Fairlady

HOPE SPRINGS!

- Editor Suzy Brokensha

Ihe beginning of Spring is such a beautiful time of year – it’s fresh but not freezing in the morning; the evenings are softer and longer so you can venture outside for a bit, and the green of new leaves is always inspiring. It makes the morning school run a lot easier too, not having to get up and wrestle the kids into some kind of schoolgoin­g shape in the cold and dark.

The school run’s been slightly different for us anyway, this year, because Seventeen is in matric, and this is the last year of morning madness. Well, for him, at least; we’ll still be out there next year with Sixteen, who is up next, battling the road rage of parents in big cars on their way Somewhere Obviously Way More Important Than Where You’re Going.

September is really the month when the whole matric thing starts kicking off and becoming a reality. Seventeen tells us he has only three weeks left of actual lessons, then it’s prelims, then it’s matric. I have no idea how this happened – it feels like just last week we were raising an exhausted glass to the fact that he was finally sleeping through the night, yet here we are.

While Seventeen is taking it all in his stride, I find I am not actually quite sure how to be the mother of someone in matric. How much of my role should be providing encouragem­ent and support, and how much should be locking him in a room and chaining him to his desk? Is a gap year a good or a bad idea? It’s all a bit tricky. Friends who’ve been through it all before say it’s far too late for the chaining to the desk approach, and that my role from now on, as a mother, is restricted to sounding board and support structure, and I suspect they’re right. All advice is welcome. To any other mothers going through the same thing, strength to your bows too… I’m sure we will muddle through, as we always have done. And to the rest of you, a very happy spring!

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