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35,000.oo ............. plus 5000.oo x 12 = 60,000.oo ...... about 0.1 million per annum ...... about equal to what we pay at LUMS for a year ;)

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my2cents

You hit the nail on the head: mothers should not rely on experts, feel pressured to do what other mothers are doing, feel obligated to be ``good`` (ie society`s definition of good) moms - I believe its all individual and whatever a mother chooses to do is right.

Having helped at a ``reputed`` school, i can attest to the fact that those institutions become more of fashion runways and my-kid-versus-yours arenas than about parents being genuinely interested in seeing their child happy..

Reminds me of a recent advice by one of my seniors who was looking for a good school for his daughter.... ``If you want to get married in the next 5 years, start saving for the school fees of your children NOW.``


and then may be its high time to open up a `non-profit` thingy for kids as well....

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shandana, you know you`re very funny. enjoyed your article and i know what it`s like to want to chuck your kids out the window.

what i want to say, after reading the other inteacts, might be going off on a tangent but i would like to share something i recently read that made me look at my plight a little differently.

it`s an account of a man in a zawiyya. he is undergoing spiritual exercises and is fairly new to the kind of learning process that seems to be a major shift of paradigm for someone of the `modern` world.

upon confiding in a stranger of how suffocating it was to constantly have one of the fuqara by his side, and not have a chance to be by himself; the confidant replies..

`` The Prophet--blessings and peace be upon him as long as men seek the Divine Presence

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has said, `satan is with the solitary.` to be truly alone means just that. and you, when you are by yourself, are you alone? no. a thousand thoughts accompany you, a hundred nafs

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your anger, your pride, your everything.``

``the struggle is not over yet. after it is over, you will see. you have to work very hard to be alone. that comes later. when you are able to be alone, you will find that you are. you won`t have to fight for it. to be alone, correctly, according to the Wisdom, you must first learn to be with others. don`t fight. look at your shaykh! look at your shaykh!``

since we have no shaykh, no zawiyya and no wise helper.....maybe our children are our protectors and guide? ..... maybe

Actually, it was Spock`s grandson who killed himself. Swan dive off the roof of the museum his father worked at. On Christmas day.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/drspock.htm

I liked the cat-horsey bit. Perhaps you should forego playschool and get the kid a pony :)

That was funny. I was talking to someone in Karachi recently and we were discussing toddler schooling ... she was in the ``interview`` phase and the maddest question she had been asked related to the kind of delivery she`d had. If I had been in her place, I might have smacked the interviewer. That would have given them an insight into how I`m ``rearing`` my little ones (as if they were cows you see) and that would have been that.

Meanwhile, my husband informs me that education is much too expensive and so therefore we can`t have any more than the two kids we already have ... little does he know but he has a point. How do people manage ...

My daughter started nursery at 18 months and I can still hear my father`s voice saying ``betay its too early ... uss key liyee buhat lamba ho jata hay din`` with the whole zalim maa` intonations. But she seems to love it so it can`t be so bad.

cheers
dL