Best return on investment: nanny, private elementary/middle/high school, or private college

[Anonymous]

I would say private university over nanny - "Sorry, I know that you loved your tour of Amherst, but we spent the money on a nanny so you're going to UVA." Some kids thrive on a huge campus with tens of thousands of students, and some do better with a much, much smaller school.

I went to public high school, and yes, some kids fell through the cracks - but I think that having involved parents can keep your kid from falling through the cracks. I stunk at math, for example, but my dad spent a couple hours a day with me basically tutoring me. I ended up doing just fine with my math classes through college and high school, but without that could have gotten totally derailed. Maybe in that case, a private school with a lot of resources could have been better. I guess my point is that you need to look at the resources, aside from money, that you can offer your kid. If you send your kid to a mediocre-to-crappy public school (like I went to), can you provide tutoring? Can you afford to hire a tutor to help out with problem areas? That might be kind of a happy medium between private school and public school. Not that my parents could afford private school, but I am really happy that I went to public school - overall, the classes were great and I had no problem keeping up with my classmates at the private college I went to, most of whom went to private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best money spent will be on one parent staying home FT until school starts.

Disagree. I think the most crucial time for one parent to be at home is when your child is in middle school. Their peers have become far more influential then; their hormones are going crazy; and those are the years that they can get into really bad stuff. Being present is essential then.

I don't understand this point. If the teen is in middle school and has afterschool activities (sports, etc), then why is it important for a parent to be home? That's a bit extreme. You just need at least one parent to get home at a resonable time to have dinner, help with homework, etc. Also, I doubt that one parent can just SAH for those few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best money spent will be on one parent staying home FT until school starts.

Disagree. I think the most crucial time for one parent to be at home is when your child is in middle school. Their peers have become far more influential then; their hormones are going crazy; and those are the years that they can get into really bad stuff. Being present is essential then.

You can still be present for your child if you work.

[Anonymous]

Why spend all the money over a few years? Space it out. If I didn't have the money to go private, I would spend the money to buy a home in the best public school pyramid in the DC metro area.

Other ideas for spreading the money around:

1) If both parents have jobs they like, keep the jobs and use the money to allow one person to work part-time. It's vitally importantly to one's life-time career to always keep at least one foot in the door.

2) Spend some money on enrichment: travel, classes, hobbies, summer and holiday.

3) College savings: A few hundred $$$s a month.

[Anonymous]

Of course we all probably think the path we've chosen is the right one. We did:

day care (wanted the socialization and structure)
private pk-8 (for small class sizes)
public HS (not driven by money at all but by what was the best choice for that child)
private college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private high school.

Agree. There are many superb public universities.

Another vote for this. Moving dd from public to private high school was a big improvement for her. She's now organized enough that she can get more out of the public university she will attend. Remember, the job market for faculty is terrible so that there are lots of talented and smart people at colleges and universities all over the country. Plus some of the top grad programs are at state universities -- not that you should choose a school based on that because good graduate programs don't necessarily correlate with good undergraduate education but it does mean that a self-motivated kid can get access to some very smart people should she have the desire to do it.

[Anonymous]

9:57 again -- but I should say it depends on the kid and it depends on the public schools that are available. This was the best move for us but maybe not for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best money spent will be on one parent staying home FT until school starts.

Disagree. I think the most crucial time for one parent to be at home is when your child is in middle school. Their peers have become far more influential then; their hormones are going crazy; and those are the years that they can get into really bad stuff. Being present is essential then.

I don't understand this point. If the teen is in middle school and has afterschool activities (sports, etc), then why is it important for a parent to be home? That's a bit extreme. You just need at least one parent to get home at a resonable time to have dinner, help with homework, etc. Also, I doubt that one parent can just SAH for those few years.

The parent should be home when their child gets home from school. I guess you could over-schedule the child and have them do sports, etc. every single afternoon. But then you are ceding the parenting to others - the neighbor who drives them to their next activity, the school after care program coordinator, etc. And since you are barely there in your child's life, why do you think that he or she will confide in you when you are around? My sister, the SAHM, has twice been the first to learn of her dd's friends' sexual activity - before their own parents. Why? Because she is the one who is there for them to confide in.

As for your last statement, why should it be any harder for one parent to SAH those few years than it is for one to SAH for the first few years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best money spent will be on one parent staying home FT until school starts.

Disagree. I think the most crucial time for one parent to be at home is when your child is in middle school. Their peers have become far more influential then; their hormones are going crazy; and those are the years that they can get into really bad stuff. Being present is essential then.

I totally agree with you. If you look at a bunch of 4-5 year olds, there is no way you would know which of them was in daycare, had a SAHM or had a nanny. The important thing is that they be given quality childcare, but you can find that in any of those settings (and in any of those settings, you can also find that the care isn't so great).

But I think moms in general are fooling themselves if they think it is more important to be home during the baby years. Anybody who has an older kid will tell you that this just isn't the case.

[Anonymous]

Piling on with private high school being the best investment. It will give kids the skills they need to make the most of their university experience. And there are excellent public universities, so I don't feel like that would be any sacrifice at all.

More agreement for the idea of using your SAH time when the child is older. I hope that either my co-parent or I can go part-time when our child hits 4th or 5th grade or so. It's important to be home when the child gets home from school, and for at least one parent to attend games and school plays and to volunteer for stuff. I know I wouldn't have time for any of that now, but it doesn't matter, because we have a preschooler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for private high school.

I went to daycare and public schools including college -- high school was probably the weakest part of my program and where the less focused kids tended to slip through the cracks.

I had a similar experience. I excelled in an easy public high school -- I never had to study much or work hard to get good grades and I really had to pick up the slack to catch up to my peers once I reached college (private). DH on the other hand went to a private high school and got decent grades, but excelled in college (also a private).

And I agree, high school is where a so-so student can really begin to lose focus and go down the wrong path. I can remember a few classmates that were bright children in elementary school that barely graduated high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your best money spent will be on one parent staying home FT until school starts.

Disagree. I think the most crucial time for one parent to be at home is when your child is in middle school. Their peers have become far more influential then; their hormones are going crazy; and those are the years that they can get into really bad stuff. Being present is essential then.

I don't understand this point. If the teen is in middle school and has afterschool activities (sports, etc), then why is it important for a parent to be home? That's a bit extreme. You just need at least one parent to get home at a resonable time to have dinner, help with homework, etc. Also, I doubt that one parent can just SAH for those few years.

The parent should be home when their child gets home from school. I guess you could over-schedule the child and have them do sports, etc. every single afternoon. But then you are ceding the parenting to others - the neighbor who drives them to their next activity, the school after care program coordinator, etc. And since you are barely there in your child's life, why do you think that he or she will confide in you when you are around? My sister, the SAHM, has twice been the first to learn of her dd's friends' sexual activity - before their own parents. Why? Because she is the one who is there for them to confide in.

As for your last statement, why should it be any harder for one parent to SAH those few years than it is for one to SAH for the first few years?

You can work without overscheduling your child. This is really reaching. If you don't want or need a career that's fine but many of us aren't ready to retire in our late 30s once our kids reach school age. You can't really pretend to even think you will go back after several years in your 50s. It's fine if people don't want to and don't need to work. But saying it is not an option if you want to be present for your child is BS. Quit stating your opinion as if it's an definitive fact. We are all in the real world and we all know parents who work with kids in school and parent who don't - it's a mixed bag how their kids are navigating through those tough teen years and not totally dependent on working vs. SAH.

[Anonymous]

Our plan: private ps-8 to establish good study habits, love of learning. If it works and kid is a good student, good public HS. If not, private HS as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The parent should be home when their child gets home from school. I guess you could over-schedule the child and have them do sports, etc. every single afternoon. But then you are ceding the parenting to others - the neighbor who drives them to their next activity, the school after care program coordinator, etc. And since you are barely there in your child's life, why do you think that he or she will confide in you when you are around? My sister, the SAHM, has twice been the first to learn of her dd's friends' sexual activity - before their own parents. Why? Because she is the one who is there for them to confide in.

As for your last statement, why should it be any harder for one parent to SAH those few years than it is for one to SAH for the first few years?

You can work without overscheduling your child. This is really reaching. If you don't want or need a career that's fine but many of us aren't ready to retire in our late 30s once our kids reach school age. You can't really pretend to even think you will go back after several years in your 50s. It's fine if people don't want to and don't need to work. But saying it is not an option if you want to be present for your child is BS. Quit stating your opinion as if it's an definitive fact. We are all in the real world and we all know parents who work with kids in school and parent who don't - it's a mixed bag how their kids are navigating through those tough teen years and not totally dependent on working vs. SAH.

Agree, PP. And the sentence I bolded is just silly. I work, but my HS DD and I have a very close relationship, you may choose not to believe it, but we discuss sexual activity and drugs at her school. Where I grew up most of the moms were SAHM, but there was plenty of sexual activity and even a few pregnancies, which took the SAHMs by complete surprise. Which is why silly generalizations like the one in bold above are useless.

[Anonymous]

Too many variables.

We opted for the nanny for 7 years, then public school.