Every parent knows the feeling of that first day
It is a scene that thousands of parents across the country will recognise all too well. Furrowed brow. Ever-so-slightly wobbling bottom lip. A sense of bewilderment at where you are and what, exactly, you are doing there. Clammy hands holding on tightly to the person who has brought you here.
Yes, it’s the Duke of Cambridge dropping off his son for his first day at “big” school, Thomas’s London Day School in Battersea.
All week, mothers and fathers of four and five-year-olds have been taking the same pained steps towards their destiny as parents of schoolchildren. A mile away, I was making a similar journey with my daughter – though without the security detail and school fees.
The emotions are overwhelming. Isn’t it too soon? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were up all night with our little darlings as they puked milk down our backs? Could it really possible that our babies are now old enough to wear ill-fitting school uniforms and be in possession of something as grown-up as a book bag? Yes, yes it could.
For the second and third in line to the throne, things will probably have been no different. For Prince George, months of being prepared for the reality of reception – how to write one’s name, endless going over the phonetic alphabet (King starts with a kicking k).
For the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, weeks of agonising over whether or not to volunteer for the PTA (too keen?). Then, on the day, the nervous shuffle towards the school gates, where you are met by a phalanx of photographers and the head teacher, who is wondering if it was entirely necessary for the TV news to fly a helicopter over the building.
And so it was for all of us. Except perhaps for the last bit.
The Duchess of Cambridge was not present for this milestone. The expectant mother was bed bound with the severe morning sickness that has dogged her previous two pregnancies. And though hyperemesis gravidarum is a miserable condition, the Duchess was perhaps relieved not to provide a photographer with the opportunity to catch her weeping as her firstborn met his classmates and teachers. It’s just something in my eye, honest.
As a fellow SW11 parent, I felt a kinship with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Yes, they probably didn’t have to go to church for two years to get their child into their school of choice. Yes, their journey would take 45 minutes in a fancy Land Rover and would not involve crossing over the road on foot (or battered scooter) to the local primary school. Yes, their son’s uniform would have come from Peter Jones and not George at Asda. And yes, they would struggle past crowds of well-wishers while we would struggle to pass a lollipop lady.
But the emotions are the same in all parents, surely. A heart that swells at the sight of your firstborn in their slightly oversized shirt and tie. Relief that they are holding it together while you – the adult – are a complete mess inside. Tears when you see them make their first, tentative steps towards making a friend. Pride when, during the settling-in period, you see them sit perfectly cross-legged and listen intently to their new teacher as she or he tells them about Boo the class bear. Joy when, afterwards, they come home and run in the same carefree manner towards their toys, as if they haven’t just experienced a massive milestone. Relief that the other parents – the people you are going to spend the best part of the next decade with arranging play dates and later sleepovers – all seem really nice.
It was said that many of the mothers who dropped off their children yesterday to Thomas’s in Battersea looked extremely glamorous, wearing wedge heels and immaculate hair. Who could blame them? A parent needs a uniform just as much as their child: waterproof mascara, mostly, to withstand the tears, while their offspring skips off to start the best days of their lives.
‘All week, mothers and fathers have been taking the same steps towards their destiny as parents of schoolchildren’