Hi Everyone,
This is my first post here. I was a solo pilot on gliders on my 14th birthday - 2 years ago. I recently [last week] soloed on powered aircraft. Gliding was a great foundation to powered flying, but as others have said, it's quite time-consuming. If you have children with a similar passion there are many scholarships and bursaries to assist them; they usually fly for cheaper rates too, so it could [maybe] become a family thing to do so not so many guilty dad thoughts. Remember with gliding that going solo is only the beginning. there is a lot of post solo training to do before you can go cross-country; I appreciate that is the same with all flying, but something to be considered in your financial calculations.
As someone else said, Portmoak is a great place to fly. If it's a choice of PPL/LAPL flying, or flying gliders at Portmoak you are going to enjoy whatever you decide to do