Nice People Thread Number 11 - A Treasury of Nice People

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I'm very happy having 2 kids. Mrs Generali would have liked a dozen given half a chance I reckon, certainly 4-6.

She would also have wanted me to be extremely rich as she would want them all go to the best schools with all the extras, 3-4 holidays a year etc.

Mrs G sounds very like Mrs Michaels, not a lot of being grateful for what we have which is more than many others.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Mrs G sounds very like Mrs Michaels, not a lot of being grateful for what we have which is more than many others.

Mrs Generali came from a modest background and got used to living the high life.

She's now become used to things being a lot tighter and understands that you can only spend each dollar once. She does insist on the best for the kids however. TBH it's the main reason we're broke now because all the cash goes on the Generalissimos. I earn well; if not huge riches then well above the average for Sydney.

Spirit_2

bugslet wrote: »

Considering I have a friend with a phobia of buttons, I think I'm not too weird!

...

I was at a lunch party and chatting to a real man of the world, he is a professional, former head of a Royal College, a Lyricist and member of a comedy musical cabaret group. I accept I may not be the most interesting of people, but I suddenly felt I had lost his attention completely.

He has a button phobia, and the small handbag I had borrowed from my daughter was covered in mother of pearl buttons. Once it caught his eye he was transfixed.

michaels

I very luckily have an ideological objection to private schooling so I don't need to beat myself up over not being able to afford it nor have to argue with DW over why if we can afford it we dont. Occasionally she mentions putting DKs in for scholarship places but luckily doesn't get round to doing anything about it.

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Planet issues are why I personally would have wanted one or maybe two, for replacement rate max.

I feel good about the "replacement only" aspect of having had 2, but I also know that my desire for kids was visceral not rational, and that fact that 2 kids were enough to satisfy it isn't really rational either. It's a happy coincidence that what my rational mind believes is a good idea happens to be the same number that satisfied my hormones! I also feel very blessed to have one of each - I think if DD had been a boy I would always have had a feeling of "what if?" and "if only". I promised LNE I would stop at 2, though, and I would have kept that promise whatever the second one turned out to be.

DD and I have been watching The hoarder next door together. We are both coming to the conclusion that what's going on in her room and the spare room is not just normal 10-year-old untidiness compounded by a mother with burnout who can't summon the energy to enforce tidying up. DD's emotional difficulties in getting rid of anything, however useless the stuff is, look very much like the people on the show, and the link with childhood loss and trauma is compelling too. I am not sure what to do next. She suggests trying to get on the programme for the next series, which feels like way too much exposure to me. Anyway, I doubt she's extreme enough to make good television.

Doozergirl

I'd do a search on MSE for fridaysmove, PN. It rings a bell.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

I very luckily have an ideological objection to private schooling so I don't need to beat myself up over not being able to afford it nor have to argue with DW over why if we can afford it we dont. Occasionally she mentions putting DKs in for scholarship places but luckily doesn't get round to doing anything about it.

I have an ideological objection to private schools too but while they exist I will not put my kids ahead of my ideology.

I will pay what it takes to give my kids a head start in life. It's unfair but life's unfair.

Until every child in Africa and the Pacific Islands gets an education at the level of Basildon Comp then I'll buy my kids what I can to help them make more money and be happier.

Once/if everything in education becomes 'fair' then I'll accept that. Until then I'm aiming for MIT for The Boy and perhaps The Sorbonne for The Girl.

michaels

If the most motivated parents take their kids out of the state system not only does it mean that their kids dont grow up in the real world but it also makes the state school.worse for those who are left behind. Do you decline to have your kids vaccinated because they can benefit from the beard immunity whilst not suffering the individual risk?

I also don't want to push them to try to reach further than they comfortably can and then spend their lives feeling like failures because they haven't met all their parents aspirations.

LydiaJ

Generali wrote: »

I have an ideological objection to private schools too but while they exist I will not put my kids ahead of my ideology.

I will pay what it takes to give my kids a head start in life. It's unfair but life's unfair.

Until every child in Africa and the Pacific Islands gets an education at the level of Basildon Comp then I'll buy my kids what I can to help them make more money and be happier.

Once/if everything in education becomes 'fair' then I'll accept that. Until then I'm aiming for MIT for The Boy and perhaps The Sorbonne for The Girl.

I can't afford a private education for my two, so I try not to think about whether I would like them to have it if I could afford it.

We live in a grammar school county. DS didn't want to try for grammar school, and I agreed that given his issues with confidence, it's better for him to be in a comp where he can't convince himself that he's failing compared with the others. Anyway, the only grammar schools he'd have been likely to be able to get into are single sex, and I don't think he's the kind of boy who would suit all boys education. I spent LNE's life insurance money buying a house in the catchment of the best comp in the area, which really is excelling educationally when compared like with like with other comps.

DD, OTOH, does want to try for grammar school, and I think she is the sort of girl who might suit an all girls' school. I'm paying for her to have a tutor in a low pressure sort of way, since she wanted to, and am going very firmly down the line of "you can try if you like, and if you get in that's great, but if you don't that's fine too, because you can go to DS's school, and that's a very good school, so we're not going to get stressed about it". So far she seems to be viewing it with that attitude too, so I'm happy.

My brothers and I were all at independent schools, and all did very well. I am enduringly grateful, however, to my parents, and especially my dad, who was very keen to provide us with whatever support we needed to do well, and encouraged us to pursue excellence in whatever direction we took, but was completely open minded about what direction we might each choose. As it happens, we all turned out academic, like him, but if one or more of us had wanted to do something more vocational, he would have been just as encouraging to us to be the best we could be at whatever we chose.

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

Do you decline to have your kids vaccinated because they can benefit from the beard immunity whilst not suffering the individual risk?

I also don't want to push them to try to reach further than they comfortably can and then spend their lives feeling like failures because they haven't met all their parents aspirations.

I had my kids vaccinated because I wanted them to contribute to the herd immunity as well as being protected themselves.

I think my kids know that my aspirations for them evolve as they discover what their own aspirations are.