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MY ELDEST DAUGHTER is sitting the Junior Cert this June, which I was surprised to find is actually a fully hands-on-for-all-the-family, never-ending kind of event.
She will only study in the kitchen, likely because it’s the busiest room in the house, and she can have a little chat with anyone who comes in to make tea.
Our pet bunny has also taken up residence at her feet in a selfless act of solidarity, mostly due to the constant supply of fruit that she shares with him, but also, we think, a deep love of the Modh Coinniollach.
I haven’t seen the surface of the kitchen table since September, as it is buried under all of her books and papers, and yet I am already low-key dreading the first day this Summer when I go into the kitchen, and she isn’t there, waiting for a chat.
I’m not entirely sure what the ratio of chat to study is, and honestly, at this point, I am afraid to ask. She is, by far, the most competitive person I have ever met and started the year strong with study, but the stress is working against her now as we edge closer, and she feels an insurmountable climb ahead of her, along with the crushing weight of her own expectations.
The more the work builds, the harder it is to get going, and I don’t want to add to her stress by arguing with her over studying. The whole house is a pressure cooker, and her little sister got the brunt of it over the weekend for borrowing a moisturiser without asking and is now down one entire hinge on her bedroom door.
I know that she will do fine in the exams, and also that she has done her best, but after 15 years of researching everything at every stage along the way, from colic, to sleep hygiene, or enriching after school activities, and generally just doing everything I can to provide the best possible start in life, it’s very difficult now to just take my hands off the wheel. As she gets older, she needs to do more of the driving.
Parenting naturally moves away from managing the day-to-day operations and becomes more of a consultancy role. But it is quite a unique advisory role, in that the person we are advising doesn’t actually want advice, and definitely not our advice, and definitely no advice for this big event in particular.
At the start of the year, I tried to be helpful and impart some ‘back in my day’ wisdom, and then went through some areas where I made mistakes, such as not studying until June. She went silent for a few minutes, absorbing my helpful tips, or so I assumed, until she flipped her iPad screen around to show me she had calculated the year I did my Junior Cert, and found the papers online.
‘These are really easy’, she looked accusingly over the top of the screen, quickly noting answers as she scrolled, ‘you were lucky’. And then I had the most outrageous realisation, which was that my advice to her is likely as helpful as that of my parents for me. Although I want to help her reach her full potential, I will also readily admit that I would have hated my own parents doing that.
Third year in school was a disaster for me, with friend groups who were miles ahead of me socially and who were desperately trying to shake me off (unsuccessfully, God love them). I can’t imagine coming out of exams that were so far down my priority list that they were barely visible, to my parents pacing the kitchen at home waiting for an update. I would have died if they had made social media posts about my exams or posted my results anywhere online. I can’t imagine the stress I would have been under to perform if they had revolved everything that year around me.
Knowing this, I am now seeing the merry-go-round that parents spin around on when it comes to their children and exams. We are trying to provide the perfect and ideal level of care for her, which means gently encouraging her to study, so that she keeps as many doors as possible open at this young age. And to provide opportunities that I didn’t have, so that she can have more success in her life. But also keeping her calm, and not putting on too much pressure, because school isn’t everything, and exams mean very little in the grand scheme of things, and success can’t be defined by a career.
So you could say we are doing what we can do to make her life easier, and removing obstacles from her path, but not too many, because she does need to learn resilience. It is important to make mistakes in life, and no one benefits from an easy path. Of course, she needs to find her own path anyway. Because school is really important, and these exams are huge, but they might also be entirely irrelevant in her life, and they definitely aren’t everything, and failing an exam isn’t the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try, so just do your best, and we love you either way.
See? A merry-go-round.
I’m surprised she doesn’t have whiplash from how quickly we veer across lanes and backtrack, and I’m not sure if anything we have said has registered. Or even if we would want it to. In theory, it sounds so simple: we just need to help her reach her potential, while ensuring we don’t push her down a path that she doesn’t want, and definitely don’t make her feel that the only measure of a successful life is her career. No big deal.
I am just leading her to water, but not forcing her to drink. And I am also suppressing the urge to drag her to better water spots, ones with more opportunities. And I am definitely not mentioning my own journey to water.
For now, as we tip closer to June, you might be wondering if I have managed to strike the perfect balance between getting her to care about the exams, but not so much that she falls apart with stress? Well, no.
Am I sure I am doing the right thing? Also, no. But at least we are down to the last few weeks, and then she switches to our side and gets to watch her younger sister go through it. Now that I think of it, we should probably be using this time to stock up on door hinges.
Margaret Lynch is a mother of two and is parenting columnist with The Journal.
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