to expect my local cancel to pay for transport to a private school

[tootyflooty]

My dd has been offered a place at a theatre school, it is fee paying but not local and they do not have scholerships. I asked the council if they would provide the cost of a train pass, but were told no, because it is not our local state school.My argument is that by funding my dd education for the next 5 years (not easily affordable for us)I am saving the local education authority vast sums of money as they will not be paying for her place at the local state school, it seems unfair that we are penalised for our decision, She would get a free pass if our local school was over 3 miles away.Sorry to ramble but we have never had handouts from anyone and this seems grossly unfair.

I just flicked through the local paper. Most jobs pay £17K - £23K and those demand several years experience. Where are these 50K jobs one can walk into?

Tiredemma, I blew all the profit on my first house on my children and wedding and not working for 4 years so had to save again for this house bought right at the peak March 2007, we had to save a £30k deposit with one income and three kids, it was harder to save that first £3k to put it into contex.

NOBODY WANTS TO BE ON BENEFITS KATIEDD dont you get that some people do not have a choice but to go on them in the first place

you owe crazy an apology btw

secondly just get over yourself, or ride off on your high horse

katie all posts have a context and the little three dots signify something else was said - by including the time - i allowed other people to read in context, they could ofcourse draw their own conclusions.

i don't feel the context they were in ws completely different to the one which we are generally speaking about 0 i mean i think its the same - there fore i hope you can understand why i might be confused at your stance - either your accept that not everyone is a feckless lazy bones and they might actually work very hard - paramedics, security guards, factory packers, just examples - but i think they work very hard but wont ever reach 50k generally.

so either you accept this

or your stance is that - if you are perfectly able you should earn 50k whatever yourcircumstances, ergo your a feckless lazy nones who much try harder.

Katie, your opinions on this subject are coming across as quite naive and simplistic.

It is pointless to generalise.

Life isn't black and white.

No, I like the balance of my life. Because of all that very very hard work earlier I can now be based at home when I choose to work. Today I've two small boys here plus my twins plus my student son and daughter and I'm happily working here at home until i got out for a business lunch. It's a very civilised way to be as I can incorporate work and home things at the same time and also planning for our ski trip in just under a couple of weeks. i don't feel it's a high pressured life all sacrificed for the sake of money. I feel - this morning someone was here who has cleaned my house and done my washing and aren't I very lucky as well as aren't I very hard working. I don't think it's a question of - work hard and have an awful life or don't work hard and lots of time with children. I think earning more as women means you can have more not less time with chidlren as you can pay people to do the bits of the job you don't like like cleaning.

As for teachers - my children's father was not a head master but he chose to work all day Saturdays teaching privately and he plays the organ too so often busy on Sundays and usually after school and then a lot of teachers round here choose to work in holiday play schemes too to make extra money. That's on top of a normal teaching job with hours of 8.30am to 6pm and some evenings (in a private school). Some people just do work very very hard in the UK and always have done. I've worked all night when I've had to. They tend to be the people who end up earning more money, not always but often. I didn't have to go to Iran the other week and spend a night on a plane, two days solid working with one night in the hotel and then another night on a plane and then straight to a meeting in London. They couldnt' find anyone else who would do it at such sort notice. I find a very direct correlation between working hard and earnings.

It is not dumping children in care to find competent adults to care for them. That sort of emotive language doesn't really help. A child can love a carer a hge amoutn and a granny and a neighbour. Love isn't something that is limited. Giving them more people to love particularly if it's consistent same carers/nannies/grannies/siblings is a gift to them not a burden. Mine have hugely benefited from the various adults in their lives.

Katie - other than selling drugs/pyramid schemes/loan sharking, how exactly could someone with poor educational qualifications and no training earn 50K a year? I'm interested to know, as you seem to think all you need to get this sort of salary is the will to earn it.

I realise I am probably opening the way for further personal attacks, but I may get off lighter than expected considering Katie wrote something really nice yesterday evening about single parents.

So being a single parent, does that mean you will start being 'nice' to me now? After all I am a bit of an easy target.

Thanks Nutty btw. It's good to know I'm not just being silly and overreacting.

No, of course not, Katie. But in society as a whole, we can only cater for so many people doing high paid jobs. Yes, you can go to another school or another job, but there will only be so many high paid jobs going in the whole country. This means, not everybody who has a rocket up their arse and wants money can actually have it.We have got to have a large number of badly paid people: not all of those will be doing those jobs because they are not qualified or have made a conscious choice.

It's like a party where there's 10 blue chairs and only 1 yellow.
Some of the children will do fine, because they actually think the blue chairs are more comfortable or you get a better view of the conjuror or because they genuinely don't care that much, but there may well be a child or two who would have desperately wanted the yellow and who could have fulfilled the criteria (whatever they were), but there is still only one yellow chair.

Personally, I am one of the children who think I can be more useful on a blue chair. I still don't relish being told regularly on MN that because I am on a blue chair that means I am less hardworking or less intelligent etc than the child on the yellow chair. And both I and the child on the yellow chair should be profoundly grateful to those children on the blue chairs that are ready to prop us up and rescue us when we need it: we couldn't get on without them.

No Cust I am not suggesting that paramedics etc do not work hard but they choose their career just as everyone else does. Of course society is relying on them, mainly women no doubt to fulfill a caring role and get paid fuck all for it but it is a choice, right at the begining we all make our choices.

Xenia - taking it that you have experience of the 'care' available for disabled children? Woudl you put yours into it to enable you to go out to work more?

what 'care' for disabled children? There is some?

Quite, NMC

"right at the begining we all make our choices"

So the majority of children coming out of care "choose" to get no qualifications and to go into very low paid jobs or long term unemployment?

And the children of poorly educated unskilled workers mostly "choose" to go into unskilled, poorly paid jobs themselves?

And that the privately educated children of doctors, bankers and lawyers "choose" to become well off professionals?

Because we all have completely 'free' choice don't we?

The child of an illiterate 14 year old single mum living on a sink estate in inner London is just as free to choose a career in medicine as the child of two surgeons living in Belgravia?

What rot.

Gaby, by getting educational qualifications and training, I didn't get any support through Uni my mother thought I was an absolute bitch for inisting I stayed on at school and doing my A'levels because it meant another 2 years before I could give them £20 a week keep money, as it was they had the £20 a week out of my sat job money and I had to by food with the other £15 and walk to college.
My Dh used to run to college every morning because he didn't have a coat and was in Hull.
I could bore you all morning but the fact is you can pull yourself up by your boot straps if that's what's important too you.

There's more help available today to an illiterate 14 year old single mum living on a sink estate in London than there was in 1994 on a sink estate in Kingshurst Birmingham, too be fair though my Mum was 19 and could read just didn't give a fuck though.
Out of my friends at school, most us were from one parent families and most now own their own homes, have business' etc etc.

and what would you have done if your mother beat you for wanting to go and do A levels or threw you out of the house?

"I could bore you all morning but the fact is you can pull yourself up by your boot straps if that's what's important too you"

No - you were able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That does not mean that other people who are unable to achieve what you have achieved are lazy and feckless. People are affected in different ways by their upbringing. Some people will break away from difficult circumstances, other people don't, for a whole variety of reasons.

There are some people who've come out of the care system who've achieved fantastically well in life. However, the majority of children who come out of care do very very badly. Just because a tiny number are able to escape that fate through their own efforts does that mean that those who can't are completely responsible for the terrible circumstances they often end up in?

Seriously?

care for disabled kids?? really??

Need more coffee, that actually did happen to a girl I worked with who ended up in the YMCA and did her A'levels from there, she was regional manager last time I saw her.

So basically you're saying that the child of an illiterate 14 year old living on a sink estate has the same opportunities as a child from a two parent professional family living in a prosperous Surrey suburb? All working class people need to do is know how to access the help that's available?

Katie you sound incredibly bitter and angry with your own mother. I might be wrong but it coems across that way. perhaps this influences your attitude somewhat?

KatieDD, I am really glad to read that you, your dh and your friends have grasped the opportunities available to you to make a lot of your lives. It could not have been easy. It is a fact that the home situations of some children will make it easier for them to succeed (in the conventional sense) than others. But the opportunities are there in the UK in a way that is often taken for granted. They are certainly not available in the unabashedly non-welfare orientated developed country I grew up in. It is not a given that a disruptive home environment must lead to a bleak adulthood.

I knew people that happenend to Katie. I did A levels (one of about 4 in my secondary school) but my mother expected me to look after my siblings, do the housework and go shopping. I didn't get good A levels - being half an hour late having to do stuff first and deal with my mother on exam day didn't help. But I did get to do a degree.
Many of my friends from school didn't and many were pretty bright. But there was no encouragement at home and none from the frankly rather shitty school. I don't blame them for not being able to break out of that trap. People from our estate just didn't go to university. It was unheard of.
I'm guessing its even worse now there are fees and loans for the poor to break out. Some will, but most will not.

Katie do you think apologising to crazy might make you look weak? Glad you are not my boss.

Cory you are very clever. Your post re reasons why we can't all earn £50k was very informative.