at a RG uni. I'm sure he could manage a bar or weekend job.

You seem to be suggesting that he may have started this course in October, but that because it goes from September to September, that first year didn’t count. That will be crap-he would have had to wait until the following September to start which is NOT what he’s told you.

Exactly. You don't do 11 months of the year twice because you missed a month.

As he hasn’t even started what sounds like a School Direct course yet, now is the time for him to start making proper grown up decisions himself.

He’s chosen to return to an expensive city - for a profession he can train in anywhere.

A good school is amazing, so I’m not saying he should move. But, he needs to make decisions now about how he affords to train there, or apply somewhere cheaper.

You do if you haven’t spent that 11 months being trained, performing the right tasks, and being assessed on them.
You couldn’t work as a HCA for 11 months, pass an interview to train as a nurse in, say, month 10 and then expect different level work, with different tasks, not assessed to count as your nurse training!
Even having your own class doesn’t mean you’re being trained to the required standard.

You're missing my point. He's lead the OP to believe he was being trained to start teaching in September 2022. Is he expecting her to believe that whoops, this year didn't count and he didn't know? He's lied somewhere.