To find that working in a school really puts me off having children?

[ElephantePicante]

I love my job but corr blimey what a form of contraception it is. The genuine mental health issues where children can't get through their daily timetable without 20 time outs and check ins, the students who MUST be escorted from the front gate because they can't possibly walk 2 minutes on their own, the competitive (and questionable) mental health issues about self harm and who has the worst anxiety, the bullying over snap chat, the not recognising that they're nervous for a test (which is normal) and not suffering from an anxiety disorder, the parents who demand that their child isn't possibly absconding from lesson and there must be a genuine reason why their little angel isn't in class, the school refusers, the teachers verbally abused by snowflakey parents at the gate, the parents who find it outrageous that their child gets a sanction for forgetting their P.E. bag. I could go on. Friends who work in Primaries have equally enlightening stories. It's all sad and exhausting at the same time and really makes you stop and think about whether you want to condemn yourself to it all. Nobody holds their gorgeous newborn and thinks they'll turn out to be hard work and the cause of 10 phone calls a week from school.

My son is a lovely, gentle, kind, trouble-free 17 year old. Would I do it again in hindsight? Never!!

Erm - I can only hope you don't actually work in a school, with the open mocking of pupils and their needs on an internet forum.

What you say behind closed doors is one thing, but these are peoples' children, and if this ever got traced back to you you wouldn't need to worry about working in a school.

OCD isn't all tidying. I have OCD and am a messy twat.

It's about obsessions... and compulsions. Things you have to do to avoid certain fears. And ruminating obsessively. Plus intrusive thoughts.

Not all tidying.

From many of the responses on here, it seems like many parents have buried their heads in the sand-probably with good reason.
Being a parent is wonderful and going in with your eyes open, will mean, if you have children, you’ll hopefully be on top of it a little more than those who don’t.

Yep

@ElephantePicante One of the naivetés of pre parenting teachers (I was one!) is that if you do everything ‘right’, then you’ll create a perfect or very ‘good’ child. In reality I have three children and the one who is autistic (and only got diagnosed later in primary school) is more work than many classes I taught put together. The others two are easy peasy. I love all my children equally and have no regrets, but there’s no doubt there is more (genetic or otherwise) luck involved in how our children turn out than we would like to imagine. Not something I was willing to accept as a very organised, controlled, dare I say tad judgemental teacher.

I’m on maternity leave (work in a school) and you have just taken me right back to that spinning feeling of being at work and trying to constantly bat away all of these things coming flying at you all day long. It didn’t put me off having children but it did make me certain my child will not be allowed to be rude or spend so much time in front of a screen that they physically can’t function in school if they see the iPads are out. I’ve now got a baby and it’s brilliant, so much better (and easier) than it was meant to be. The weird thing is all my friends with babies of similar age are finding it so hard but they have ‘normal’ jobs where you sit at a desk and are able to have an adult conversation then get an actual lunch break. No one runs at them every 15 seconds asking them to do their laces and if they can go to the toilet for the 7th time that hour. It’s relentless! Having a baby is like walking on a fluffy cloud in comparison 😂 There’s only one of them, which is the best bit and they don’t make anywhere NEAR as much noise. So no it didn’t put me off having children but it has put me off going back to work!

You are clearly in the wrong job. Go and do something that matters to you, for people you don't despise and probably don't have kids as you would probably be a bit shit at it

There are a lot of people working in schools who do not have children. They won't all have fertility issues, won't all be single/disinterested in a relationship and won't all have already decided they never wanted children of their own before they passed their A Levels.

So it must have put some off.

You sound quite judgemental. Maybe you’re just not suited to being a mother, it’s not for everyone. My mum was very judgemental, not very empathetic and nothing was real or ok unless she had experienced it. She was a rubbish mum.

I worked in a (primary) school before I had kids and it made me want kids more than ever.

Parenthood may just not be for you and that’s ok!

The world already has enough humans and you don’t appear to like kids or their ‘snowflake’ (shit word) parents so no need for you to procreate.

I work in a school and everything you say is absolutely true. The mental health issues are through the roof. I think we are raising a generation who cannot cope with even the slightest bump in their normal lives without some kind of amateur dramatics following.

A friends DD insisted she was suffering from social anxiety, after one of her friendship group, who had a difficult home life, told her friends she had been prescribed beta blockers for her anxiety.

Within a month every girl in their group was ‘suffering’ from the same condition and was on medication. Friends DD only appeared to be anxious about crowds on the bus (mum ended up driving her to and from school) although she seemed to be okay with crowds in parties and nights out 🙄.

To this day, my friend can’t see how her incredibly middle-class, privileged daughter was not suffering with anything other than possible social contagion. Since leaving school, there have been no hints of any mental health issues. All the while her beta blockers sit in the drawer untouched, and probably out of date.

both my dcs went through that. Genuine problems for them and despair for us as parents. But they get over it in the end, one way or another. And my dcs are the best company in the world, fun and caring. Their challenges have made them thoughtful kind teens. Occasionally a teacher was kind and encouraging and that made all the difference. Most were just exasperated and cynical.

Thank you for saying this.

@Dancingwithhyenas Thank you for writing this:

One of the naivetés of pre parenting teachers (I was one!) is that if you do everything ‘right’, then you’ll create a perfect or very ‘good’ child. In reality I have three children and the one who is autistic (and only got diagnosed later in primary school) is more work than many classes I taught put together. The others two are easy peasy. I love all my children equally and have no regrets, but there’s no doubt there is more (genetic or otherwise) luck involved in how our children turn out than we would like to imagine. Not something I was willing to accept as a very organised, controlled, dare I say tad judgemental teacher.

It is very true. ❤️

Agree. If I was to do it all again they'd probably be homeschooled.

Not all kids are like that though. Surely you see plenty of well behaved kids there too? It can be a gamble, sometimes it’s parenting, obviously sometimes it’s mental / physical health issues causing problems which can be difficult to manage

They are growing up.

Yes there will be tough days but surely there are days when is a joy.

If you work just with adults they can be hard work and miserable too.

Maybe a gravedigger is a good job for you.

the Trouble is though you don’t know what your child is going to be like. I never thought I’d be one of those parents but my child turned out to have asd. I never really thought about Sen before that but I guess I just thought that children that needed support got it in school. Unfortunately that’s not the case, if you don’t advocate for your child you’ll get nothing and they’ll be left to continually fail, maybe even end up out of school and drift for years with no one even being bothered, my child is now in an amazing Sen school which I fully trust and I am very much not that parent and leave the school to get on with things but if i hadn’t been that parent when he was in mainstream we wouldn’t be where we are now

I was glad when a relative of mine stopped working in a school, for this reason. It was starting to have an effect on her.

OP, I have 2 children but I totally agree with you. But you're describing parents/parenting rather than children. I'm in my 40s and didn't grow up in the UK but I got all my "how to parent" info from here. And I believe the current trend is creating a lot of spoilt, anxious, demanding grown ups. These people will one day will inevitably lead companies/countries and that thought scares me.
You can do it differently as a parent.

I've only recently become a step parent. I love the kids and try to take my role very seriously, but nothing has convinced me that having children is a good idea. They are parasites and it is so easy to lose oneself utterly in their service. I am fortunate to have a wonderful partner who understands I need space from it (every day, in small ways) but it is still really hard at times.

Funnily enough, I think teachers get the best bits of most kids. Yes, some are feral and awful, but many put on their best behaviour in front of their teachers, and try hard to function ok. The conversations I have had with pupils at school are among the best, most entertaining, most inspiring I have had.

I agree, though, that pupils at schools are coddled and encouraged into victimhood far more than they ever were. Like the Diversity and Inclusion industry, we must beware the mental health industry too - the version that pathologises everything. We need to build resilient dandelions, not orchids.

She reserved the mocking for the parents - which I think is fair enough.

Kids didn’t have these issues when I was growing up. But then I grew up in a country where we weren’t tested and ranked continuously from age 4; where we weren’t reminded all the time that our choice of what to study at age 15 would close off entire degree subjects and professions to us forever; and where it would be considered ridiculously heavy-handed to sanction someone over something so utterly meaningless as forgetting their PE kit. 🤷‍♀️ I’m hoping to get my child the fuck out of this country before secondary.