Parents are being worn down by the prospect of the Leaving Cert, and mildly terrified at the potential outcome, writes ORNA MULCAHY
MEMO TO Batt O’Keeffe: I know there is talk of scrapping the Junior Cert examination, but would you do the parents of Ireland a favour and abolish Transition year as well?
OK, it is a nice concept. It eases the little darlings towards adulthood with its glimpses of the workplace, and it gives them a breather from exams; sometimes, even, they get a chance to help out in the community, or to study abroad, but here’s the downside: most of them will have passed their 18th or even their 19th birthday when they come to sit the Leaving Cert, and Batt, it’s very hard to force an adult to study.
Believe me, Batt, we are trying our best, but it’s tough when you have a towering man on your hands, not a boy, and when there are 590 things he would rather do than open his books. Whatever shred of authority was there when he was 17 has simply evaporated.
Around the corner, my friend is a fellow sufferer. She has a daughter who has also reached her majority and now thinks that the world is her oyster, even though her recent mock exam results indicate otherwise. We’re like two old crones on the Blaskets talking about it, her mother and I. What are they going to do with their lives when we are not around to give them €50 notes and drive them everywhere, even to the gym, where they wouldn’t need to go if they tried shanks’ mares once in a while, or dusted off their bikes?
From other households, I hear a litany of similar complaints from parents worn down by the prospect of the Leaving, and mildly terrified (it’s still only March) by the potential outcome. One mother has found herself rushing from the office to a Super Valu to pack bags to fundraise for her 6th year scholar, who is hoping to help build a school in South America this summer – after the regulation Leaving Cert holiday in Puerto Banus.
All these things we are doing, even if through gritted teeth, so as to keep them on an even keel for the next few months. But the one thing we can’t do for them, Batt, is sit that exam. It’s the first big event in their lives that we cannot fix. There is no one we can call who can fix it either.
No, the Leaving Cert is crunch time. We may think that if we keep the house quiet and provide healthy meals it will help, but the only person who can make this happen is the child/adult themselves. The exam is brutally and unusually fair in this respect. It is probably the one thing in Ireland that can’t be fixed with a bit of pull here and there, and a novena or two thrown in.
This realisation is a setback for helicopter parents, who hover endlessly over their young and not so young, making decisions for them wherever possible.
They’re a resilient bunch though. Some follow their children to college and beyond, helping them with term papers and dissertations, and worse.
I heard of one mother recently who was threatening to ring the Bar Council when her newly qualified barrister son couldn’t get a regular seat in the Law Library. That would have done wonders for his career.
There are also the social engineers, who have worked hard from earliest childhood to make sure their children made friends with the right kind of people all the way up the system, and who even as they finish school are hoping to steer them towards more socially advantageous colleges and job placements. It’s hard to compete with this kind of parenting, and easy to say it ruins the child.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Everyone knows of a spoilt drop-out or two, but equally there are plenty of examples of children who were groomed from an early age for success, and who in fact succeeded.
“Don’t worry about it . . . they all find their niche eventually,” a kindly woman told me recently at an event where I had her pinned against the wall listening to my matronly woes. Her own children are now well past exams and, like childbirth, she has forgotten the pain. But of course it is not a niche that one wants for one’s child – it’s a career. A niche sounds like something they might get comfortable in and might not be able to get out of. A niche could be just a nice word for a rut.
Perhaps what all of us worried parents need to do is start managing our expectations, a phrase estate agents have adopted to describe their dealings with clients who think their property is worth a fortune and need to be talked down from their high horses. The Leaving Cert may seem like the end of the world for now, but no doubt there’s all the rest of their lives to worry over too.