Why are so many Mumsnetters like this and how representative are they of parents in general?

[Ilvergate]

Why are many of the posters on here so well -informed and pushy about the educational system for the benefit of their kids? (Not necessarily a bad thing).

Ie they seem to know so much about Oxbridge from admissions details like what to prioritise and how to perform at interview; private vs grammar schools etc details; knowing about the best tutors for their kids; being well-informed about A-level choice and GCSE choice etc.

It’s almost like they went to Oxbridge themselves or work there!

I must admit I have grown to resent my parents because of this. Neither of them went to university; neither knew anything about A-levels/GCSEs in terms of being able to give me advice about which to choose or which university to apply for; neither could give any Oxbridgey advice to me; I went to a state school even though there was a local grammar school that was well-performing that I perhaps could have gained a place at but my parents were clueless about the 11+ etc.

Obviously they want/wanted the best for me but it has been more a case of me having to specifically ask them to get a private tutor if I needed one rather than them actively seeking one; or, if at the time of the 11+ I had been aware of it, it would have been a case of me telling them about it and asking them to help me acquire the tools to prepare for it rather than them guiding me.

I’m just wondering are the posters on here representative of the majority of parents in the country or are they just special? Were their parents the same for them or are they being different for the sake of their children?

it must be region dependant. My mum and her sister are in their 70s now. They came from a deprived working class mining community. One went to LSE and the other Bristol. Parents were a miner and a shop worker. I have never thought this was odd as subsequently everyone has gone to university. I asked my mum how she got in and she simply said she just applied. Maybe the school was just encouraging or they were lucky. I don’t know but certainly no way my grandparents would have had a clue.

There are millions of mumsnetters and each thread has different people on it, it's not exactly the same people being knowledgeable about all these different topics. However when someone is knowledgeable about a topic they are likely to join a thread about that topic and share that knowledge, so what you are seeing is basically selection bias.

People who are knowledgeable about university education tend to be making decisions with at least half an eye on that right from when their children are very young. Families with no cultural expectations of university level education do have a lot lower probability of producing a child that goes down this route (not because of any lack of ability!). Your experiences are perfectly normal for a vast segment of the population, I don't think you should blame your parents for it. This is why a lot of universities have a "Widening Participation" team whose job is to engage with bright children in areas with low historic levels of higher education, as well as bursaries for people who are the first in their family to go to uni.

Most I know don’t micromanage, they’re just interested in their children and want to be an involved parent to show support and interest. As long as you’re giving your children room to grow and gain independence, I think being more involved than our parents were, is a good thing.

If you are a parent who has been through the process and been successful as a result, it makes sense that you would guide your children to go in that direction.

DH is 50 and from a working class family. His father is an academic so he was encouraged to attend uni being very intelligent too. Subsequently, DH has guided his son in the same way. The most important step in this process was ensuring he attended the best local secondary school despite sabotage efforts from his ex wife who happened to be a teacher of all things!

My eldest stepson did apply to Cambridge and achieved the grades to get in, but didn't get a place. He has now started at his second choice, which is still a top university for the field he has chosen. Funnily enough it's the same uni his father attended, so this all helped when they were looking around on open days.

None of my friends had parents who thought the "nearest school" was good enough, nothing new there.

You can be interested and research without micro-managing your kids. I have nothing against teachers, but ultimately, It's not their job to do everything and guide with everything. They have tens of other students to deal with, and being a teacher doesn't mean you are always right or know everything.

As a parent, I am interested in my kids education and future, I am responsible for putting them in the right schools to start with, and I will be the one paying for the education anyway 😂

Of course I keep an eye on things, doesn't mean I tell them what to do or do everything for them.

That’s unfair. My son went from a state comp and a very ordinary home and had a great time. You don’t get in by being posh! Possibly in the past when there were such things as closed scholarships where places were allocated to certain schools regardless of performance, but that’s stopped.

The entrance procedure is rigorous. Marked work from school had to be submitted, you need excellent GCSE and (in my son’s time) AS results, a good reference from your school, the actual support of your school for your application, then, if selected for interview, you’ll have a first interview, then sit an exam for which it’s impossible to prepare, then have another interview where that exam is used as the basis for the questions. It’s hardly a walk in the park!

Academics at Oxbridge want people they think are worth teaching. They don’t want people who are posh wastes of space. Why would they? It’s not Brideshead Revisited any longer, if it ever was!

We are a very ordinary (I guess, lower mc) family but education was the most important thing to our parents, and it was to us too. We’ve never had a new car or smart holidays, our house is full of hand me down furniture. But we would do almost anything legal to help our kids educationally.

What an elite little bubble you live in.

No issue at all with you living like that, but it is a bit much to pretend that all parents are able to live like you and your circle.

What is stopping anyone researching on the internet for a lot of this info? We can’t really say there is zero access to info anymore. Even threads on mumsnet can give a lot of info

Well that’s bizarre! It’s no good claiming people have an unfair advantage just because they a) care and b) can be bothered.

When I was teaching in a primary school I remember a conversation with a parent about secondary transfer. It WAS a culture shock to me, I’ll admit, when she said the only thing she cared about regarding choice of a high school for her son was that nobody would bother him or put him under any pressure (I paraphrase). I had no idea that a parent could have so little aspiration for their child. I mean, of course not every child is academic, but there are other ways of achieving.

Her choice etc, and OK - but parents with that attitude can hardly complain that other parents are pushy.

One person’s pushy is another person’s aspiration!

why wouldn't you know about this? why wouldn't you care? That should be the weird thing, not the other way round.

There's a middle ground though as the vast majority can't afford private or are able to get a grammar place in certain areas, afford tutoring etc Not doing those 3 doesn't mean you don't care about education.

My son went to a comprehensive. Private and grammar school parents are not the only ones who are interested in education.

There have been several initiatives to help able children from less affluent backgrounds to get into top universities...this is great, but it needs to start much earlier than sixth-form, and lowering admission criteria is not the way to do it.

I think the way forward is through enrichment at school. We need to inspire students to look beyond the (boring old) curriculum and get them interested in all kinds of 'non-school' subjects: philosophy, archaeology, art history, politics (not party politics - political theory etc), architecture, natural history, the environment, astronomy etc etc. This could be done through clubs or through a lecture series, open to anyone.

I always disapproved of the Gifted and Talented initiative. I hate, hate, the labelling of children as G & T - what effect does this have on others? And on them. I saw the fall-out as a parent and a teacher. Kids who feel hurt, excluded and 'second class' because not chosen for the enrichment activities and the G & T children themselves who misunderstood and got a disproportionate idea of their own abilities - I've seen children and parents cross because their child didn't excel at exams, or didn't get into Oxbridge when they'd been designated 'G & T' at age 11.

So have all the enrichment activities and visits but let them be self-selecting. That way you might light a spark in someone which will inspire them to go more deeply into a subject - which is what the top universities are looking for - people who are self-motivated and who have shown real evidence of their personal interest in the subject they're applying to study.

I'm sure by some standards I would be considered "pushy". I have kids at the best schools in the area, do lots of extra curricular etc. But I have no clue on 11+ (my kids went through a different system but at one stage were up against people who had been tutored for 11+ which was eye opening). I also have no knowledge on uni these days and certainly not Oxbridge but I'll find out what I need to know when I need to know it.

Exactly - you are seeing your own confirmation bias -

there are also posts about parents / children caught up in the care system, kids who are too unwell to engage with education, PRU’s,
posters with step kid strife, kids without a bedroom or even a bed sometimes -
it’s all relative -

of course it doesn’t mean you don’t care but it does mean that you have bit harder to get the opportunities. As a parent in that situation I’d be researching as many work experience opportunities that my child could apply for. I’d be looking if there were any musical/sport initiatives for those who can’t afford lessons. I’d be researching anything I could honestly. The internet has changed so much in terms of things just being a quick search away.

My dad left education at 15. My mum at 18.

My sister and I went to the local state comprehensive. Then on to the local state 6th form college. My parents both passionately believed in comprehensive education.

My sister went to Oxford. She was encouraged by her English teacher at her 6th form. She didn't have private tuition.

Very few people had private tuition in those days. We both left primary school not long after the 11 plus system finished in 1974 in our area.

I know lots because I'm a teacher myself and also went to Oxford. However, although my own parents are bright and mc and had high aspirations for me and dsis, neither of them had been to university and they didn't know much at all about how the system worked.

I was the first in my family to go to uni, my family didn't have a clue. IMO it has been a huge advantage for ds to have parents who went to uni, moved around, had professional jobs and just have some understanding of the whole system. DS went to state school and is now doing a degree apprenticeship - thanks at least in part to us having some idea about what was going to be expected from a CV/covering letter and at interview.

Having parental support from people who know something of the system is a huge advantage I think.

My granny was a teacher; all of her (6) children went to grammar school and university.

My DM was the 1st in her family to go to university and became a primary school teacher.

My DH and I both went to grammar schools. I’m an English teacher, so deliberately planned my children to be born Sept-Nov to give them a head start. My DC go to the best primary school in the county (state) and, as I tutor for the 11+, I fully expect them all to get into grammar schools.

I think as parents we do what we know.

strong relate op.
My parents had me in their 40s and were so out of touch it’s insane, I don’t blame them for it though they were still good parents but they didn’t even know what a gcse was back in their day it was an o level and that’s if you stayed at school long enough to do them most people left to get a job before then. I didn’t really know the difference between college and university until about 17.

None of this really mattered in the end because I got pregnant at 15 but reading a thread on here where people were really into their child’s GCSEs got me thinking. They were really out of touch in other ways too don’t even get me started on clothing haha

I’m sure my parents hadn’t a clue what O or A Levels I was doing - and as for going to the school - heaven forfend! Dm would have died rather than contact my school, even when for one of my A Levels I had no teacher for two years (they went of sick after first half term) and I had to self-teach (not very successfully!).

With the dcs I can’t say I made grand plans (both born prematurely at end of August for a start!) but I did make myself useful on a keyboard when they both wished to be Oxbridge-bound.

I would say that it was a bit of a case of knowing enough to overcome the system. Not the Oxbridge system, but the comprehensive school teachers, some of whom had great sacks of McCain oven chips on their shoulders. Dc was called a snob for not applying to the local university (duff former HE place) and buzzword seems to be “equity” ie cut all those pesky academic kids down to size.

I love my parents but they were so old when they had me so out of touch lol they didn’t know what a gcse was back in their day they were o levels and that’s if you didn’t leave school early to get a job.
Then there was the extremely old fashioned chunky boyish shoes I had to wear to school 😂

I didn’t know the difference between college and university until I was about 17 I think my parents still don’t know the difference. In fact I KNOW my dad dosent because he was talking about my cousin “getting in debt going to college” recently lol

But how do they know in the first place?

MN parents are a bit of a breed apart and tbh, some views on here about Oxbridge and higher education can be a bit dated and classist.
I think you are being a bit hard on your parents. Mine both left school at 15, there was no money for tutors, my Mum was very supportive of anything I wanted to do. But they had no experience of good education, they loved me, cared for me and did what they could.
And yes, they always told people about anything I'd achieved and I guess in some ways took credit, but they were just proud of me.