Report Day

Today is report day for my four sons. Although a B- to the school though as they were meant to come out yesterday, but a mysterious delay held them back for 24 hours. Clearly some of the teachers must try harder to get their homework in on time.

I still recall the sheer terror of report day when I was at school. I would try to cook up any number of reasons why that dreaded sheet of A4 paper wouldn't make it home. Could I claim to be the only pupil the teachers deemed so outstanding as to not need a report? On past form I felt this claim probably wouldn't fly. 

I could lose it, destroy it, shred it or find some other way to blast it out of existence, but even before the days of computerisation there was probably a carbon copy of it it somewhere. Either that or my disgruntled teachers would remember word for word each criticism they had to level against me and would relish the chance to relay the report verbatim to my parents. 

When I started at school I was mystified by the rules and regulations that surrounded education. My home life was a ramshackle affair that ran on mess and chaos, so I really didn't understand why it was wrong to simply get up and go to the toilet when you needed a wee, why you needed to put your hand up and wait to be asked to speak or why you shouldn't rest your feet on the desk in front if that made you more comfortable? Of course when asked 'Would you be behave like this at home?', my innocent reply of 'Yes', was interpreted as insubordination leading to a trip to the headmaster's office. 

The strongest memory I have of my primary school is picking away at the khaki hessian board that was hung outside his office. Endlessly pinning and unpinning the spare drawing pins used to stick up school notices. I can feel it's hairy roughness under my fingers and make out the uniform pattern of the fabric, bumpy and scratchy to the touch. 

It is perhaps no wonder that my school career was blighted by poor reports that complained of my insufficient regard for authority, my failure to fulfil potential, my disruptive nature in class, my stubborn refusal to ever apologise to anyone.... As one form teacher from my secondary school sighed 'Ursula has an answer for everything'. You would think this would be a positive trait in an educational establishment, but I am pretty sure it was not meant as a compliment. 

I just thank my lucky stars that so far my boys have not trodden in my footsteps when it comes to reports. I suspect this is in part due to their altogether more pleasant natures, but also because schools are much kinder, more friendly places than they were in the late 70s. In this brave new multicultural world differences are to be celebrated rather than quashed, which means an odd bod like me would probably have been singled out for extra care and attention rather than relegated to endless hessian gazing. 

So far report day has been an occasion of celebration, last year the eldest managed to net a full brace of A grades and a report so flattering that it brought a tear to my eye. So different from the school reports of his dear old mum. 

I do have an inkling that the plain sailing might not last forever as I see far too much of myself in my youngest boy. He shares my utter rejection of the concept of compromise and insatiable desire to get my own way, a combination that is, I fear, destined to challenge future teachers. As yet he is still at the Playdough and Phonics end of his education, so for now I imagine his educators think these are things he will grow out of. I can hear my husband's hollow laugher in my head as I type these words and he knows better. 

Despite my own mortifying experiences, I can't help feeling a fizz of anticipation on report day for my boys. I can't wait to rip open those envelopes and read all about how much they are liked and appreciated by their teachers. How well they are doing and how much they have achieved. Perhaps if I had ever managed to deliver such a welcome package to my parents report day would not have such a bittersweet flavour. 

Growing old gracefully

When my mother used to get frustrated dealing with her aging parents, she used to hiss 'If I'm like this when I'm old, you must tell me' in exasperation at their latest old age antics. Of course she never defined at what point she would become old enough to be reminded of this. Her own mother was still pitying 'old people' well into her 80s, spurning wheelchair transport despite a distinct lack of ability on her pins, because these were devices that should be left free for the elderly. I am sure all those centenarians were most grateful for her concern.

The trouble is that there comes a point in any adult child's life where the worrying switches between the generations. Where once your mum and dad were the ones hovering with concern over you, cuddling you when you fell in the playground, coaching you through exam stress, mopping up your tears at your latest broken heart, helping you move out after the divorce and letting you sleep off your newborns' excesses, at some indefinable point the worry swaps from their shoulders to yours.

Of course just as you shrugged off their concerns, convinced that you knew best in the teeth of the evidence, so your parents will do the same to you. My own mum and dad have long run a business that spans two countries, it has always been a source of frustration to me as never knowing quite where your parents are has an unsettling effect on family life. But when they were younger I simply had to swallow my annoyance and accept that this was what they did, and if they were happy then so should I be.

Now though, when they arrive at my house grey with exhaustion after another early start and interminable journey, my father spending most of his time asleep on the sofa as he recovers from the twin effects of Parkinson's and intercontinental travel, it's harder for me to support their life choices. I wish I was a more empathetic person, that I could just step away and let them get on with it, as I am sure is the prescribed way of dealing with your elders and betters, but I'm not.

I want to fix things for them, I have the same urge to wrap them in cotton wool and protect them from the ravages of life that I have towards my babies. The difference is I can attempt to tell my babies what to do, but there is no way I will get away with this with my parents. I can offer my advice (for which read rant and rave in angry frustration) which they promptly ignore with all the insouciance of a teenage me.

I should be happy that my parents have a way of life that they find sustaining and interesting. But, just as a parent should be happy when a child revels in a precarious career, yet secretly longs them to swap it for the stability of a 'proper job', I can't help but wish they could find some kind of lifestyle that was a bit less taxing, and more settled, in their advancing years.

Perhaps it is one of life's little jokes that the parents you caused so much worry and concern whilst growing up, pay you back by dishing the same right back at you in their old age. If so I shall be taking notes during my four-year-old's next tantrum, just so I can replay it to him when I am in my dotage.