Jane,
I for one find your ability to balance feminine (not feminist) ideas with partnership, family and self quite reasonable (no pun!)

I do believe that it is those who are threatened by a woman’s success and intimidated by a family with an achieving mother that are the one’s who are make the most noise

Keep writing – both my partner and I find your writing interesting and providing plenty of food for personal thought and discussion.

Sorbe, I agree with your analysis that the suburban private school is catering to the aspirational families out there. One issue we have noticed locally is that parents where there is a good/reasonable govt school choice will send thier kids there particularly if they are tertiary qualified themselves. They believe their kids will succeed and feel very comfortable with the education mindset but many parents who are not tertiary qualified seem to feel the only option is high cost elite private schools. That is they are not willing to take the chance. I believe this has much to do with their perception of their own secondary school years and feelings of having'missed out' theselves. The private system has done a fantastic marketing job in convincing many that the govt system is residual and definetly not a place for them. This is supported by articles almost everyday in The Age and herald Sun in Melb praising the virtues of struggling families who scrimp and save for that private school product. Again perhaps I am writing from a position of comfort having got my son into a high performing but not selective inner city school. What the middle class do not seem willing to do is band together send there kids to the local high school, reclaim it from its residual status and guess what, results improve social mix changes and everyones happy. The only sector not happy with this scenario is the private schools. I am not a conspiracy nut but hey how do you sell your product but market heavily (girsl and boys ib unforms plastered on trams and billborads) and diminish the alternative at every opportunity.

Shorbe - A few debatable points.

Whether or not private schooling is better than public is another debate and I'll happily acknowledge I don't have all the facts at hand. That being said, during my high school years I spent a pretty equal time at both public and private school, and while I noticed there was more resources at the private one, it didn't change the amount of work I put in, which is what really counts - though I couldn't tell you if private schools turn out better students overall.

One thing I can tell you is this:
There is a pretty wide spectrum that constitutes good parenting. Because a parent may have a relaxed attitude, they aren't necessarily worse for the child - a neglectful one is, certainly, but that's not quite the same, and that's not what Caro's saying.

If a child is to grow up and be a success, one day they will have to leave the nest. If they don't have the skills and self reliance and confidence to be self sufficient, they will fail.
I've seen plenty of parents who have taken a magnifying glass to their children's upbringing - everything their child does is scrutinised, and the children have no room to take risks or flex their wings. Overprotectiveness can be almost as harmful as neglect, and these children don't become self sufficient.

Parents need to accept that some elements of their children aren't up to them - fate will intervene, and so will the will of the offspring, and if it doesn't, then that's when you have a real problem.

ena: There's the middle class and there's the middle class. Tchnically, a family on a combined income of $80,000 (gross) is in the middle class, but in order to pay the school fees for two kids, half their before income tax is swallowed up. After a mortgage (for a modest house in a modest suburb), it doesn't leave much. I would suggest that the figure of 1 in 6 you suggest doesn't adequately describe the legions of small business owners or other people who live lifestyles with little leeway for extravagence, but instead make sacrifices and are prudent with their money. These people are hardly from a high socio-economic bracket.

Ultimately, I think there's something absent in your analysis or thousands and thousands of parents (regardless of class) wouldn't spend a lot of money on private education, and kids wouldn't travel (in some cases) over an hour to avoid the local hell hole.

Glen: I'm not really sure what you're getting at. To suggest that private school kids (who aside from the stress of high academic expectations -- both from themselves and others -- often have to put in a lot of extra time doing extra-curricular activities) don't have stress is a little disingenuous.

pdev: Are all private schools high cost and elite though? The biggest growth area is in small schools that supposedly provide the moral guidance lacking in the government system, and for whom, having a fantastic rowing team is irrelevant.

I disagree with you about the middle class reclaiming the government system and changing the social mix. The problems with education are far more deeply rooted. Particularly relevant though is a fundamental difference in culture. In very general terms, those who are willing to inflict the suburban government system on their kids see education as a punishment, not either inherently good or a means to social mobility. This is a gaping chasm that cannot be bridged and that the inner city left dare not admit (despite never wanting to live in such places or send their kids to such schools).

Despite the highjacking of the original article about choice in the modern Western world - by myopic private-public school/ideology fanciers - the main point is still here. And that is, why does Jane Caro gloat so over modern Western choice?

I say, because she can.

Remember, she wrote this article. She expressed angst about parental choice. She wanted to make light - Satire? Whimsy? Drivel? (loved that post by Faustino) - about the matter. Schooling is just one very minor subordinate issue.

Back to the point. Caro's diatribe is about whinging over privilege. A bemused "little number", she scribes, that, which would sit well with her personal elite set. The trouble of course comes when she, and her elite set, lose sight of what real life is actually like for the rest of us out here. She has absolutely no idea. She really doesn't have the first idea. No idea at all. It's all there in her writing.

And that's why this tragic article stands testament to exactly what it is - a bourgeois rant. "Tut-tut, ha-ha, ho-ho, let them eat cake, you know what I mean darling?". The sort of chuckle you'd have over croissants in your new stainless steel kitchen, whilst wearing designer underwear that "YOU KNOW" is better than what she's wearing.

The entire article is just so quiche.

I won't write anymore, to save myself having to barf.

Jane Caro's "elegant" rubbish is disgusting, modern feminist princess entitlement gone sick. If this is the mentality and depth of parenting today, we are so, so, so, way, way, way off the track - you know what I mean dear?

Give it a rest Jane.

shorbe,
You know exactly what I am getting at. That is why you mentioned the middle-class salary, and then you bump up that salary by saying it is combined and then bump it again by saying it is gross. yes it is gross by that other meaning shorbe.
Just who is the chump here. It ain't me.
Let's cut that $80,000 combined salary in half to $40,000 and that is where the middle-class combined salary is where I come from.
Could you take that stress to live on half of what you earn.