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 put dd in (worked based creche) at 5 months do I win ?

Perhaps I am jaded by my professional life. But when I go to sleep at night, KNOWING there are thousands of very young children sleeping on piss soaked mattresses, if they are likely to be put to bed at all, who are going to bed hungry and will have no breakfast when they wake up, who's interaction with their adult careers will consist of shouting, belittling, slapping or worse...

Then the fact that there are some middle class babies in child care, who go home to their loving parents, nicely kitted out bedrooms and organic humous on the weekends does not cause me one sleepness night.

Life is not 'ideal'. My daughter doesn't have a pony, or ever will. She finds that far from ideal.

You do the best with what you have and to rubbish other people's choices because that is not what YOU would do is the height of arrogance and stupidity and frankly you are just doing it to make yourself feel better about your own life choices.

I am cross now, not because I give a flying fart about anyone judging my choices, which I make after careful deliberation, but because I know there are lots of mothers who feel real pain at dropping young children off at nursery. This is probably the least worst option for them and their families.

So unless you are going to link me to the peer reviewed and replicated studies that show me nursery children will grow up disadvantaged and suffering - and you won't because they don't exist, trust me on this - kindly keep your judgmental witterings to yourself.

This heaping of guilt on working mothers (but never fathers) is just a sexist device to keep women in the home so that they know their place.

There is a lot of talk about necessary evil - that is not how many parents see it. I have my list of 100 reasons working parents do best for their children than parents at home. I don't see there being any evil in parents sharing the load of childcare with nurseries or grannies or nannies. I see that as a good.

On this, I agree with Xenia.

Dd ANYONE ever ask my then partner how he could 'bear' to be away from his child? How he was going to cut down his working hours or give up his job entirely? Of course they bloody didn't.

If what some of you are saying is that professional women should not have children unless they are prepared to abandon their careers, please come out and say it and let's have a proper debate.

There are very few jobs of any substance that you can blithely leave for years and expect to step back in again. Your training is out of date, thousands of hungry youngsters are snapping at your heels.

And thank goodness I didn't give up my job as I then found myself a single parent when dd was 3. I suppose I should have jacked in work, gone on benefits and spent all those precious hours finger painting?

From my experience of working in a very smart and expensive work place nursery attached to a well known MNC with two under 1 baby units and babies coming in full time as young as 6 weeks old there is no abuse at all. The staff were exceedingly caring, rigorously adhered to parents requests and routines but due to what can only be described as a complete obsession with health and safety and a couple of parents who were worried their babies were going to be kidnapped the babies although well stimulated rarely went out the door into the fresh air.
But it was actually the older children who I felt got a worse deal as I said the staff were well meaning and there were plenty of lovely toys but most were relatively uneducated (hardly surprising the amount of money they get paid) and pretty inarticulate. Children in full time nursery may be better at sharing taking turns and even sitting on the "carpet" for story time but were not experiencing visits to parks/museums/shops/art galleries and libraries etc just general day to day stuff.
The nurseries probably justifiable obsession with health and safety bearing in mind the parents professional backgrounds/wealth meant that they could never go the wrong way up a slide or go down a slide in pairs/or queue at the top of the slide/climb the "wrong" way on a climbing frame, every speck of dirt/leaf/bark/feather was rigorously removed from the outside play area every day. A lovely sterile safe environment but not true life.

I once did a care case where it was SERIOUSLY suggested that parents were abusive because they did not always maintain eye contact with their toddler and sometimes -gasp - left her in cot with bottle whilst they tended to new born.

Luckily judge thought this as funny as I.

On that logic, no one would ever have more than 1 child as I imagine when you have three or more that precious individual attention is going t be pretty difficult to dole out.

My mum had three onus under three at one time. She was obviously depressed - my first words were 'Jesus Christ' !

Access to good out of home child care would have done her - and us - enormous good. Not many museums and jolly trips in my childhood as she didn't have a car and couldn't get us all on bus.

Repeat - life is not ideal. Swings and roundabouts in every choice you make. You make the best choice with the info you have for you and your child.

Spero in my experience the children were better supervised at the nursery than they ever are at home.

Just to clarify, our nursery has a huge waiting list too. I meant that I didn't know many babies in there full time, they were there 2, 3 or 4 days a week but the rest of the time were in the care of grandparents or parents.

It is about the quality of the childcare and the continuity and bonding that the baby encounters. That's where I think nannies are a lot better at the baby stage.

spero fwiw I agree with you. I think we all have to get a grip sometimes and remember that MN is generally representative of fairly or very well off families. I recently changed jobs (improving prospects and doubling salary) and have had to put my 2y old into ft nursery where he was previously there 3 days a week. I did wonder if I should be feeling guilty but I looked at him lying peacefully in his cot one evening, after a day at his good quality nursery spent playing outside in the teepee and planting seeds, coming home to a nice bath, play and story time with me (which i am infinitely more up for now) in his lovely room in a comfortable house, surrounded by people who love him and thought, nah, these are priveledged kids whose mother is doing the best for them and giving them a good life. It is not these children (or indeed the SAHMs on this threads children) that any of us should be worried about.

A study in Norway or Sweden comparing fathers of one year olds who had been the one at home caring for them and fathers who had not looked at choosing a nursery place at age 1. The fathers who had been with the babies all day for the first year were similar to mothers who had - they were a bit worried about leaving the child. Those who had not were interested in things like opening times, qualify of food more than the worries over separation. It showed that separation anxiety was gender neutral.

Most parents do not like to leave a child crying - not that applies when you want to get to the loo without the toddler attached like a limpet to your leg or to get out for an evening with your other half as much as a working parent leaving it in a nursery or at home with a daily nanny (which nanny by the way is cheaper if you have 3 under 5 than 3 nursery places). However we all know that once you have gone the child is usually fine and I have found more and more that the children have benefited from having additional people in their lives, that their lives are enhanced by that not damaged by it.We are talking here about constant adults in their lives, mother and father and their nursery workers, not a constant stream of new homes every 4 months which is a very different issue. Children like to know where they stand. They like certainty, predictability and routines. You can achieve that as a stay at home parent or when they go to a nursery or child minder or nanny.

"All those who think nurseries for under ones is tantamount to abuse, please do share your evidence. "

Nobody with any sense at all thinks this.

However, as somebody has said, most of the people posting on this thread were/are in a position to provide the best possible child care for their babies. Most people are not able to do this- they have to take what they can get/can afford.

The best you can afford.. yes, but we are saying it is very sexist to suggest if a man works that is fine. If a woman leaves her child to work that is somehow a major crime. Gender neutral standards should be applied and if men want a parent at home they know where they can find the feather duster and loo brush and they can do it themselves.

Is anyone saying that?

So are you saying that when dp and I discussed how we would arrange the care of our children, given that both he and I were out of the house for 14 hours a day, I should have let him do it (he wanted to) rather than do it myself (as I wanted to)? Or should we have put them in a nursery, which neither of us wanted to do?

Read bellas post on 7th May 22:52 - she said 'tantamount to abuse'. She needs to get out a hell of a lot more.

Agreed. But one loon does not a widely held belief make.

What people are saying is do what YOU want to. If you can afford it it money wise and in terms of impact on your career.

Thank fuck I did not give up my nor be persuaded by my partner to have another baby (six months before he made it clear the relationship was over) because I would have been utterly trapped, with two small children, on benefits - as no way in hell would he have ever given up his 'life' - and the impact on me and them would have been very bad indeed.

I am not a natural stay at home mother. In small doses children are enjoyable. My daughter benefit for a mother who is really engaged with her when I do spend time with her and I have the patience and the calmness to engage on a child's level and take her out and show her things and play. I couldn't do any of that if I was at home all day, would have been depressed, angry and possibly abusive to her.

This doesn't mean I am a 'better' person than someone who wants to be a home, who was stressed and miserable working and is lucky enough to have nagged a high earning partner who can support her choices.

It just means I am ME and she is he pr and I am sure we both love our children and want to do right by them.

It's just when ever I read on here pontificating about 'abusive' nurseries I do feel a red most descending because these people don't seem ever to step out of their own narrow, usually hugely privileged worlds and just think a little.

Sorry, meant 'bagged' not nagged, that sounds unnecessarily pejorative.

Sadly it is not just one loon. As an unwise veteran of these types of threads there are plenty of smug stay at home mothers with access to the Mail online who read one abstract of one study presented deliberately and cynically to wind people up and somehow thinks this equates to years of study by them.

We have chosen to send our two kids to the local primary, which is a fantastic school. For the first few years my husband kept wondering if this was the right decision, so we decided to go and have a good look round one of the top private schools that is local to us. Although the facilities were amazing and the building was beautiful we came out preferring our local state primary. Yes it is a bit run down, there are no huge playing fields and swimming pool. But the teachers, staff and Head are fantastic and fill me with confidence far more so than the private school did. We are putting the "saved" money towards interesting and exciting holidays, extra curricular activities and tutoring. Still thinking of going private for secondary, but will make sure I look round all the schools first before making that decision.

Contrary to what some people like to think, not every parent wants to stay at home and look after a baby.

Wow this is the ever morphing thread - from private vs state, to chickens, to working/SAHM, to childcare.

As a mother to DSs I worry that should I start preparing my sons to have large earning capacity as their future wives may want to stay at home with the kids. Is it possible to have this lifestyle if your partner does not earn a high salary? Do men have a choice? Does it put too much pressure on the earning partner?

These are genuine questions going through my head but maybe I am biased as I work, my family needs my earnings and only have sons.

Contrary to what some people like to think, not every parent wants to stay at home and look after a baby."

No shit, Sherlock!

Taking, it can be an issue for young men 20 - 30. Women often do prefer the man in the suit who will enable that woman to give up work and live off his earnings. Thankfully plenty of girls are pretty feminist and do not see it in those terms so it is not a universal thing. Some girls' schools make sure their teenage girls are aware to look out for men who will be supportive of female careers once babies come and suggest avoiding men who will expect the woman to do most in the home - that is very very wise advice particularly if you are giving that talk to an academically selective girls' school where the girls are likely to do well in careers. So int hat case the girl might be picking the boy who will allow her to work full time and who would be happy to do all the family washing.

I would imagine the best advice to sons is avoid gold digging females who have very low earning capacity and are just a decorative kind of leech and who go on and on about materialistic things like shoes and what he bought her and how much he spent on her and ensure sons as well as daughters learn to cook and work the washing machine.