Do you resent your parents for not educating you privately?

[Ghoulwithadragontattoo]

Obviously I mean if they could afford to but decided against it?

Very.weird.question.
I strongly resent the implied assertion that private must be better.

I think resentment might occur if parents have made poor decisions about education. Insisted a child stay at a school he/she hates, or sent them a to a demonstrably poor school with no opportunities, or where bullying is rife, for example.

I don't think the resentment would be split along private/state lines, but along quality/suitability lines.

FWIW I know someone who does resent his private education. It was a bad private school, he hated it, and he cannot bear the thought that his parents wasted so much money when they could have bought him a house instead.

If I'm honest, I do resent my parents a bit for removing me from my excellent private school, to which I had a full scholarship, and putting me in a terrible state school. Their reason was they didn't want to pay the bus fees to the private school. But I accept that it's not their fault - they had no education themselves and place no value upon it.

absolutely not.

i went to a university where it seemed everybody else had gone to private school. i was a little bit envious for a while of the confidence they all seemed to have and how they presented themselves as 19yr olds... but that passed and i am now glad i was educated in a very mixed social environment.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

It seems as though Cory may have hit on the key point - if the things go wrong the DCs may resent you whatever you do. And going private is no guarantees of things going right. Maybe from the parents point of view you can say "well we did whatever we could financially". May be some solace.

Downbytheriverside I actually like(d) all those books but am not daft enough to think it's all lacrosse matches and midnight feasts.

Am off to put the children to bed. Will be back soon.

I resent them for not taking an interest in my education whatsoever, Never came to a parents evening, asked about homework.

I had little interest in school but was never encouraged to be any better.

Nope,not at all, for a start the nearest private school was over 45 mins further away than the state one so that is an hour and a half per day, 300 hours per acc year or 3300 hours over 11 years just spent travelling - you can do a lot of homework in that time.

mine weren't terribly interested in my homework, but they spent an awful lot of time and energy on expanding my education out of school- always reading to me, talking to me, saving up money to take us places

I've never felt hard done by compared to my privately educated Oxbridge graduated colleagues

I went to both state and private schools and both had advantages and disadvantages. I think it depends what the schools are like near you, tbh. I spend a lot of time in schools because of my work, and I am always amazed how few people understand that the teachers all train in the same places, some state schools spend more per capita on actual teaching than some private schools (small prep schools are particularly naughty about this), and a lot of the difference comes down to who is using them, not what the school is actually doing.

Quit the hand-wringing. That's far more annoying than not choosing the most expensive school.

No!

I was, through the state system, given the opportunity to acquire as much and as good an education as I wanted - it wasn't on a plate but the opportunity was there and the ball was firmly in my court (where it should be) to make use of it.

I'm sure if I had wanted to become a stockbroker, or go into law or politics but for a zoologist, nah.

hell no.
And my brothers did go private.

However my school was very good and probably better than theirs. I certainly wouldn't have been happier or more successful if I'd gone to one of the local girls' private schools instead.

No, I don't resent my parents for that. My parents could have afforded it. They regret now that they didn't, as I don't have a high-flying career. But I doubt I would have done much better if I had gone to private school because I'm not that intelligent, I'm not ambitious - I don't want lots of money or a stressful job and I have confidence/self-esteem problems. And I don't think private school would have changed that.

I was privately educated and to a certain extent I resent my parents making that decision, given that we were surrounded by good state schools.

Yes, the education and facilities were excellent. But at university the bump to earth on realising that I was not as good academically as the school had coached me into believing was pretty painful. My parents made their choice of school based on circumstances other than our academic attainment; it did work out well for my brother.

What a strange OP.

I educate my DS privately, but there is no way on God's earth my parents could have done the same for me. So no, I don't resent it at all. Who on earth would?

Is this aimed at MNers "rich" parents who chose not to?

I don't really see the point or aim of the question.

So grateful to have had a state education myself as the local private school girls had to wear French navy berets with gold tassels [shallow]

The first time I visited an independent school i was truly gobsmacked at the facilities, and still am if I have occasion to go to one. It's true that glamorous facilities don't mean everything by any means, but when I found at university that I was actually quite good at sport, I did feel a bit at the almost entire lack of sport teaching (as opposed to some very generic PE) my school had had the time to provide me with. It was a very good school from an academic and musical point of view, but it didn't provide three orchestras, umpteen ensembles with all instruments available on site, and a full recording studio as our local girls' school does. Recently, though, I listened to some of what that school had recorded - the first thing was a lacklustre cover version of 'Forget You'. At my school the lower sixth form put on a production of Aristophane's The Frogs with music written and played by a member of my class, and that year the senior choir concert was all Britten plus an oratorio by the Head of Music. Realistically, though, those events were by the most musically committed third of the sixth form, whereas that crappy cover version could have been by the least musical members of the entire school, who STILL got to perform. IMO state schools could never be as good as an independent at bringing less confident and less obviously talented individuals out to their maximum ability, and that's a great shame.

My DH feels he was sent to completely the wrong school for him, for the wrong reasons, and many of those wrong reasons only existed because it was private. He has a diary including homework lists from when he was 9, and when I read it I simply could not believe how much work he had to do at that age and how joyless his life sounded. He was a high flyer until he was 21 when he had a breakdown and the constant reiteration at his school of his supposed future as a leader of society still causes him problems in how he thinks of himself. High standards at what price?

I guess what I feel is what everyone feels - never, ever take a school of any type at face value, be bedazzled by surface glamour or assume that what you hear in the papers can't possibly be true - visit, talk, ask around and stay alert.

I actually resent mine for sending me private. I was at a lovely grammar school which they took me out of and sent me to a snotty private school for my last year. To be fair to them it was because we moved 500 miles away but I absolutely hated the private school and the awful spoilt kids who went there. I would never send my kids private as I loathed my time there do much.

Complete opposite - I went to a crap private school who knocked all self confidence out of me and had very uninspiring teachers whos idea of teaching was hours of dictation for us to learn. I would have loved to have gone to the local outstanding state school.
I suppose we could send dds private but what I have learned from my own bitter experience is the importance of finding the right school for my child whether its state or private

Going against the grain here, but yes, actually, a little bit. I don't resent them as I'm grateful that they have strong moral and political ideas and have always lived by their principles, and that's a great lesson. And I did well in what I chose, so I couldn't say it wrecked my career. But my career options were narrowed by my school's poor teaching in my previously and latterly favoured subject.

That's not to say that all private schools would have been better, of course. Some would have been much worse.

errr - past resentment or loathing or any kind of emotion re those who bore me but i will go against the grain here and say yes actually

they could easily afford it and prided themselves on not doing - champagne socialists.

Showed no interest in anything i did in my life but moaned when i turned out to not be oxbridge material or runing MI5

I resent my parents for being so convinced that my private school was wonderful that they ignored the fact I was desperately unhappy there.

And for constantly bringing up (now I am an adult) the amount of money that they spend giving me this wonderful education and all the sacrifices they made.

No - not that they could afford it but I passed a scholarship exam for a private school aged 13 and decided to carry on at my comprehensive. I am grateful to my parents for letting me make the decision.

I went to a good state primary and then to a private secondary school.

I'm thankful that my primary school experience was normal so that instead of feeling hard done by at secondary school because we didn't have a holiday home or go skiing, I actually realised how lucky i was.

If I'd gone to a private school, oh yes, I'd have got a scholarship to Oxford at the age of 17.

Instead, I went to a comprehensive and got a scholarship to Oxford at the age of 17.

So that would be a no, then.

Thanks for these responses.I am finding them really fascinating. There are only a few posters here who say they do resent their parents not sending them to private school when they could have afforded to. The reason seems to be that the parents chose that route because of their political convictions rather than deciding on the best school for their child. Resentment seems to arise where the child's needs are not being taken into account and what type of school it was is not that relevant.