Which do you think would be most beneficial to children....

[seeker]

....two working parents and a private education, or one working parent, a state education, and a parent at the school gate every morning and afternoon, a parent at every assembly, performance, match and parents evening, and around every afternoon/evening and every holiday. Discuss.

I don't think it has anything at all to do with personality types! I think it has much more to do with the degree of ambition that parents have for their children!

We set high standards/have high expectations. The DSSs have internalised those, and so they are always questioning and wanting to put their experiences into context.

Which I guess, fits in with seeker's original premise that children need parental input over anything else...

Interesting.

To be fair, I work from home and flexibly, so this is all academic to me, in that I am around.
I suppose, though, I had assumed that the ndless yapping and discussion would stop, or at least slow down, as the DCs became teenagers.

Actually, my frind who home educates says that the continual being there and answering questions/debating etc is what makes home ed work so well. That this is actually how children learn.

It becomes more focused and their questions are harder to provide easy answers to, IME. The conversations are more ongoing rather than one-shot - the DSSs clearly "test" us to see whether our positions on issues remain constant or adapt to circumstances, so will raise the same questions in different ways time and time again over months or years.

This is where childcare and/or low parental presence is pretty detrimental to teens. You need to be far more on the ball than when they were little and you had the answers to almost everything at your fingertips.

The 'friends' thing was supposed to indicate the tone of my post Bonsoir.

Anyway, I'll shup up now as I was obviously wrong.

I try not to be intransigent about my ambitions and dreams for my children. In any case I have found myself changing my mind about all sorts of things as the years roll by. I think flexibility is essential - there should be an ongoing negotiation/discussion of/on what matters in life. And I learn at least as much from my children as they do from me.

Who was it who said the unexamined life is hardly worth living?

Well said swedington

One of the major benefits of having children is that their very presence forces you to refresh your own perspective on life.

Message withdrawn

smee
absolutely: the most important part about being a SAHM is all the reasons you listed, but this thread pertains specifically to the educational options for the child, and why I would choose not to pay for education and go out to work. This is not a thread about why women become SAHMs.

HAve to bite at the comments that dolly made about bi-lingualism. THe kids you know at school may be bi-lingual, but it is unlikely they will be highly literate in both languages unless the parents put in a lot of effort at home with the minority language (not necessarily "teaching" them, but making sure the kids view the minority language as relevant and important for life.) I do know kids who do relatively well in English but it is nowhere near the level of British kids raised in the UK, and they'd have a lot of trouble working professionally in their second language. Bi-lingualism runs much deeper than being able to have conversations in both languages.

Mine it would seem are extremely lucky then, neither of us work and they are in private school, I shall point out their good fortune to them later

I also agree that children seem to need you more as they get older, i was so envious of my friends mums being at home to make them a drink, ensure the house was warm (I was a latchkey kids who wasn't allowed to touch the electric fire). I ran up a £200 phone bill calling chat lines because i was so bored/lonely, homework was very rarely done and stuffed my face with biscuits because i was hungry and tea wasn't until 6.30.

Personally I/DH will be there when my children arrive home until the youngest is 16 if I have my way.

Sakura, sorry if I annoyed you - not sure if I even did - but just to reassure, I wasn't judging as what you're doing with bilingualism's fab. I wish I had another language to share with my son.
Though actually this is partly a thread about why some choose to be SAHM's isn't it? it's all interlaced - some choose to go the state route, so they can afford to be at the school gates/ home more for their kids. The OP's saying is that better..

smee, it's okay, its a discussion.
I didn't feel annoyed that you were judging what I was doing regarding bi-lingualism- I need no reassurance from anyone that this is the best decision.
Rather, I was iritated because you thought the main reason I was a SAHM was because I wanted DD to bi-lingual. If we want to get into the whole SAHM debate, I can say that no, this is not the main reason I stay at home and spend time with my DD. All the other reasons you mentioned are my prime motivation for staying at home. BUt regarding education, for our situation, me being a SAHM makes much more sense than me getting a job specifically in order to pay for my kids' education.
But I've thought about this thread since posting and have realised that I am lucky in that I live in an area where there is not much difference in quality between private and public schools, so I have the freedom to be a SAHM and trust my child to the public system. If the choice was between an awful public school and me going to work in order to fund a better private school, hand on heart, I'D probably do the latter.

Blimey Sakura am genuinely not sure how you read that into my post. I never said you were a SAHM simply to make your child bilingual- why on earth would I?? As I've said (twice now!) I think it's great you're passing on your languages to your kids. My point was simply that for me (and you've now said it is for you too), the main advantage is simply being there for your children. Any additional skills you can pass to them is obviously a fantastic bonus. So actually I'm on your side - though to be honest I wasn't even aware there was a side to be on...