If you are a WOHM, are you discriminated against at your child's primary school?

[Eleusis]

I generally feel out of touch at DD's primary school. So, I sent an e-mail to the parents and invited everyone out for drinks and a meal. 2 people showed up. And during the course of conversation I realised that we are the only mums (out of 26) who work full time, and hence never show up at the school gate. The other two had a few stories of how the school actually frowns at them. For example they are offered 3:00pm time slots for parent-teacher conferences and just expected to be available, etc.

I haven't realised the extent of the SAHM vs WOHM war zone... and I am rather pissed off about it. I think it is outrageous for the school to treat parents this way. I did know that these feelings are alive and well at the school gate. But, I am very surprised about the teachers' attitudes.

Is this common? Do other WOHMs have these experiences at your kids' schools? If so, how have you dealt with it? Are private schools the same?

Of course, not all SAHMs are unwelcoming towards the WOHMs. But, I so did not expect the stories I heard on Friday night.

Having read the thread back a bit more:-

If we have a question to ask the teacher we can write it in her reading diary or send a note in. Personally I love reading the school info when she comes home - it makes me feel part of the community and gives me a chance to decide/negotiate with dd what activities she's going to take part in.

Anna, ours have a day book too called a homework diary which the parent has to sign every night and you can write messages in - so I might write once a week when they have their music lesson in school or I suppose I could write more detailed things if I wanted to and the teacher can write back too.

Having stuff on the web site is great too like term dates in case you lose the list.

(school gates as source of men... may be but I've not noticed and I think they're 100% married anyway - the men that collect or over 50 with no hair and paunch but perhaps I should look harder - in fact I used to pick them up on Thursdays but now they walk home and I'm afraid that's because I'd rather be here dong work or reading than have the intense tedium that is school collection)

Our school summer holidays are 10 weeks long. Their father has them for 2 nights of that and is off school for the whole period. I work all of that except about 2 weeks. It's really unfair so I have to pay for school care for 8 weeks because you can't force parents to spend time with children.

Xenia, would it be a fair assumption to say you married a selfish pr*ck?

I think Xenia got stuck with the childcare bill in the divorce. Correct me if I'm wrong, Xenia.

It's fascinating because for 17 years he did more than 50% of stuff to do with the family, cleaning nappies he wrung out by hand etc etc We never had any issues over who worked, how money was divided, who got home first for the nanny or indeed whose job it was to choose and find a nanny - I don't remember any sexism at all but it's as if he thinks divorce from me equals divorce from the children. There's a lot of work done into why some fathers choose to lose contact with children after divorce.

Apparently it can very conveniently for them just be too painful to be reminded. Others replace that family with a new family. Others perhaps think helping helps the mother (as it would me) so don't want to do that. I feel may be he was slightly autistic in some way that the normal feelings of love whether for children or a spouse were never there and instead he very competently went through the motions of pratical things but without the emotional bonds. Anyway they're getting older and it's easier so it's not so much a problem.

Xenia - interesting. In France, your ex-husband would be forced to have the children for half the holidays.

Of course, in practice a lot of divorced working parents ship their children off to grandparents/camp, but they do have to occupy and pay for that part for which they are responsible. You can get the police to intervene quite easily if they don't.

Xenia - you could send the twins to camp in France - quite cheap and they'd learn French - try UCPA which where we send our stepsons.

Oh,Anna, tel us more about the camp. I've been pondering what I will do with summer hols in the future (when I no longer have a nanny) and I have been wondering if summer camp is actually cheaper than say a temp nanny to cover a six week break.

I went to camp as a kid in the states. Is it similar over here. In fact I looked up my old camp yesterday, which would cost about $3000 per child for four weeks (not to mention flights to Colorado)

UCPA is a big organisation in France that takes children from 6 upwards. They have a web site (www.ucpa.com) where you can ask for a catalogue - I just order the catalogue and hand it over to my stepsons to browse and let them choose what they want to do (and feel ready to do). It's nearly all sports, not very expensive (average EUR 4-500 per week I guess) though the price varies quite a lot depending on location and type of activity. If you want your children to learn French, this would be a fantastic way.

You've hit the nail on the head there, Xenia with your statement that 'helping the children equals helping the mother'. I think that is a huge factor in a great many divorces. I also think (pardon the generalisation) that many people find it hard to separate the children from the spouse, one is intrinsically linked to the other, and whilst you would hope that the instinctive love for a child would over-ride any acrimonious feelings towards the other parent of that child, I think for some people sometimes it is difficult to separate the two as exclusive individuals. Sad, though.

Eleusis - I'm just looking inside the UCPA catalogue and it says that if you want information from the UK, contact www.action-outdoors.co.uk

Email benefits some people - but everyone can read a photocopied sheet! How on earth does it 'discriminate' against anyone if every child has a copy of the newsletter. If your nanny/childminder isn't passing it on, take it up with her, not the poor old school. HOnestly I find the idea that spending a few moments scanning a newsletter (which you can do in the bath or in bed) is somehow preventing anyone spending quality time with their child quite bizarre.
I am also HUGELY sceptical that teachers discriminate against working parents. IME teachers are very often working parents themselves, and oddly enough, they prefer to meet you in school hours to discuss school matters because they quite like to get home to their own children/lives.

Totally agree Aloha.

Anna, looked at the website, but it just looks like sporting holidays. I'm looking for something like \link{http://www.sanbornwesterncamps.com/this} but I might have to send them to the states for it. Is UCPA like this? Or is it a day camp where they come home every night?

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And other fathers are absolutely distraught no longer to be seeing the children every day and once a week is nothing like enough so just depends on the person. Some mothers abandon their children completely on divorce - I saw someone whose wife had done that a few months ago. Can be a sexually neutral issue.

On camps our older children used to do some of them for the day like Barracudas and one my ex husband used to work on at his school to earn extra money in school holidays. The girls also did a week's riding holiday with one of those UK chidlren's residential holiday providers - forgotten the name but they're quite well known. When I was a student I used to work on children's residential camps which hired boarding schools in the holidays.

My twins like to be home at the moment. The local day camps are cheaper than what I pay our nanny per day even for 2 child places on the camp I think. A lot of parents will have 2 week family holiday, may be chidlren at grand parents for 2 weeks, 2 weeks on a day summer camp and may be one parent take another week's holiday alone and the other parent another week separately.

Camp Beaumont is meant to be quite good. Stacks of things and held in nice places. Google will find them.

Eleusis, our school's website was set up and is maintained by a (WOH)parent. I'm sure if you volunteered to do the same your school would fall at your feet.

Eleusis - take a look at www.prefleuri.ch.

UCPA is residential, not day, camp, but it is specialised in sports. My stepsons have done 2 other camps, one a scientific-themed one and another a Jewish camp. They absolutely hated the Jewish camp...

Anna the reason I can't take my DS to school is because then I would not be getting home until 7.15 which is when my DD needs to be in bed. So I would not get to collect her from nursery, eat with my DS, do my DS's reading/book and spellings with him, play with them and bath them, all of which I can do by leaving the house at 7.20 am and arriving at the office for 8 am instead of 9.45 am. Before I had children I used to work 9 until 5.30, now I work 8 until 4.30, to have that extra hour in the evening with them. DH does morning drop offs at nursery and childminder (neither are available when I leave for work) so we are splitting the day to an extent.

There's lots of interesting stuff on this thread. I agree that a newsletter in a bookbag is the easiest way for all parents - WOHMs SAHMS and all those in between - to see what's happening at school. As has been said, not all parents have computer access or IT skills. I agree with Aloha that a hard copy newsletter does not discriminate against anyone. (As it happens I have spent my working day organising a leaflet drop to all the primary schools in our borough, crossing in fingers the damned leaflets get put in every book bag).

However (as has been said) who knows what you are missing if you are not at the school gates for pick up? Notes, dates, requests - anything that doesn't make the newsletter. That's a problem. Too much work to put it all on a website with no dedicated IT admin at school.

As a possible alternative, I think each class should have a master file of all written communication to parents. A copy of everything that goes out immediately gets put in the file.

This master fils are kept in the school secretary's office. Parents are free to phone in to check what's in the master file or can to visit to look in person (or ask another parent to do this for them).

I know this means more work for the school secretary, and relies on their good nature in returning parents' calls promptly. It might be necessary to limit the service to relaying of the most recent weeks worth of info, certainly not a whole term's worth.

Another possibility would be for the parents in each class to nominate a communications co-ordinator who is willing to give out their contact details( phone and email) to everyone. This wonderful person ensures they get all school communication each week, perhaps even keeps a file of it. Other parents can contact them to check they have got everything.

Whatever system you have - emails, web, newsletters - the bottom line is WOHM parents must be proactive in finding out info. This is the deal you make for not being there at the school gates.

juule, I certainly do agree that parents must make it known to the school if they want to get involved and in the school day. But lots of ways of getting involved require weekly attendance - ie listening to reading in class. This means working parents cannot commit to this. But working parents can commit to one off events like school trips. However there may be a limit to the number of parent helpers who can go on a school trip(ie coach places, ticket entry requirements)So the teacher has to choose which parents can attend.

In this case (and this was what I was getting at) I think WOHM parents should be favoured (a bit) over SAHM arents who already help out in the school on a regular basis.

Of course as you say, many SAHMs have commitments that prevent them helping out in school regularly, like having young children. In this case IMO they should also be favoured for one off school trips.

I'm sorry if I have missed something here but surely if the school issues a weekly newsletter it is not rocket science for the school to ensure that it is put into bookbags and in turn that parents check the bookbag - which takes a matter of seconds.Our school usually sends out the newsletter on a Friday so we all know to check the bookbag on that day even if it is late at night.