My son started high school this year. Now when I went to high school, I got dropped at the gate and sent on my merry way. Not these days. It’s been less than a month and I have sat through numerous “parent information evenings” and ceremonies and I’m pretty much fed up already.
The first one was at the end of last year, which of course one feels obliged to attend seeing as it has been a few decades since one has been in high school oneself. The second one was a the start of this year and seeing as not much information was imparted during that first meeting, I thought maybe the second one would be more informative. It wasn’t.
Instead, one sits there, listening to teacher after teacher after teacher (they do love the sound of their own voices!) tell me about how they don’t want to talk about themselves, after having spent thirty minutes talking about nothing but themselves! I am at an information evening. Present the fucking information already! Better yet. Send an email. With bullet points. I have passed high school. I can read.
The worst thing is that after talking about themselves and sharing unnecessary personal experiences which I couldn’t care less for, they tell you to allow your child to be more self-sufficient. “Let your child make their own notes and summaries.” Wait…what? Back up! Who the fuck has time to make notes and summaries for their children? Must be these same people who need seven information evenings to tell them how their kids will be treated and seen through high school. What the fuckety fuck has happened to society?
As if all of this isn’t bad enough…our poor dear high school starters now need a ceremony and a certificate to commemorate them starting high school. I am dumbstruck. Mostly because I have to sit through hours of poor dear souls getting ceremonially dressed in their school blazers by their parents and then receiving a little piece of paper to remind them that they are now starting high school.
I attend this travesty of modern society only because my divorced-parent-guilt will not be silenced into reason. I sit there looking at the parents. God, that man is old! As the parents who attended this same high school “emblazer” their kids, the year they matriculated is read out. Fuck. He’s bloody my age!
A family walks up the stage with three (or four, I lose count) other children under the age of ten. Bloody hell people! Despite what some dubious religious leaders would have you think, overpopulation is a thing!
Then it’s my turn to trundle onto the stage. Tuck in your stomach. Tuck, tuck, tuck. Oh fuck it, I can’t breathe. Let that middle-aged jelly belly bulge! No-one is watching me in any case. Until they are. Because somewhere there is a god with a wicked sense of humour and the tallest matric lad is standing next to me for a photo. It’s fucking hilarious!
We’re two hours in. I have run out of water and I fear my sanity may be next to go. Thank God my eleven-year-old daughter had the foresight to pack snacks. So now we are crunching noisily on pretzels while my super-bitchy-judgy voice is doing a running commentary in my head.
I watch the kids standing on the stage in their most glorious awkwardness, like croup-high bandy-legged two-year-olds. (That’s a horse reference, so don’t feel bad if it doesn’t make sense). As they stand there, you can spot them: the bullies and the bullied. The sweet awkard girl who will get lost in the crowd and nobody will even bother to invite her to the ten-year reunion. The little sharp-tongued bitch who will leave a sea of broken hearts in her wake. The boy with the shadow of facial hair and the bad attitude who you know will be smoking (or vaping as they do these days) behind the pavillion before the end of the year. The chubby boy with the oversized shorts and the too-long socks who will get beaten up. The girl with the big classes and even bigger front teeth and semi-translucent skin who will get teased mercilessly.
And then there is that one child. With hunched shoulders and a c-shaped spine whose eyes twitch involuntarily. His low-set ears are an almost definite sign of some genetic disorder. The other kids give him a wide berth as if he may rub off on them. And as he stands there, uncontrollably blinking, my mother-heart breaks for that child. Because you know that that child is about to embark on the worst five years of his life to date. What is crueller than a bunch of insecure teenagers, all trying to find themselves, jostling for position and discovering their place in life? Nothing. On. Earth.
Me, my life and I 