Job Discussion Forums

[justme]

[misterkodak]

I have mixed emotions about kids here. I have 2 stepdaughters.For this reason, I couldn't picture me working in Istanbul again. My wife has a decent job here. The oldest is already in college and goes to one of the better private universities in Istanbul on scholarship.Much to the surprise of my colleagues, my youngest goes to a government school here. She has 25 kids in her class. We have a good dialogue with her class teacher. I wish I could say the same for her English teacher (my daughter's English is better than her teacher's). Still, you can't win it all. It's not that I can't afford a private school, but from my experiences in teaching in them, they're little more than daycare for children over 6 year olds. Most kids are clueless when they go into them and they're even more clueless when they leave.
Now that it's summer, the firm I work for has me tasked to teach a TOEFL prep course to two young hormone-overloaded (gold chains included) male graduates of the private school system. After 6 years of mommy and daddy "paying big money", they can't speak a full sentence of English. They make Beavis and Butthead look like Einstein. Do parents really think theyr'e doing their kids a favor by giving them to just any private school system? Unfortunately (for them) Anne and Baba can't buy them the University Exam.
My in-laws are great. They pretty much leave us alone We can raise our children as we see fit. I guess it's because they spent 25 years in Germany. Their biggest complaint is that they don't see the kids enough.
I guess my gripe with how children are brought up here is how boys are so much more favored over girls. I get bored with the "o cocuk" mentality here. It's like a blanket excuse for everything. Lil jethro is 4 and still in diapers.. it's ok. "o cocuk", little jethro sets the house on fire, it's ok. Laugh and say "o cocuk". It's like alot of parents regard their kids as housepets or easy entertainment.

[calsimsek]

Check out the recent thread started by Ghost. It kind made me think, am I being naive in my belief that things are safer here.

I now we all get pissed o**ff when someone touches or kiss our kids on the street, but it's never in a weird or uncomfortable way. They real do love kids in this society and they seem to think its ok to show affection to total strangers kid...

How would this sort of thing go down in the U.K or the States. I think at home it would be a bit of problem but not as much as you would think.

Are there an army of sicko freaks out there or is the media just scaring the s**it out of us

[Tiger Beer]