Why does everyone want to judge my choice of school???

[Betsy8]

My children are both in Independent education for very good reasons. It is tough on us financially but we are coping. Why do some people at state school have to be so judgemental about this? I have never commented on someone else's education choice for their kids. My husband's family always make comments about it, with my sister-in-law smugly telling us how her kids walked the grammar entrance from a state primary - She is a teacher and spent a fortune on tuition! Another friend, from a very, very middle class, predominantly white village announced smugly that she wanted her daughter to see 'all walks of life'!! My daughter, who was miserable, now smiles at the beginning and end of every day. That is worth the one car, the holiday every other year, and minimal shoe closet that I have, and the other sacrifices that we make. Why can't state school parents accept this? What really annoys me is that my husband spends so much on tax each year, he is actually donating two places at our offsted rated primary school to another child!!! My kids are not spoilt. They have to work hard for their pocket money, they both have to help out around the house with everyday chores and my daughter, now 9 is learning to cook meals for all of us. This surely flies in the face of my friend's recent comment "private school kids do not know how the real world works". It is as though once you decide to pay for a good education you become a moral punchbag and your feelings do not count any more. Does anyone out there have experience of this and if so, do you have any good, polite retorts that I can use as I am running out of patience now...

AdelaofBlois - Then what about the feelings of other readers, who have chosen a school, based on the merits of the specific school, and what it can offer their individual DC, who don't feel that they are donating places, or doing people a favour with the taxes they pay? Is it compassionate to tell all these readers they are using money to screw other peoples children over? Is there a plea to understand their views?

What' sinteresting is that folk do things that are plainly bad for others every day of the week.

We buy cheap clothes, we shop in supermarkets, we insist on everything being cheap, cheap, cheap.
We drive when we could walk. We fly. We take package holidays.
Wash our towels too much. We use tumble driers. We have our heating on.

And yet we wouldn't dream of berating our friends and family for it.

Yet using private school seems to mean all bets are off. Comments and critisisms can be made. Insults landed. Open season.
Even the DC themselves are not sacrosanct - the vile comments made here about children just because of how they are schooled is diabolical.

But it's as if that's all okay.

AnnaMolly

My views are actually very similar to wordfactory's, as previous posts make clear. I wouldn't dream of initiating an attack on the OP simply for her choice of schooling. It sickens me somewhat to see contemporaries of mine earning upwards of 60k slagging off those on lower incomes sending their kids to private school, simply because they have used their money to buy property in good catchment areas. And I'm fully aware how privileged my family is (income at national median even after childcare) and that within my life the reason I cannot afford school fees (I spent my twenties doing essentially not-for-profit jobs that just paid bills) is also the reason I have greater pedagogical, intellectual and academic reserves to pull on than perhaps she does and certainly than my neighbours in this so called 'deprived area' do. Every time I take my DSs to a historical site I know loads about, read to them, explain stuff to them, use my knowledge of primary teaching to aid them, I'm screwing other people's kids over. I regret that, but if I (or later they) felt the compromise too morally great I wouldn't do it. And for all those reasons, I'm not going to jump up and down on anyone simply for the choice they make.

But on the other hand, I didn't decide to post here going 'What does it matter if I read more to my kids than others can? What does it matter if I can do extra work with them that other's can't? I'm saving the class teacher time, and working unpaid to do their job, blah-de-blah-de-blah'.

I simply assume that anyone who educates their kids privately knows they are screwing other peoples' over, that that would be a part of their moral decision making they are comfortable with, and that if not they wouldn't initiate a conversation on the topic. I can't see how it is insulting when it must already be a known part of the morality of the decision.

I was ROFL at the 'sacrifices' ie holidays, only 'one' car and a truncated shoe closet.

But thanks to your DP for donating a couple of state school places ( which weren't good enough for your children) to my kids. Obviously DP and I pay tax too, but thanks anyway.

I'm wondering if actually you are somewhat uncomfortable in the private school environnment and might be happier if you just moved your DC to state? It shouldn't be this much of an issue for you. Doubtful it will make that much difference in the long run really.

I think the fact is wordfactory is that you and your children win! You just do. Your children will be given every advantage possible to give them a leg up in life, even if they are mediocre in ability.

Yours will not suffer, mine will have a mountain to climb to get to Oxbridge or jobs in some media, or the city, or working in an art gallery in Kensington for that matter.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes screwing others over, and whether it is right to attack people because their morality differs from yours.

AnnaMolly

First, I didn't attack 'people'-I commented on a post for the justification and attitude expressed on ONE issue. That's different, especially when she choses to raise the issue.

Second, I don't know about their 'morality'. We all do things that screw others over, and doing it for our kids is fairly common and far from immoral. I'm not certain what I'd do if I won the lottery tomorrow, this isn't a moral issue in that sense, one person's right against another's.

But, as long as the world remains essentially competitive and unequal, anyone who sends their kids to private school (even just to save on childcare!) is advantaging those kids and so damaging others. If that's discomforting as a statement then it's clearly not so discomforting they didn't do it, they knew the compromises they made. If you're genuinely so uncomfortable with that hard fact its repetition offends, don't let on you privately educate your kids.

Doesn't make you a bad person, doesn't make me a better one, but don't pretend your choices are yours alone and don't affect others, and perhaps express a little regret for the world being such that you are 'forced' to do this.

norman I acknowledge that, of course I do.

Though to be honest those advantages were not at the forfront of my mind when we first chose independent school as
a.DC were four and I had barely given a thought to much beyond their fifth birthday and
b. having come from a state school myself, I did wonder whether the advantages oft spoken about weren't actually overplayed.

Indeed, as adela points out much of my DC's advantage was already in place way before they attended school.

However, now being many years along the road in my DC's education, I do concede that there are certain advantages bestowed over and above coming from a certain background.

And as I say, I do understand that that makes others angry and sad for their own children. Perfectly understandable.

But attacking me and my children (particularly the later) won't serve any purpose will it?

IMO, the OP has left herself wide open with the tax and donating a school place comment.

However, I don't think having an independent education gived minbe any more of an advantage than having a huge garden, 3 hols a year and being taken to interesting places by two well-educated, interested parents.

I mean, lots of parents who use state do this too. Do they not think they are giving their child an unfair advantage by talking to them, reading to them, taking them to museums etc? Many thousands of kids won't ever get that so aren't you giving your child an unfair advantage there?

wordfactory

Thank you, that's really all those of us shocked at the OP and other posters would wish-an acknowledgement of advantage gained, a sense of some regret that it is thus, and recognition of our annoyance. And, speaking personally, I am certainly not going to hold anyone up as uniquely evil for this way of helping their kids out over mine when I (and 99.9% of posters here) do so for their own kids over others in different ways. That we can understand (even if we don't want the system maintained)

I am sorry if anything I wrote seemed to be attacking you or your kids (I don't think Is aid anything about kids, but maybe others did?).

Actually, I went to a comprehensive and got a 2.1 from a Russell Group university. I feel a bit sorry for my co-students who went to private schools, as they largely got the same results or worse. Waste of money or not? I got it for free; their parents paid through the nose. Why?

adela nothing you've said offended me at all

rebecca I too use to feel that way, however, I think it is disingenuous to not acknowledge that independent school offers many advantages over raw exam results.

TBH, the exam results are the very least of it.

'Screwing other people's children over?'

The finger of moral rectitude is best pointed at other people.

maggiethecat

If that was aimed at me, if you read the posts I made you will see I also admit this is what I do in various ways, and use the phrase of my own actions.

...'donating 2 places' ..quote of the evening for me

Norman - working in the city, art gallery in Kensington - is that all you want for your children?

Wordfactory - forgive me but I cannot relate to this hurt that others feel about their children lacking what privately educated children obtain. I must live in a naive little bubble perhaps because I expect that my children will go on to do well (by my standards)and have rich experiences even if they do continue in the state schools.

No it isn't 'all I want' - how ridiculous.

It's just an example of what private education buys you - I have worked in these worlds (except the art gallery, had the wrong accent) and they are dominated by privately educated people

maggie then you are very sensible.

I have always thought it pointless to want what other people have.

However, I am sure you realise that many are not as sanguine.
You will have read enough posts here on MN (there is barely a day goes by when this doesn't come up) to know that many are very angry indeed that there is a two tier system which allows some children to have more advantage than others.

It is hurtful and frustrating.

And that, I think is perfectly understandable.

All I wish is that people who do feel that way would challenge their feelings more appropriately.

norman is also quite correct that the privately schooled dominate certain arenas. Their over representation is utterly absurd.

Politics.
Law.
Medicine.
Academe.
Media.
Publishing.
Finance.
Fashion.
Board level management.
Diplomacy.
Senior positions in the armes forces.

And yes you might dismiss these arenas as unimportant, though I would question that, given that these are the arenas that weild real power in the UK.

I think we need to ask some very basic questions about why this over representation happens.
And what we can do to break up the cartel.

Wordfactory, while privately-schooled children may well dominate in some areas, cause and effect is not so obvious. Fashion and publishing for instance - surely if they dominate here (and it's not something I know much about admittedly) it's because mummy and daddy who can afford private education can also afford for them to faff around designing things and not getting paid much for years. Maybe the same is true of media. And with the rise of unpaid internships, the rich will have even more advantages career-wise.

When it comes down to it, the OP wasn't at all interested in any moral arguments, she was just irritated by people on a similar income to her own questioning whether she had done the best by her own family, or whether she was throwing money away unnecessarily. I can see that it is extremely irritating and a bit upsetting to have your ability to do your best by your family questioned. If she moved in the sort of circles where money was no object, she wouldn't be bothered, because her wealthy friends wouldn't question her in this way - they wouldn't need to, because the cost of private education would not be a concern to them. And if she moved in the sort of circles where none of her other friends could ever hope to afford private education, then she would be more a good deal more sensitive to the relative unfairness of her ability to choose to educate her children privately whilst "merely" owning one car and having a small shoe closet... Effectively, she doesn't fit in with the hugely wealthy, doesn't fit in with those on average incomes or below, and doesn't appreciate being questioned by her "type." I think, if you are stuck in the reasonably-well-off category, then you just have to develop a thicker skin, rather than expecting everyone to be nice to you - you at least have choices and can make use of your economic and social advantages, even if the choices are never straightforward.

planetearth I think media and publihsing and fashion, indeed the arts, have always been traditionally full of the privately schooled.

Partly it must come from these industries being so Londoncentric.
Partly because the routes in seemed so very closed off to most.

And now the whole issue of internships is making matters worse. Every time I have a meeting with my editor or agent or publicist there's some bonny lass come along for the ride, all straight teeth and shiny hair.
They work for free while living in London. How many can afford to do that?

And even if you can afford it, even getting a bloody internship is difficult. You need an in which is hard to come by for most of us mere mortals.