has anyone turned down a massive discount >=50% to private school?? why?

[tidybooks]

We have been offerred half price prep school for our sons, (discount is related to my FIL's profession).

Obviously we would still have to pay quite a lot but it is much more affordable with the discount and we could just able manage it.

Wouldn't have considered private before secondary otherwise.

Not sure what to do, feel that perhaps it is too good to turn down, but then it's still a lot of money.

"I am not of the social class which would use that awful word kid."

In Xenia's (low EQ?...) world, anyone who stays at home to look after the children or who works in anything other than an exceptionally lucrative profession is a bit common and stupid, methinks... Or maybe she hasn't actually experienced as much of the world as she actually thinks?

ps I earned quite a lot more than my dh when I chose to give up work, but his career had potential (as did mine, but he enjoyed his career and I felt mine was dull as ditchwater and regardless of what Xenia says about lucrative careers, it did not offer the power to work short enough hours for me to have the time with my children that I felt they deserved and I wanted when they deserved it and I wanted it, as she probably well knows since she works for herself, not an employer, anyway).

I have challenged xenia in the past maureen about how she would never have reached her dizzy heights without paying someone a shit wage to look after her children! Strangely no reply. Sickening that the very people she derides and insults have had a huge hand in getting her where she is financially today. Patronising and just plain wrong.

I used to challenge her but just can't be bothered anymore. I understand she was helpful once on a 'how to make loadsamoney and be unpleasant to serfs' thread once though?

Exhibit 1: 'I certainly don't have kids as I am not of the social class which would use that awful word kid.'

Exhibit 2: 'housewives talking about washing powder, I kid you not and even some workers'

Different meaning ok then?
You're of the social class who bangs on endlessly about money, I see. Top drawer!

I didn't think iit was instructing. More advising. I've been here a long time, Xenia hasn't changed!

And gaelic. Yes, very helpful if you live in Scotland. There are a huge amount of jobs available if you have Gaelic as a second language. If you dontget that, you clearly have no idea how things work here! Dont tell me how things work in Glasgow if you don't live here and don't know. And being bilingual has HUGE benefits to children, including maths, arts, music.

I still say: Xenia has been saying the same stuff for years. I work as a teacher and she thinks I'm not a good mum cos I only earn 1/4 of my dh's salary - he's a GP.

weegie - you are clearly a complete failure. She may actually like me as i earn 3 x my husbands salary - but his salary is shit so we're still skint!!

It's not enough to earn shedloads too. You also have to be the right social class. And live in the right place.

But of course, Mordion. If you aren't the right social class, living in the right place and earning shedloads, then you don't understand how things really work.

its not your role to advise how one responds to other posts or posters weegiemum
now if you have a beef with specific poster thats your issue
dont impose your gripes upon others by instructing how posters should respond to other posters

a) Rug, not blanket, pardon me.

b) My dad was an aristo (ok, a foreign aristo, I'm stretching a point); so I (think I) can say pardon me. And kids.

c) I chose to marry significantly down Xenia (on your version of up/ down), in all things except for height. Why do you suppose all women marry up? Whatever happened to love? No-one goes into the army for riches, they haven't done since pillaging went out. I don't recall any 'decision': he liked his job and was good at it and I was very incompetent at mine, despite the huge earning potential and 'glamour' (frankly I needed out before a massive professional negligence action hit me and the MC firm, and I hadn't even qualified). A no brainer really: California, sun lotion, pools, children, not squinting at endless documentation etc. :)

d) I do think you need to get your head around the fact that women are not in any way demeaned or subjugated if they choose an alternative way from yours to skin the bloody cat.

Memories of those lovely US Marines jogging past the house at 6am against the backdrop of a Mojave Desert dawn ....

Well sadly the top of the army have now hugely gone down in my estimation, even those I thought were really admirable - just about everyone approached was available to hire and prepared to breach their contracts by offerig to influence award of contracts. If the top of the armed forces were about 90% women I wonder if there would be such corruption.

My points are always political. Why isn't the woman the GP? We will never ever get women getting anywhere as long as most of them marry up and then don't really work very much and that really does matter to our children and their prospects and to women as a whole.

There is a lot of misrepresentation of my views above. I have never said I demean women with low IQs. People are people and I hope we all judge them on how they treat others from whom they will gain no advantage. I don't think I've ever under paid anyone. I am ridiculously generous because that works and very nice as that gets the best out of people.

On thety grammar point as my mother always said kid is a baby goat. Just kidding is not really about goats or children for that matter. Yes, we are all divided by how we speak and how we are and our class and looks etc but that does not mean that I don't treat everyone well.

Oh, so a kid is literally a baby goat .... or, alternatively, it is a joke? Both fine, I see. Will remember.

You say we must judge people on how they behave toward those who cannot give them advantage, and then your two examples of being nice to people clearly explain the advantage you expect to gain from it! Nonsensical.

I will judge you on your snobbishness and unpleasantness toward vast swathes of society.

Actually I think you are trying to apply the mores of 'the North' to the rest of the country. Londoners have no problem with using the word kids.

I've also been known to call children kitten, chicken, petal and lamb. What a low iq prole I must be!

id say weans,in scotland its weans (west coast) or bairns (east coast)

I think that in the professional world regional accent is rather more important than 'social class' or even the use of the occasional usage of slang.

There's good and bad in the top brass Xenia, just as everywhere else.

I didn't marry up. Plenty don't marry up. But that spoils your political point so you ignore, to attempt to make your not universally valid point work. Which makes you look weak.

You don't merely demean women with low Qs. You attempt to demean women with IQs which may well be significantly higher IQs than your own, simply because they aren't income led and don't value money above all else.

Perhaps they don't value income above all else because their IQ is higher than your own. Or because they retained more originality and verve. And who cares, actually? Really, each to their own.

well ive obviously got scottish accent and never had any jip about it
hey us scheme weans get everywhere

Hello OP, I hope you get this as I only just saw this.

I /we refused a place at a top private boarding/day school. It was also due to dh's profession.
I felt my dss wouldn't fit in as we are totally different socially and economically (although I don't think having money is better) just different. I'm so glad we didn't as I'm sure they would have been very miserable.

There are plenty of women GPs, Xenia. I think that might be part of the reason why GPs are no longer willing to visit patients at night any more - it may have suited the patients, but it wasn't "family friendly" for the GPs...

I have little doubt that if women made their way to the top of the armed forces, they would be just as tempted towards corruption as their male counterparts, if it advanced their own families.... I have seen little evidence of women reducing corruption anywhere, but would be interested if there is research to show that the influence of women has actually reduced corruption in politics, journalism, the law, etc.

And you do demean people you consider to have low IQs, by talking about the work they do as inferior and unworthy of people with any intelligence. Your idea of not demeaning people is to be nice to people who are "beneath you."

It's creepy to choose a high-paying career to "provide properly" for one's children. What if you couldn't have children? What if you had a few kids (yes KIDS*) and then found you didn't like having so many & you felt like you sacrificed your career options for the benefit of children you didn't enjoy? It's a recipe for resentment.

What if your children reject your education choices or underperform or go live in squats instead?

I'm glad someone has brought Xenia up about employing people below her social stature to raise her children. That always bothered me, too.

*Last time Xenia ticked me off for accusing her of having Kids, a few days later I heard someone extremely posh (Prince Charles?) refer to his "kids." I couldn't help but snigger in retrospect.

I think most men and women pick jobs in order to support their families and themselves. Isn't that pretty self evident or do women on mumsnet see themselves as some kind of visual display unit on the arm of a man who keeps them?

I certainly do not pay fees to produce children with particular exam results. I am as keen they play well the classical music I adore or find sports they love to play or whatever enthuses them as anything else. Education is a very broad thing in my view.

What is social stature? Lovely people do all kinds of things for me every day in all kinds of areas. To suggest I demean anyone is just plain wrong. Howeveri t is true some of us are prettier than others, some fat, some thin, some clever, some horrible. These are differences. Some are nasty differences - someone unkind would be dreadful as a spouse, but so might someone with an IQ of 80 for someone who is quite bright. Some women tolerate a very fat man because they are fat or because he is rich or because the rest of his personality makes up for it.

The point GPs is interesting because even with women GPs many of them keep saying on mumsnet they dont' own the practice so their pay is nothing like as high as people suggest it must be and plenty of them marry surgeons etc who earn a lot more. In other words even at GP level the women marry up therefore when it comes to playing second fiddle on careers and earning relative pin money yet again the woman downgrades her career, does not end up being managing partner in the GPs group practice but does 3 afternoons a week for a relative pittance because she cannot prioritise her career as her husband earns so much more.

All this talk of social stature is a red herring. While certain people may assume and proclaim they are of a higher social stature than others they are probably just making this up inside their own deluded minds. In London, gender, where you were born (this judgment covers both the uk and overseas people - being born overseas often conferring higher social status than being born in certain partsof the uk) where you went to university (not school, so much), what you do, and how much you earn (in that order, because there are professions/jobs which don't command so much filthy lucre but confer higher social stature) - these are all more important the the social class into which you were born. And certainly more important than whether you use the word 'kids' or 'offspring' (it isn't after all appropriate to call spawn who are grown up, 'children').