School Fees and Grandparents Paying them

[Whoooosh]

Am about to pluck up courage to ask my father to pay dd's school fees.
My three sisters all had private and public school education whereas I went through the state system.

I would dearly love to send dd to a private school but realistically knwo it will be a huge struggle.

I hate asking anyone for anything and I know the money won't really make a huge difference to him but I just wondered if there were any tax advantages for Grandparents paying school fees.

It's not that I want to sweeten him up-just want to show him I have done my homework-and where better than MN?

ssd - that's interesting, that you agree with me about the poor quality of nannies (and childminders). It's a topic I raise from time to time on MN, when discussing the difficulties women face when deciding whether to work or stay at home, and I don't get much reaction.

I've never had a poor quality one. Why would anyone choose a poor quality nanny. Usually they're better than the parents because they love that work. Also they don't have the children 24/7 so they get a break, another reason they're better and they bring a differnt perspective/culture or whatever, another positive thing.

Xenia, you really have an axe to grind, don't you? It seems to really grate with you that educated, intelligent women with great careers (eg me) might choose to bring up their own children.

Why is that?

I don't mind it but it puzzles me. I like to understand their mind. Work out how they can be so different. What pleasure or rewards they get from it. I find it hard to undestand the desire or motivation, that's all and one of hte interesting things about the internet is you meet people you'd not normally come in touch with.

Whoosh - did you see your dad today? Has he agreed?

I find it VERY strange that anyone would think a nanny is better for a child than a parent!!!

Advantages to working:

• earn (more of my own) money

Advantages to not working:

• not be exhausted most of the time from trying to cram too much in to my life
• lots of time and energy to spend on and with my partner doing things we enjoy (as opposed to just organising life) and having fun
• have plenty of time to enjoy my daughter's early years, before she gets caught up in school and society
• feel my daughter is being properly brought up and, most crucially, her cognitive skills developed
• have plenty of time to manage my household so that it all runs smoothly and we don't get fraught about dull chores and errands
• plenty of time to research all our options - houses, schools, holidays...
• have plenty of time to read
• able to travel abroad many times a year
• able to have family and friends from abroad to stay many times a year
• able to manage a second home
• no horrible business travel/dinners/seminars

List is not exhaustive

Most of your list though Anna is dependent on having some spare money which most people dont' have.

On children better with a nanny than a parent I tink they're better with virtually all parents who would rather be working and find children for more than a few hours a day hare and not what the parent wants to do. Happy parents lead to happy children. Children need stability love etc and you can provide that with a nanny or a stay at home father or mother. What they don't want is a frazzled working father who hates his work (or mother) or a stay at home mother who really just can't stand being home all that time.

Chipstick-thank you for asking!

But..........I bottled it. Haven't asked for a penny since 18 and it doesn't come easy and I just couldn't do it.

My Ftaher and my Stepmothe rhaven't seen her since Xmas (they live 40 mins away) so it isn't the closest of relationships despite dd being huge fune at the moment.

Hmmm-back to the drawing board or basically grow some balls!

Xenia - of course, having the choice of being at home implies that one has enough money as a couple to live sufficiently comfortably without a second income.

Although, in this ridiculous French economy, second incomes are taxed so heavily that lots of wives of high earners work for nothing anyway.

Or husbands of high earners. Do you have joint taxation of husband and wife in France as we used to in England then? Here both husband and wife get a single person tax allowance. Until we changed the law their income was added together and they were both taxed at the top rate the joint income reached but that was regarded as sexist so we changed it.

Xenia - absolutely, married couples are taxed jointly here. There are what are called "parts" per person - allowances per adult (a whole "part") and per child (a half "part" until you start having lots of children, when it goes up to a whole "part).

The only way to avoid joint taxation is to not marry, but even that has pitfalls as cohabiting parents don't get all the financial advantages that non-cohabiting parents would.

Think that top tax rate here is over 50% of net income AFTER social security deductions of 20% of gross income... start deducting work-related costs (clothes, transport, childcare) and it quickly become uneconomical to work.

Oh and Xenia - there is still a concept of male head of household here...

Whoooosh: Could you write your father a letter and explain the reasons for asking him to help? This would give you time to write and re-write it and would give him to think before he had to respond.

Dont forget to enclose a new picture of your LO

We decided in the UK that was sexist and tax men and women separately which is fairer all round. I think we get tax refugees from here - didn't a French model move here to avoid paying French taxes? Our top rate of tax is in effect 41% on highest earnings including national insurance contributions which still feels like a lot.

"The countries that have recently reintroduced flat taxes have done so largely in the hope of boosting economic growth. The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have had flat taxes of 24%, 25% and 33% respectively with a tax exempt amount, since the mid-1990s. On 1 January 2001, a 13% flat tax on personal income took effect in Russia. Ukraine followed Russia with a 13% flat tax in 2003. Slovakia introduced a 19% flat tax on most taxes (that is, on corporate and personal income, for VAT etc., almost without exceptions) in 2004; Romania introduced a 16% flat tax on personal income and corporate profit on January 1, 2005. Macedonia introduced a 12% flat tax on personal income and corporate profit on January 1, 2007 and promissed to cut it to 10% in 2008."

....reading that and wondering why I stay in the UK paying 41%.

... hmm, I think you'd find the general standard of living and basic infrastructure rather beneath what you've become accustomed to, in all of those countries.

Shouldbe...

Good idea,it is how I was originally going to approach it but decided it was a cowards way out.But hey-I am a coward when it comes to asking for anything so I think your idea is a great one.

I think the advantage of "crafting" the letter will dfinitely give me the opportunity to say waht I really mean rather than stumbling over words face to face...

You could also initially mention on the phone - with a script in front of you.

Make it as casual as poss, with a view to discussing it further at a later date. Putting the pressure on unlikely to get good result, ime.

Good luck.

Xenia, do you ever worry that your children might read this and feel decidedly second place to your work? You say that you are 'puzzled' by mothers who have children and then bring them up themselves, but I'm equally puzzled that unless financial necessity dictates that you must work, you would bother having children at all if you find them so hard to be with.

Being a SAHM has disadvantages, of course, but then I know of no jobs that are perfect. In fact most jobs have many unpleasant, boring or soul-destroying aspects to them. On the other hand, I have the joy of deciding my own timetable, choosing what activities I engage in with the children, running the house as I want it, and being truly spontaneous. And although I am often irritated with them, I find my children to be fascinating, wondrous little people whose personalities are developing and changing every single day.

I wouldn't trust something as utterly precious and dear to me as my babies with a nanny or childminder for the vast majority of their waking hours, no matter how nice they seemed at interview.

I hope that has given you a little insight into the way that us odd SAHMs think.

So sorry for hijacking the thread!!

Satine - Xenia always strikes me as a thoughtful and devoted mother, even though I think she is misguided in her belief that the early years are unimportant and nannies can do as good as job as a parent.

I would hazard a wild guess (...) however, that there wasn't much time left after all that work for love and affection in her relationship with her ex-husband. It's very hard to have it all and something often has to take second place.

'there wasn't much time left after all that work for love and affection in her relationship with her ex-husband.'

don't agree with this at all... why doesn't this statement get said for men as well?

Xenia once said "I'd rather go into work on a Sunday afternoon than sing stupid children's songs"

That seemed such a sad thing to say.

it's valid for both, of course - when both a man and a woman work long hours, have children and a home to run, social life to organise there often just isn't any time left just to be a couple... it's a criticism of that model (and I have absolutely no a priori solutions)