to get hacked off at journalists moaning about how oh so hard it is to afford school fees

[emkana]

like in the Daily Telegraph for example today

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AFH51SI3AUOK5QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/education/ 2008/01/30/faclass130.xml&page=2

I wish I could join in with the other posters who point out that this is the Torygraph. Problem is, I do read the Guardian and that too seems to me to be full of pseudo-problems that have very little to do with life as I and my neighbours know it: the morality of fee-paying schools, how to choose the right nanny (childminders are never mentioned), the cost of childrearing (considerably more than the average wage, apparently), gap years abroad. Hard to believe that this is aspirational in the Guardian (though otherwise interesting suggestion, Tech). I think it is simply the case that the people who write there feel there is nothing between their lifestyle and the sink estates. In actual life, I suspect most of the population lie somewhere in between.

Journalism on a national level seems to be a profession that pays rather too well.

I don't question people's decision to send their children to fee-paying schools. Just don't expect me to listen to your sobbing about the hardships you have to go through to get there. Most people round here have the hardships, without any money left over for school fees. And they don't complain. Would be nice one day to see a journalist on a national paper recognise the existence of the many million people on moderate incomes.

'Journalism on a national level seems to be a profession that pays rather too well'...

(I had a childminder, btw.)

MI you earn FAR too much
If I had my way you'd be moonlighting in the evenings as a BARMAID

OMG!!! I think I'll just buy my kids some strong cider and a dog on a string and teach them to roll their own fags! That's clearly where they are going to end up. Because like it or not they are going to a bog-standard comprehensive. We thought it was OK and DS#1 is quite excited about the prospect but clearly we were deluding ourselves. How could we have been sooo stupid?

Message withdrawn

And unlike fennel, MI, bundles and probably others, we couldn't send ours to private school. Drat those pesky poor career choices! Why oh why didn't I plan ahead better....

MI - I don't think you need a cleavage to work behind a bar. I did and I don't have one at all. Must dig out my barmaids handbook. Maybe that's why I got the sack.....

Well put, Cory - the Guardian is also full of infuriating features that have very little to do with most people's idea of RL - so we can't just point fingers at the Torygraph. Today in the Guardian for example there is a feature about how helicopters are now the must-have accessory for the very rich, while Charlotte Raven tells us how hard she's found it to resist the lure of a Plasma TV. And don't get me started on their travel features - the most pretentious, unrealistic load of crap.

And yes, while I would love to see the abolition of private schools I do have to recognise that a free society means people can choose how to spend their money; just don't bloody winge about it afterwards.

Read The Economist if you want intelligent analysis of world events - avoid newspapers that are actually aspirational lifestyle magazines in disguise

Ormirian, we won't be able to afford it by the time they are secondary age, but we could have afforded it if we'd been financially-oriented from when we had children. if we'd made that sort of career choice. Which we haven't.

some people don't prioritise money. ONe of the things I hope my children will learn at their bog standard comp is that money doesn't buy you intelligence or happiness.

Amusingly, the daughter of the journo who wrote that piss-poor article is at the very non-glam state primary school formerly attended by my dc.

Which leaves me wondering whether the "dear me, a state school, how could you possibly" tone of the article is deliberate or whether she's just unaware of how risible it all sounds.

alls hcools have a g and t register but we on mn chosose to snigger at it.

My sons' school doesn't do G & T.

Message withdrawn

All the article is about is how people who have a fairly good income go and get extra work/extra income in order to finance something they are interested in. That's up to them but only a die hard Torygraph reader can possibly have sympathy for them "coping" i.e. getting through life.

I don't care what people do as long as they don't witter on so

Is a reading age of 12 at age 7 that unusual? (Not being funny, I am really interested); I had a reading age of 12 at about that age, as did many of my friends, and we all did fine at the local comp. without getting into trouble. Well, not much. This "G&T" thing seems a bit odd to me; fine to treat the "geniuses" a bit differently if required, as with the very backward children (or thick kids..thanks Xenia...)...but surely this is simply to the bright end of the whole intellectual spectrum? Is it all a big con?

yes Spockster now I think about it me too with the reading age

it is amazing that I managed to get through state school without becoming a dissaffected hooligan

I have an English degree too so it looked like they also failed to batter an appreciation of literature out of me as well

so did I spockster (have a much higher reading age than my actual age I mean)

just means you need a good supply of books to keep you entertained
get down the library!

I have no idea what my reading age was. Much too long ago. But I was way ahead of both my children in terms of what I read. And DD has a reading age of 10.8 at age 8. DS#1...well we'll draw a curtain across that...

Oooh - do you remember that Dr Who when the Dalek and the Cybermen worlds' collided and they were in the same episode?

I think it is happening here. Private education and G&T in the same thread.