Think Carefully Before Opting for Private Education

[PRMum2012]

i am a mum of two (23 months and 3 in august)I am self-employed, part time and married to a lovely architect. We have a great life and two happy kids.

On paper I would say I have not done too badly with my life and my aim is to work full time as soon as possible now my kids are a bit older. If the work was available I would happily work full time now.

Despite setting up my own business I can't help feeling like a failure that I can't afford for my own children, what my parents did for me.... It annoys me that I put so much importance on it ... I am now passionate about finding a decent local primary school for my children so they don't feel the same pressure i do now, when they are older and looking for schools for their kids ....but i'll be honest ......assuming i can afford it i would try and do it from 11 if i can....!!!!...

Hopefully by then, my kids will have an input too and they will be forming their own opinions on the issue.

Depending on mortgage and family support I can't see that it's possible for anyone with two kids earning under £80,000 - £1000,000 + (as a family income) to afford private education anymore, my advice is unless you have a thriving business or two, work as a dr, lawyer or banker.... Forget it.

It's really hard to watch my younger sibling do it for her kids, they are paying for private prep while we cant afford it.... But it really upsets me I feel like this... why can't I just be happy for them and quietly satisfied that I don't need to pay on top of my taxes for my kids education.

For my own primary education i went privately, tried the local school for secondary education but was bullied so moved back to the private system.... I had a mix of private and state during secondary - my second private school was amazing but the second state school I attended for 6th form (my choice) was great too so why is this all having such an impact on what I want for my own kids.

My DH is much more laid back, he went privately all the way through but doesn't place as much value on it as I do/did....I wish I felt the same way but all I feel now is pressure to earn more money so I can pay for them both from 11.

"I wouldn't worry about that. It's only really a charmed circle of 4 or 5 schools where that happens"
seeker Im sceptical that even in the "charmed circle of 4-5" (I can guess at the ones you mean) that this happens.
Xenia I took time out of work until my children were 10 and 11 I don't think its had a detrimental effect on their future career plans. I have worked in nurseries one very up market one attached to a very famous MNC in general I thought the staff were inarticulate but well meaning clods who I personally wouldn't choose to leave my dogs with let alone my children. In contrast my children never went a nursery did not start full time school to yr 1 they are both highly articulate well read with a variety of eclectic interests ranging from steam combustion engines to modern art because being at home with them gave me the time to expose them to an variety of different things.

Xenia

Who in your rarified world SHOULD keep house - dull low acheiveing men?

A very ood view of running the home. I am a member of MENSA, have a degree and CHOSE to be an SAHM for TEN years. My daughter, now 22 has travelled the world and is about to get her Russel Group univeristy degree.....

Seeker- I think many private schools still do open doors. Not in the old fashioned way of Binky's father giving Bunty a job, but in a much more modern way. DD's school (lower tier than DS) is very good at this. The parental social capital is both high and highly exploited.

"Modern way?"
PLease explain WF.
"The parental social capital is both high and highly exploited."
Not sure what that means either!

The point is pretty simple - if most women give up work at 30 and never really go back properly then the pool from which we recruit senior people is mostly male so women never get on at all and continue to own 1% of the world's wealth and earn 30% of earnings.

On the question of who keeps house.... Most working couples manage the house and work and their family and use a nursery, child minder or nanny when the children are below school age. That works well for many.

Yes but Xenia, a lot of us don't want to use childminders or nannies. We want to be with our kids. So we give up our careers as we find this more fulfilling. You don't, and that's great - for you. Unfortunately until men can have babies and produce milk then this is the reality - for lots of us it's a lovely one too. We want to be home - I know you find that hard to believe but for lots of us it's a great way to spend a few years. I now have retrained and have an amazing job, never went back to the City and have never regretted it. It's about choice and being able to be free to choose.
Bring part time I have spent the afternoon in the sun reading & then picked kids up from school and come to sit in friends garden by their pool. Got to love the rich friends (I know the nanny not the parents !!).

happy lots of networking, databases, swapping of information. Pretty much as one would expect in the work place but within the parents at school.

And the parents are a sociable lot. And this is actively encouraged within the school community.

I suppose it's just harnassing what parents naturally do and using it to maximum advantage for the girls.

Interesting wf I know we're completely crap, slack hands off parents but I think at boarding school its different. I know some parents; smile and wave how goes it etc, the occasional meeting for coffee or lunch and we do have the occasional school social things and people are friendly when you talk to them at parent teacher meeting etc but generally I think most parents are not that involved in the school. I once read a review, Tatler I think, describing Win Coll as not for "rugger buggers social climbers and interfering parents". This makes seekers comment about a "charmed circle of 4-5" even more ridiculous as I suspect that at least 2 out of 4 of those are boarding schools.

"actively encouraged within the school community."
I personally cant think of anything worse.

It may work well for many. I preferred to do it myself and think I was the best option for my DCs rather than a nanny, nursery or CM. I expect that there are many SAHM who are unhappy, wordfactory, but equally many of us are very happy, don't need drugs or anti depressants and are not obsessed with housework.

" This makes seekers comment about a "charmed circle of 4-5" even more ridiculous as I suspect that at least 2 out of 4 of those are boarding schools."

Don't understand. My suggestion was that there is still a very active OBN- and it can be seen at work in public life in this country. Why does the fact that the "charmed circle" schools include boarding schools change that?

And I find the "social climbers" comment interesting. The implication being that there's no use joining the school to "better yourself" - if you're "there" already you're wasting your time!

Oh for goodness sake. Being a housewife does not mean your children will have no career ambition. I am the daughter of a housewife. I have a degree, a postgrad and a masters. I left my job for 3 years when my daughter was born. I was a housewife because I wanted to be, not because I lacked ambition. I work in a very flexible sector for pt working. My husband is the child of a housewife and a farm labourer. A first at uni, masters and chartered qualifications later here is doing pretty well thanks. Don't confuse housewife with ill educated. Not every woman wants to work ft. Not every woman wants their child in childcare. Women should not be so quick to impose their choices on everyone else.

Sorry seeker what I was trying to say is that this idea that its all current past parent who help past and present pupils to get on doesn't really apply to boarding schools because I don't think parents are that involved so therefore not its not happening much.
Do you have any current evidence for existence of the OBN?

I still find it baffling that looking after someone else's children is a legitimate activity- looking after your own is not.

My dp and I did not want our children to be cared for by others for 14 hours a day. We had a full and frank discussion about who would stop working outside the home to care for them- I won. We are a team. I am not his servant, or a housewife. We are a unit that needs money and other things to live happily. It so happens he provides the bulk of the money. But he could not do that without my input, any more than I could pay the electricity bill without his. I suppose it helped that we were in pur late 30s and established in our careers when we made this decision- it is different for younger less established people.

"Do you have any current evidence for existence of the OBN?"

The Cabinet.

"And I find the "social climbers" comment interesting. The implication being that there's no use joining the school to "better yourself" - if you're "there" already you're wasting your time!"
I have always thought the implication is that Win Coll likes St Pauls boys lacks the social status of the likes of Eton and Westminster rather than you've got to be "there" already.

Yup lots of Etonians but no other school is over represented and is this not a historical OBN you don't become prime minister over night rather than that which will influence/help affect current leavers of the "charmed circle of 4 or 5". Also Eton aside and we know companies who wont employ them I'm not sure who the others are.

Will post my usual 'to Xenia' response:

I have an Oxbridge 1st class degree and PhD. In my first career, I featured a lot in 'see our high flying management trainees' type publications.

I was also the very, very best person to care for my children during their pre-school years, and I did so from a deep and lasting conviction that that was so.

My house can go hang, but my children - yes, absolutely they were worth devoting 7 years of my life full-time to. Do I care that my personal wealth is lower that it might otherwise have been? Not a jot. Do I care that my children are unique and wonderful and happy? [I did originally extend that list...but it got a bit ick, so I shortened it] Enormously.

You may be convinced that 3rd party care + private schooling is the best way to produce an adult from a baby. I am convinced that high quality parental care working alongside any schooling is the best way. You can't move me from my position, any more than I can move you from yours - it is a fundamental way of seeing the world and of valuing things in which we differ.

But it doesn't have to be either or does it? Many people do a mix, for example work part-time when the chidren are young or juggle some of the childcare with their parents or among themselves or take some time off. We've done all of that.

I never left my children in childcare 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, even when I was working full time.. and to be honest out of all the professional parents I know, only one family has done that, most juggle so that the children have a balance when they are very young.

Musical,

My post is, basically, to Xenia only. Of course most parents juggle, and most do so very successfully. Xenia and I just happen to be at two equally strongly-felt extremes...

(I have a Xenia-equivalent close relative so I get it in RL too - children with nanny 12-14 hours per day, every day, from 3 months but do a lot of 'you're failing your children' because we use state education)

happy it's not as bad as it sounds, honest .

Most of the parents seem a nice bunch. And we're usually only having a gossip over a coffee or a glass of fizz.

TBH it's a smallish school and the girls are incredibly close. Meeting their parents isn't really like meeting up with strangers IYSWIM.

I'm with teacher.....

But most people have to work, right?

And they still seem to raise unique and happy and whatever kids, don't they?

Or are teachers kids especially unique and happy?

That made me smile a little as I have a relative who once told me that sending your children state was equivalent to child abuse!! (I send all of mine to state school!). Some people have very extreme views!

Musical I have frequently been told a similar thing; sending my DS to a full boarding school is apparently child abuse.