Dear Rockstar,
Mummy recently received feedback from a reader who’d had a lot of experience in the field of education internationally for a long time, and it was a real eye-opener. There was a little “Oh Wow”, but there was a lot more “And parents do what??”
The reader had seen your ESF Kindergarten school report (which your father had reminded Mummy several times to post so we would always have a soft copy and our thoughts when we first got it) and was thoughtful enough to mention it to Mummy in case she didn’t know she had just “waived (her) right” to not let other mummies see your report.
(And btw she’s under no illusion that you have some super-duper sterling school report – you are possibly the absolute youngest in class and she’s met some of your school mates. But it’s one of the first reports she has and she cherishes it. It’s part of her parenting experience. We read it to you, you scanned it with Daddy, you know it’s online and people see it, you’re proud it’s your very own report, you’re just 33 months old and we’ll ask you again when you’re older.
Mummy really appreciated the feedback because she had never imagined there are parents (probably none of whose children are your classmates or anything) who ask for their child’s ranking in a Kindergarten. So if it helps, Mummy would like to say Thank You, Dear Reader. And she’s leaving your report up there (even after better understanding the competitiveness that surrounds these things) by way of saying that if she has something to say, she’ll always sign her name to it. No anonymous calls or emails. She hopes it constantly forces her to check her conscience as she says things.
Here’s the thing – Mummy writes so one day if you turn into an angry teenager who doesn’t want to talk to his parents or thinks it’s uncool to hang too much with us, you’ll still know what your parents are like.
Your mother is far from perfect, but she doesn’t take cheap shots. Mummy is not on a pseudonym and yeah, sometimes it’s scary. But accountability makes us better people (at least when it comes to shots or criticisms…) Not that any of her readers are like that, praise the Lord, Mummy’s just saying…. In fact she continually appreciates the sincere parenting advice she gets – she is after all a first time parent.
Anyway. Back to Mummy’s thoughts about the conversation. For the first time, Mummy heard about how parents might volunteer in schools hoping for their kids to get picked for school sports teams, and a whole bunch of scary grey areas like that.
(For the record, and Mummy has told other mums this before, she volunteers because you’re currently tiny and she was worried about whether you’re making friends alright. And no matter how much work she has to put in, it’s still probably not as hard as looking for another school if you develop a dislike for the building or teacher or some other inexplicable thing and decide you’ll accept any punishment your parents can dish out rather than participate in lessons – and YES YOU HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE.)
But it made Mummy remember something else she wanted to tell you: GrandMum was once a teacher in Mummy’s secondary school. She’s now 65 and has turned down all engagements for some time because she wants to focus on her gardening, but she was once a popular English teacher who insisted on remaining in the public sector all her working life (despite periodically being sought by private schools.)
During the SPM trial exam when Mummy was 17, GrandMum called your mother to her. “This is the score I wanted to give your essay. But I’m going to mark it down by 5 marks because you’re my daughter and people will talk. That also means Stephanie is going to beat you. I’m sorry, you deserved a better score. I always tried to get out of grading your class papers, but couldn’t avoid this one. I hope you know that to me, you really did win that prize.” Mummy did know that. But she really appreciated the explanation and she loves Grandmum.
Mummy’s point is that, she’s sorry for the cliché, things in life are never fair – you’re supposed to do well regardless.
Mummy believes that parents (especially those who strive for their kids to be on the school team) hope their children will excel and every parent loves their child. Some really believe any advantage, even of that sort, helps their child.
But your parents believe that trying to create an unfair advantage today could make you less likely to do well when you no longer have that advantage – and we don’t own the whole world so it’s not like we can create an unfair advantage for you forever. Mummy just hopes when it comes to her turn, she’s actually strong enough to practice what she preaches. She desperately wants to see you happy.
So yeah, life isn’t fair – you’re stuck with us as parents.
But look at it as the reverse of when you train most sports with additional weights strapped on – when you take them off, you really fly. Mummy once trained on an all-boys taekwondo team never realizing how much easier that would make tournaments, where she fought girls. She was often a sickly child who at one point had a permanent exemption from Phys Ed. But with all the boys training around her, it hadn’t occurred to her she might not be able to do 20 knuckle pushups.
Daddy started school like, when he was 7 or something, at some rural school – but that was because Kong-Kong hadn’t gone to school. It didn’t keep your father from entering London School of Economics at the same age as his peers there – but it wasn’t easy for him. It was at the rural school however where he learnt to share his school notes. And the sharing didn’t stop him graduating from LSE with a first. But it was the school mates he shared his notes with who lent him money to do his second year, before he managed to get a grant in his final year there. Otherwise he would have had to drop out.
And the funniest thing is if you asked him where he went to school, he usually has to stop and think for a second before he remembers. He thinks education is really important, but then your personality (which affects your job performance) is what makes the difference after schooll. Mummy agrees. It’s your attitude as much as anything, that will help you survive at work.
But every time you fall short even after trying your very best, your parents’ hearts will break to see you so sad. So we’ll try to be right there helping you train – until you decide it’s uncool to have us along. And that will be fine. We’ll see how it goes as you get older. But you’ll have the blog. Mummy writes it on Word in case the platform your father messes with goes down.
Love,
Mummy
Ps: Mummy did win the English prize that year final year, actually – there were 3 essays and the 2 teachers grading the other 2 essays gave Mummy top marks. GrandMum was the teacher who gave Mummy the lowest score. Stephanie was the first to make that observation.
Pps: Yes your father continued to let people photocopy his notes after he got the grant. It’s one of the reasons Mummy married him.
