The Starting School Stretch
A note in solidarity with all the little uniforms hanging up
Late August and the hum of the opening bars of Meryl Streep singing, “School Bag in hand… she leaves home in the early morning” catches in my throat as a wedge of nostalgic tears work their way south.
This is my 3rd rodeo, you’d think I’d have it under control by now, and I do to a degree - more on that later. But right now, there is a serious whack of the Glenroe vibes about the next few days.
Summer and its refusal to confirm with how we’ve been told to work is without doubt the marathon of the year. But just as any marathon runner will tell you, there is a bitter sweetness to the finish line - and a deep desire to do it again, and again as though the blood, sweat and tears have been blissfully been sweated away.
And, if you are a parent of a school starter there is an even heightened ache in your chest as a new world opens and your baby walks through.
Beginnings and endings are brutal.
Beginnings are messy and disorientating. Stressful and intense.
But the end of those little years, those sweet little years takes us by surprise and forces us to let go an inch - “waving goodbye with an absent minded smile”.
And what they don’t tell you is that each year after, new beginning chaos returns and so too does the ache of an ending because with each September your baby seems to grow one more year older, wiser and further away from you.
And so- if you’re at this stretch now and sufficiently bawling your eyes out, let me offer you some solidarity and advice from a mother on the edge of 1st class.
**every child and situation is different but here’s what i’ve found from my experience
1) This is harder on you than it is on them
We know that this ends withe the leaving cert. We carry our own school experiences, we project our own worries and concerns. And as with everything in parenting, NOTHING I worried about has happened, and nothing I thought about did. She was fine. I had to adapt.