Thread by @AyoCaesar

Putting aside the fact that they’re engines of class inequality, private boarding schools are just intensely fucked up places to send your children. It is just so intensely damaging.

I never met people who went to boarding school until uni, and it was honesty mad hearing what went on. All the things that made their parents mistrust the state system (bullying, violence, substance abuse) were not only endemic at these boarding schools, they were inescapable.

You’re sending your kid into that environment when they’re like 11, and putting them into the care of people who - no matter how well intentioned - don’t love them. What kind of message does that send to your child about how you feel about them?

For more than a few people I know, going through that system has been really psychologically scarring. And even for those who didn’t have acute mental health crises, there’s this strange detachment between them and their parents. It’s like they’re talking to work acquaintances!

And of course I’m not saying that bullying and violence don’t go on at state schools. They do! I got up to all sorts of things that I shouldn’t have during my adolescence, there were times where family life was very fraught, but knowing where home was made such a huge difference.

I just think it’s very fucked to get the message from your parents that they don’t want to parent you. When it’s poor people doing it, it’s time for social services to get involved, but when it’s rich people it’s proof they take education seriously.