Feeling sad and guilty (money)

[kumquatsarethelonelyfruit]

I've been home edding DS1 for nearly a year now and it's going pretty well. He says he is much happier now and never wants to return to school (he is 6). We know it is the right thing for him. The problem is that in order for me to be a stay at home mum, we got into debt (20k on a credit card) with the plan that when the DSs started school I'd return to work and pay it off (1-2 years). The problem is that now DS1 is no longer at school and DS 2 will not be going, I am going to have to pay someone to be with them all the time whilst I am at work. Also it will take me longer to pay off our debts because the childcare situation will cost lots of money. Also I need to go back sooner than I'd planned (DS2 is only 2) because jobs are getting thinner and thinner on the ground and I suspect I will have to take a big demotion and pay cut in order to get established again. Also I am an English teacher and it seems so wrong to go back to teaching when someone else will be with my two and also I feel very differently about teaching now anyway.

I don't think there's any way round it. I'm tutoring but it doesn't bring in the big amounts we need to pay off our debt and people aren't wanting it so much these days due to the credit crunch. I haven't got any other skills (even typing). It's my own fault for getting into this situation but I just feel so sad. I know the DSs will miss me a lot and I will miss them. I'm just doing up my CV now and offloading emotionally. I just wish we could win the lottery :(

I don't think it fair on the DC that you will teach if you are not enthusiastic and committed.

Do you own your own house ? If not stop paying the card and there is nothing they can actually do about it other than send you a letter every week which you shred.
Your credit will be buggered but you'll be able to manage without the credit card hanging over you.

Surely if you're home edding you have to be at home?
If you don't like the school system how can you teach in it
I always thought teaching wasn't just for the money

I always thought teaching wasn't just for the money

Really ? How naive, i bet you think all nurses are angels too

Lol!
Well obviously it is for the money but how can you teach if you don't believe in the school system?

How can you home ed if you are working full time? Are you sure your DS will still want to stay at home whe he realizes you are not going to be there all day?

It certainly isn't for the money-you obviously are not a teacher Heswall.

Have you done a bit of thinking about HE based solutions? Someone upthread suggested tutoring HE students, maybe you could run small English "classes" - ie someone I vaguely know does a creative writing group for HE teenagers, as well as a reading group for younger kids. They aren't like lessons at school, nearer to the social versions that an adult would go to, iyswim.

Can you do online tutoring as well? How about evening classes for adults? (basic literacy, creative writing, reading groups etc)

Then there are things like supply teaching etc - could you only make yourself available on certain days?

Do your qualifications allow you to run playgroups with a learning theme - I'm thinking like the musical minis type things, only for basic reading and writing.

If you really do need childcare, are any of your local HE parents registered childminders? If it will only be for a couple of hours at a time, a responsible older HE teenager might be able to help out to cover any gaps in childcare - this could be valuable experience for them too, if they want to work with children when they are older.

I think you would have to get straightforward childcare, then do HE when you are at home, iyswim. Education doesn't need to happen in school time, and HE is more "intensive" - you could do any of the more formal stuff in the evening when most kids are watching tv or whatever, and they could do the less formal "exploring" type stuff while you are at work - that way you don't need education based childcare.

I really don't think that most DCs want to do formal stuff in the evening-like most people they want to wind down.

I think that if you HE it should be central and you work around it NOT organise your life and work HE around it. They could go to school and come first.

Also-speaking as a once supply teacher-schools are not crying out for you-if you want the work you have to be available, and available with short notice, i.e. the 7.30am phone call for that day.

My DD is 5, goes to school, but finds reception overwhelming, so she usually chooses to do a craft, some reading or a workbook in the evenings - I don't blame her. If I have been out talking to people all day, looking at stuff that is noisy and moving about, then I just want to settle down with a nice OU book.

I think one of the main reasons I prefer OU to normal uni is that there is no point asking me to concentrate on anything before about 1pm, and I think DD is the same, and so if we did HE, we would do the more demanding stuff probably around late afternoon/early evening, and she is only 5, I bet she will get later as she gets older.

It depends on the person-I am a morning person.

Exotic - it is also the "coming first" rather than somewhere in a mass of 30 that she likes in the evenings. She goes to a lovely school, and it suits her for running about, learning things like songs, phonics, social skills, counting etc, but she also likes quieter things that she just can't do at school, precisely because she needs to have that extra attention.

It doesn't matter what time of day it is, and it isn't frowned upon to work time with younger DCs around employment etc. This is another example of the arbitary "right, the child is five, now you must suddenly either go for the conventional approach or be totally different" Where are the grey areas?

Hmm...when I HEd ds1 it certainly cost a lot more in monetary terms than I expected...the HE forum on MN is fab I have to say and I got a couple of books too but some of the stories made me wonder..."HE doesnt have to cost anything! No uniform, no trips, no school dinners" etc etc

However, I found I spent ALOT more on petrol as I we lived in a village and needed to get around to HE activities/visiting people/going on educational activities. I imagine if you didnt have a car it would be same re: public transport (unless you lived in a big city with a thriving HE community!!)

We joined the local library but it is pretty rubbish tbh We also used online teaching resources like mathletics/education city/bbc etc some of which cost money.

I also spent more on food. Ds1 was at home all day and so snacked more (we all did actually!) and we baked more for example which cost money.

Also, he got through lots more clothes than normal.....knees out of his jeans etc In fact it got so bad I started to buy his jeans from e bay and still do!!!

I spent a fortune on workbooks/educational tools too.

I dont regret it and would do it again if needed BUT IME it does cost money and I am not sure there are many ways round it.

Could your DP rearrange work hours to have a day at home? DH works 'compressed hours', so 37 hours over 4 days, so that he can have a day at home HEing the DCs. I work as a teacher 2 days a week, so we have a nanny who comes in for the other day. It works really well for us - she is term-time only and she irons the DCs' clothes as well!

As far as 'not believing' in what you would be doing as a teacher, maybe you could change things from the inside. I have been 'planting seeds' at work for a long time now as I do not believe that MFL have been taught particularly well in recent years. And finally, we are changing our schemes of work for the whole of KS3 to reflect a lot of what I've been saying! I bring extra stuff to my teaching in school because of how I do things at home and vice versa.

TBH, I'm not sure we would spend much more if we HE'd. We get free school meals, so obviously there is an extra 5yo sized lunch a day, which will of course grow as she does and as we would have started getting free lunch for DD2, but we would have to have bus passes anyway just to get about before and after school. I have a terrible addiction to buying books and educational toys online anyway (a lot of which is aimed at HE families)

We would have more time to go into on of the city libraries, rather than the local one (we are members of four different library authorities anyway, because of where we live) both DDs have too many clothes anyway, from ebay, hand me downs etc so the main expense for DD1 is things like school tights and pinafores because she will not stop growing

We already pay for Rainbows and nursery, and we are looking at music lessons for DD in the next couple of years as well as dancing for both of them when DD2 gets to 2 and a half. Plus of course the endless school and nursery appeals for everything.

And we are limited by school hours and term times now for everything - working is made harder for me because I am only free 10-2 and we can't go and see family etc as much as we used to. Before they did mass education we kind of worked around each other and I did a lot of teleworking while we stayed with my parents or they could stay over at the ILs house. I could also take the kids across and help care for my Grandparents. Now our entire family is focused around school.

Everyone has to be up, breakfasted, dressed, hair done, by 8.30am, so no more evening nature walks, staying up to watch tv or play a game, no more watching the news and having a chat or pyjama days. The DDs have their hair tied back nearly all the time now - they can't have wild days or do their own hair with 50 sparkly clips apart from on the allotted free days, most of which are spent dashing around trying to do all the stuff that used to be done in the week when there weren't so many people in the way.

We spend half our time running about finding school uniform, school shoes, the nursery lunch bag, reading books, homework, notes to school, notes from school, etc.

Still, we made the choice that we wanted to use school/had to due to circumstances, and all that stuff comes with it. We feel that it is worth it, but not everyone would. It is much more complex and expensive though, and definitely a deliberate lifestyle choice.

wistful sigh...yes, I miss HE sometimes!