in laws offering to pay for son not daughter schools fees Post Reply

[benandtilly]

I am new to posting on NappyValleyNet so I hope that this is the right section for this question?
We are a family of four, with two children at a mixed local prep.
As with many others our financial situation has changed through lockdown and we are faced with having to move them to a local state school.
My in laws have offered to step in but only for my son ‘boys education more important’ etc. They are elderly and mean well but regardless, I am dead against.
I don’t want to treat the children differently or have them feel that they’ve been prioritised over each other.
My husband doesn’t seem to have a problem with it? He feels that we are lucky to be have been offered the help and it is up to his parents how they help. How do I convince him that this is all so unfair and he risks damaging his daughter? Or have I got it all wrong. Thanks for any shared experiences.

[firsttimerSW11]

You might get more replies on mumsnet but in a nutshell this to me is beyond shocking. Your poor daughter. I can’t actually believe your husband doesn’t see anything wrong with this. What kind of misogynist are you married to?
Bottom line here, either they pay for both, or you can afford one and they pay for one or frankly you tell them thanks but no thanks. And don’t ever let your daughter know that she and her education is worth less than your son’s. They should be quite ashamed of themselves but especially your husband. If as a father of a daughter he can’t champion women and girls what hope does she have.
Quite frankly I feel sorry for your daughter having a father who thinks your son and his education is more important than she/hers is.

[dimelda]

Well said, Firsttimer.  Misogynists clearly alive and well in the Britain of 2021.  Her in-laws too are a disgrace - don't care how old they are.  Poor woman - marrying into a family of such Neanderthals.

[HeB]

OP you’re absolutely right, it’s completely unreasonable and you should not accept the money. I would have been shocked about such a situation 50 years ago, let alone today!

Only possible rationale I could see for paying for one sinking and not the other would be if one had particular needs of any sort that couldn’t be catered for in another school. But not because of their gender!!!! Better for the kids to be together in any case.

[HeB]

sibling not sinking (!)

[chorister]

I hesitate to intrude on this as we don't have children, but many years ago my brother, with a son and two daughters, had a similar decision, though for different reasons.  For whatever reason they chose private education for the son.  They are all adults now with their own families, and laugh about it.  And you couldn't tell which had been educated which way.

I think the pile in on @benandtilly is unreasonable.  If they love each other and love their children then it will most likely work out fine, whatever they choose.

[Pigeon2000]

No, no, no, no, no!! You absolutely cannot take them up on that and in fact you should use this moment to make it very clear that their attitude will not be tolerated going forward. Will they want her to serve them when she goes to visit? Will they fill her head with rubbish about how she will grow up to marry and mother and nothing else is allowed? Will he grow up thinking that his education is more important than that of women?
Bazillion times better to have them together at state school.

[itsw16]

Hello
Parents in law can pay for their son’s private education with thanks and benandtilly need to dig deep to pay for their daughters private education. Being outraged won’t solve the problem.

[nsllee]

Children are individuals and it could be that one would prefer to be in a state school and the other would not. Assuming that is not the case, I think it's important that you treat your children fairly, so if you cannot scrape together the money (including the grandparents' contribution) to keep both in a private school, then it would be best to put them both in a state primary. Our girls went to state primaries and they are now both in Russell Group unis.

You could always explain to the grandparents that it wouldn't be fair to treat the children differently and that nowadays girls' careers are just as important and necessary as boys, so thank them kindly for their offer, but say you will move them both to a state school. Maybe they will realise the error of their ways and offer to fund both. Or maybe they cannot afford to fund both. Even if you could pick which one got the funding, it would still be unfair to the other, so in the end, you're left with moving them both to a state school anyway.

[Mum2Monkey]

My husband's grandma gave my son an amount of money when he was born but not my daughter for similar reasons to above. My mother in law said she would make it right out of subsequent inheritance but never did. So I evened it up from our savings and told my daughter it came from Great Grandma.

I still begrudge this treatment 8 years on and it would upset my daughter to know that she was treated differently because she was a girl.

Could you treat the school fees as though they were half to each child and find the rest? Unless there is a justifiable reason for kids at different schools e.g personalities, academics (and I would for example send one of mine to a grammar and one to private) then I think it is hard to pull one out and not the other and be able to justify it.

If it is a case that your in-laws can't afford two lots of fees then would they could consider a few years for each?

[Familycompleted]

Having been in a similar situation myself as the “daughter” who was seen less worthy and my step father refusing to pay for my university education whilst my two half brothers never even managed the grades I achieved or worked half as hard, but allowed to choose whatever university they wanted because as your in-laws say “boys’ education is more important”, please don’t do it! Even if I am several times over more successful now than either of my brothers, I still begrudge my parents so much about this 20 years plus on! I have tried to seek therapy to get over this as my parents are growing older and I want to sincerely care for them more, I am unable to shift away the feeling of resentment.... you will regret it, and your daughter won’t be able to forgive you... and will always struggle to completely “love” her sibling ... at least that’s my experience.

[Working mum with 2kids]

I really don’t want it to sound like I am supporting your in-laws’ or your husband’s views because I am not (my daughter and son both go to private school and if anything I believe my daughter gets more out of it than my son does). However I am so surprised by the amount of mums I meet that have had excellent education but choose to be stay-at-home mums. Again it’s a personal choice which I am not judging but I can partly understand (not support - this is key!) why some people might choose to fund boys’ education rather than girls if funds are not unlimited if they see that in their families girls tend not to work after marriage/kids whilst boys work most of their adult life.

I am again emphasing that this is just an attempt to show another point of view - it’s absolutely not my view of the world. Apart from 2 mat leaves I always worked, my mum and all the other women in my family have a career and I expect my daughter to have a career even if she has kids and financially not need to work. Her education for us will always be as important, if not more important than, my son’s education.

[TFP]

There are definitely circumstances under which it's OK to school one child privately, the other at a state school. The obvious example is where one passes the 11+ for a selective state secondary & the other doesn't. The setup described by OP is not another example, in fact it seems the worst possible way to do it - have them both at a private prep and pull one but not the other out on gender grounds. It'd be a nonsense. Private school obviously has benefits but not nearly significant enough to risk breaking up a family for.

[PutneyFather]

Agree that funding one but not the other isn’t on...even if you don’t tell them why, the reason will doubtless occur to your daughter...Assuming your parents cannot afford both, and you are unable to take the offer and fund your daughter (which if either were true I imagine you’d already have decided to do) perhaps your parents would consider allowing the money to be used to help fund both equally at uni?

[MummyCarolyn]

I would have a chat with hubby about the importance of financial indépendance for a woman.
What if his daughter has to be with a man that’s mean or treat her badly but she sticks with him because he pays for her food and lifestyle and she has no other choice?
Having a great job, thanks to having had a good education partly, is the key to ensuring women never get into a situation where they have to stick with a man they don’t want to stick with.
Or if the man doesn’t assume a family as more and more do, then she can assume it on her own.

In the future the wealth gap and job market will be tougher, she needs to be well equipped.

Besides, it’s proven that men have a head start in the workplace. So if I’d pay for only one person, I’d pay fir the daughter to rectify that.

I wouldn’t be too upset at the grandparents they probably mean well and don’t realise how the world has changed...