40+ Yummy (or not-so-yummy) Mummies, Come and Eat Cake

[ladymac]

Have taken the plunge, hope this is acceptable to everybody.

Just to add my two penny worth...all 3 of my older children were brought up catholic, boys were altar boys. None of them ever go to church nor even believe in God! I think the days of whipping and indoctrination are long gone.

...oh meant to add to that last one, I'm sending K to catholic school as the secondary school is the best in Bury

jj NO! you are not being mean. The younger they are the more they will believe what they are told. If you let them go they will come home telling you about all this new stuff that they now believe in and you won't have any control over it(ok they are a bit young at the moment but once you start letting them go that'll be it)

My parents are/were agnostic but from both RC, CofE and methodist backgrounds I went to whichever church the cousins I was stopping over (occasionally) with were attending ...I ended up affiliating myself (at 13) with the CofE not because of its moral content but because it had the better choir to join!..a habit I dropped when I left to go to Uni. A. will definately not be going to church with anyone but Dh (agnostic) or me.
A. will be going to the local village council primary (I hope) as it is at the end of our road, has an excellent reputation and is one of the feeder schools for the only Grammar school in the district (should they be still running and he be bright enough). having said that I second JW in that the local RC school has a fantastic ofsted report and brilliant results.

I'm sure if I was happy for my DC to have a religious education it would be a relief that so many of the faith schools are good in terms of results, but one thing my upbringing - which was full of debate - did give me was a tendency to be extremely scrupulous about such matters: I've got friends who were brought up Catholic who don't believe in anything these days, but married in church, get the kids baptised and sent to RC schools etc. to please grandmas, and it's all perfectly relaxed and unproblematic. It's just not my way of doing things and actually even my parents would rather we are honest about our non-belief than play along for their sake. I guess there is a sort of 'cultural catholicism' whereby people still feel part of that community and happy for their DC to be part of it, even if they don't have the belief, but I've never been able to square the two.

me neither ermintrude my brother is one of those people but I couldn't do it. He recently had his baby son Christened and invited his gay best friend to be the godfather. No problem there except I couldn't understand how either my bro or his gay friend could square the fact that they were taking part in a ritual in a religion that would have the gay bloke burning in hell for his sexual preferences. My sister, who is also an atheist, was the godmother. Obviously the ritual itself meant nothing to them and it was just being done for convention but in that case why not have a naming ceremony instead?

Cheers ladys. Very interesting.

I agree with all of you - if that makes sense !

I think my main problem with it is - that to me religion is very personal and to want to take children to church, would mean (in my eyes) that you would want them to have the same belief as yourself. Yet neither DP or myself 'believe' so I'm seeing a difficult time looming ahead. Plus, there is something not right about MIL wanting to see that her beliefs somehow get passed on through her grandchildren.

Now for the contradictory bit

Our one and only catchment primary is S*IT! Only 30% can read or write by sceondary and there is a police presence there during school runs. Our only real option is private - which is affordable for only one child - just can't do it with two OR C of E nearby - fab school and takes 60% non-church out of catchement.

As we live in a grammar area - I want them to at least have a realistic shot at the 11+ which they may not pass. But I'd never forgive myself if both myself and DP had good educations and we shoved them in the local (failing) sink estate primary

Eeeeeeee....it's hard this parenting malarky!
If only our lottery nimbers would come up and there was a nice private school fund nest egg - problem solved

floria pmsl at you chosing the best choir!

OPERA NEWS! fogot to say that my new year resolution to see an opera for the first time ever has been seen to. DP's brother has bought us tickets to see Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall in March as our Xmas pressie - I'm thrilled!!!

Yes mrsB by Jewish law, all of our children will be Jewish!

JJ I wouldn't allow it either. Especially Christian Science. Scary, to me anyway.

Forgot to say WELCOME duchese you're most welcome here You're yet a youngster at a mere 40!

There have been a few ladies here with big age gaps and 'shock' new bumps!

Do feel free to join us - have a moan if you fancy - that's what we're here for. Oh and cake - we always have cake - but due to NY diets it's pretend cake!

I also meant to say that the whole religious school thing is really hard here in NI. Baby will have to either go Prod (cuz of daddy) or integrated. I did have my eye on the local Catholic, but only because the uniform skirts are ankle length and can't be rolled up!

We will probably go integrated, although I haven't even thought about this or done any research yet!

Hi duchese, good to see someone at the same stage as me. Am about 8.5 weeks myself. Everyone here seems very chatty and I promise to join in more when I am past this ghastly first stage of pregnancy. Can't quite decide if this is the worst one yet. dh was a pain yesterday as he said that he was sick of it! Had a good talking to him and he was OK, just being a typical male baby and feeling neglected cos I've felt too awful to give him much attention recently!

yes - nearly all schools in Ireland are religious - not much choice there tee

Have had this discussion with OH is is v anti-religion. Reckoned we would both mellow to the idea of a religions school soon enough if it was a choice between that or a crap one. I would just tell the kid every day that it was all lies and not to believe a word of it.

ooh got so into the religion thing I forgot to say welcome duchesse how very rude

Yes, welcome duchese, don't mind us, when we get off the subjects of childbearing and rearing we can be quite intense! Just take a seat and have a cuppa if you don't fancy adding your two ha'porth.

jj completely understand the dilemma, and if our local schools were terrible we'd be in exactly the same fix (worse, actually, since we would never privately educate our DC either, just to be extra contrary ). We were lucky enough to be able to afford to move (from London, hence the affording bit) to somewhere which has great community schools, but realise it's not as straightforward for everyone. Especially tricky where there are grammar schools, because the comps are not at all comprehensive, the brighter kids having been picked off at 11. Thankfully that's not the system here and there are 2 excellent local comps so we do know we're privileged.

floria I do like a good sing, and sing extremely RC hymns to the BVM all the time -it's too deep in the blood to forget that stuff, and they're lovely tunes. So choosing a church for the choir seems quite sensible - and the singing in RC churches always used to be pretty bad if I remember correctly!

So glad I prompted a riot!

There's no argument in this house from my DH who has never been christened and is atheist...it's catholic and that's that. DSS's primary school is pants and I'm not sacrificing her education for principals.

a civilised riot jw

OOOoo - that was a good debate **hums 'I predict a riot, I predict a riot'- I'm glad I asked you all what you thought!!

That's what I like about this thread.....everyone has an opinion but they're not about to shove it down anyone's throat! And yet they're not afraid to say what they really think. Oh well done us.....low calorie biccies all round

ermintrude You are indeed lucky. That part of Notts has lovely schools - a friend of mine works in one. I'm tres

Lordy, Lordy (keeping up the religious element to the chat) I've done loads of stuff today...been running around like a loon. On the nappy front - can I just say that courgettes make for an interesting bottom burp

DH likes to pose difficult questions to test my principles, like: what if the local schools were terrible except for the RC one in whose catchment we lived...but there was an entirely secular independent school with an excellent rep only a short walk away? Aaargh! A bit academic really, since even if we were prepared to pay school fees we don't have the cash, but it's interesting to put one's code of conduct to the test. Since Dh's opinions on such mattesr are v similar to my own I'm not sure why he's always the one posing the questions - a streak of sadism? My brain being too slow to get them in first?

I do know that what schools look like on paper and the 'feel' of them when you visit can be very different, and I wouldn't always go for the one with astonishing academic results - depends on personality/ability of DC. But I also know that some schools are so badly-run and resourced that parents are put in a terrible quandary. Whenever DH looks at jobs elsewhere in the country, the schooling issue is always my first thought. Hope he stays put until they're all through comp but fear that won't be the case...

ok since I'm on a roll might as well go the whole hog..........I was also saying to DH that if she doesn't get into a decent catholic school I want to send her to a Montessori school.........now that got him going....he's very, very, VERY, against this idea!

haha..........ok ladies, the floor is yours.

he he jw, your poor DH probably thinks it's like sending his little girl to a nunnery .

One thing I really appreciate about my RC schooling was that my secondary school had changed from being a private Girls' High to being a co-ed comprehensive two years before I went and so the place was full of mad nuns who had never dealt with anyone but genteel and reasonably bright young ladies - and were suddenly face to face with loud swearing boys, kids who couldn't read or write, children from the Polish and Irish and Italian 'ghettos' in the city. The mix was tremendous and chaotic. And most of the teachers managed really well, in an unorthodox sort of way - if the Head caught a boy swearing she really would wash his mouth out with soap and water! It was all hugely eccentric, some lovely nuns and some awful ones, but all completely bonkers. You don't get that kind of bizarre education nowadays and it's a great shame . Most of the nuns had left by the time I was out of 6th form and now it's run by men in suits but it was a great time to be there.

Ah, nostalgia, I am getting on in years.

sounds fab ermintrude

cough. ahem. I'm not entirely sure what a montessori school is jw - I know its based on a teaching method but that's about it. So I can't enter the fray

Sale on at kiddicare ladies - I just bought a nice travel cot for £60 reduced from £99.99.

Whahahahahahah - LOL@ the Montessori threat

Thank you jw - *grabs the mike and begins.....

I was intending for Iris to go to a Montessori nursery but when I phoned to make an appointment they told me in a very snotty manner that it was so booked till 2011 and that I should have reserved a place when i was pregnant

ermintrude your DH sounds like my good self! Unfortunately his theorectical questions have turned into the real mcCoy for us. Yep - what do you do when your house used to be in the catchment for 3 good schools and one shocking one and last year, they took away the good schools and left you with one of the worst (and most violent) schools in the county I find it sooo hard to believe I could even contemplate private or faith BUT it's amazing what lengths you will go to when cr*p is your only option

In my ideal world we'll be able to break for the border and somehow afford to live in Berkshire - where there is no grammar system and some corkingly good comps!

evening all. Busy day today, starting with a dental appointment which had been lost in their change over to a computer system so the dentist was on holiday grrrr AND we actually got there on time for once in our lives.

Hi Duchess fab to see you over on the pregnancy threads.

Bens school is a CofE, it is the catchment school and seemed OK so I thought it best to send him to the school the other kids in the village go to. I went to a CofE and came out a perfectly respectable atheist, so I wasn't too worried about the religious aspects but he keeps coming home with such nonsense that we have to undo. Don't know whether to move him, although most of the schools here are CofE anyway so there isn't much choice ho hum.

so are we doing weights tomorrow, the xx stone, & lbs sounds good to me. I must find the scales.

Forgot to mention to you dieters, all you need to do is one hour per day, six days per week, of carefully-worked out aerobic and weights training, and you'll be the same size and shape as Madonna. According to her personal trainer who was in the Sat Guardian. Easy peasy

i saw that article in the Guardian and didn't get time to read it, she didn't look that healthy to me

Ah ermintrude my father (84 and fit n' trim) reckons it's all a simple equation.....'input over output.' I think I'm going wrong with the input section...!