Was I a good parent? An uncomfortable admission on my children's successes.

On making it all about them and releasing the ghosts of leaving home.

Dipping in once more to

Beth Kempton

’s Summer of Substack Essay Festival , albeit on a theme from a couple of weeks ago - Vulnerability.

The nervous excited voices bounce off the white walls and the blue painted floor of the sports hall. Stuffy and airless on a warm August day, the mix of students, teachers and family mingle together in anticipation, relief and, unfortunately for some, disappointment. Holding their white A5 envelopes tightly in their fists whilst others have already removed the crucial piece of paper from within and chat excitedly with friends.

“Are you going to open them?” I enquire perhaps rather too impatiently for the occasion.

“No, we’re going outside. It’s too hot in here,” they tell me. Then, rather than moving towards the door, instead they select a drink from a central table laden with glasses full of pink fizzy wine or apple juice organised in neat rows next to a box of croissants slowly wilting in the heat.

We all move slowly outside - my daughter, her girlfriend and two sets of apprehensive parents. They sit side by side on the low wall discussing whether to open together or one after the other and I notice the eyes of my ‘mother-in-arms’ are already full of tears. We smile at each other. At lightning speed all the possible scenarios that might exist once the information held inside that envelope is revealed scream through my head.

The Mathematical Bridge, The Backs, Cambridge.

Anyone who’s been following my activity in the last couple of weeks might have seen references to my daughter receiving her A Level exam results (for those not in the UK, these are taken at age 18 and gain you entry into whichever university made you an offer based upon these result). You may then also know that both her, and her girlfriend, achieved incredible results - top grades all round - and will be heading off to start the very exciting next phase in their lives at two of the best British universities.

Standing there on that warm August morning I felt raw emotion. My voice trembled as I attempted to say thank you to all the teachers who had supported her as yet more tears hovered on the edges of my bottom eyelids waiting for the next blink to release them down my cheeks. The sincerity with which each teacher told me what a pleasure she was to teach filled my heart. My gentle, reserved child who has blossomed into a (more) confident, strong-minded, intelligent young woman. Smiling for a camera she would hide away from for years and laughing with her friends. A humble joy at her success.

I wanted to shine a light on the deserved rewards of all her hard work and for it all to be about her. Not me. A proud parent without question, but free from the weight of needing to pat myself on the back for any of it.

This has not always been the case.

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We got here more by luck than judgement or excellent parenting on my part. I rarely feel grown up enough to manage my own life, let alone be responsible for two children. I have found being a parent so hard. Only now does it vaguely feel like I’m possibly getting the hang of it.

Hell-bent for years on repeating the mistakes of using external success as a means of measuring worth, wrapped up in the chains of achievement that such validation and comparison pretend to deliver. To bask in the glow of, or even worse claim any credit for, their successes is verging on the hypocritical.

Did I somehow believe that being on top of everything kept them from getting hurt? From being bullied for being too bright or not clever enough? Surrounded in the playground, taunted in the changing rooms, ignored, talked about, blamed and shamed for things they didn’t do. Managing their school life was another line on an already unwieldy task list I dragged behind me.

I kept asking questions about the things I thought mattered rather than listen to the things that mattered to them.

In trying to control situations to be different to my experience of life I almost, and often did, push them the very same way. I did very well in my studies, don’t be mislead here, as did my husband (admittedly neither of as quite as well as our daughter). Our kids are bright and I never want to apologise for that or for them to feel they should hide it.

The question I ask myself is how much importance I lay at the alter of this success and what validation it brings me as a means to absolve me of all the times I could have paid them more attention when they were younger?

Easy to say these things are of no consequence now when both of my children have done so well. I want them to know their worth is not defined by this. Of course, they get to decide how to define themselves, it is not for me to say, and any time I stress it is not about achievement I get a quizzical look in return. Really?

There is a sense of a ‘job-done’ - two out of two successfully navigated through the often hostile waters of school education. But the fact is, it was when I let go they both did better - at school, in friendships and in relationships at home. When there was space to open their own wings, when I learnt to watch and be aware without suffocating them.

Neither of my children are backwards in coming forwards in telling me when I’ve made a mistake and I’ve learnt to see it and I say sorry. I do not presume my additional 30 plus years on this planet make me better qualified to be right.

Even now while I watch my youngest child reap what she deserves from all her hard work I wonder whether I still have any idea what I’m doing?

Am I really best placed to offer guidance about this next stage of life without it being heavily draped in caveats and context given my personal reflections are I didn’t make the best play of it when it was my turn?

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Each time I meet this stage in my life, the one where I leave home for university, a vast chasm opens up within me. I cemented who I became after who I’d always been then I remained that person for a long time. Longer than was healthy for me. It’s the parts which rise up strongly when the pressure of life becomes too much.

My dad left home when I was 17 and I hoped going away to university would reinvent our broken relationship, that it would be something it never was. Of course it didn’t. I now know how terribly depressed I was in that first year at university. How I needed the stability of a family around me, not unpredictable 18 and 19 year-olds getting drunk every night on Newcastle Brown Ale and keeping me awake till the early hours when I had a 9 am lecture each morning.

Trying to pretend to be somebody who I wasn’t even though I didn’t know who I was or who I was trying to pretend to be. I can see now how much harm that did and how very unhappy I was. But I got through it. I’m nothing if not resilient and tenacious and hard-working. These are some of the better traits my children have inherited from me.

Each life stage my children pass through I shiver with a chill at the places where I felt untethered and unsure. I got much better at pretending I knew exactly what I was doing and knew exactly what I wanted. It's not a completely useless strategy as I’m sure you may concur, but I believe there are more easeful ways to meet life. I probably knew it sooner. My life trajectory full of stops and starts and changes in direction would suggest there was an inkling I did.

Did anyone ask me before I asked myself? It’s possible they did and I was too frightened to strip away the armour that got me to that point to entertain the question. I keep the armour in the back of the cupboard just in case but it comes out less frequently. However I feel a strong urge to reach in for it because the pain is bubbling there in my depths. The 18 year-old remains within me. She still has some healing to do. Maybe with this next step she’ll be free and I can resist the urge to repeatedly project her onto them.

This is not my life rebooted. It is not their responsibility to fix the ills of my past.

People talk about being a parent not a friend to your children and I am never sure I agree. Besides, they are both (young) adults now, the balance changes. Accepting them for who they are is more important to me than some made up family hierarchy. My son calls me nearly every day, for a chat, sometimes even for advice which he may or may not take. My daughter, well we’ll see, she's not a lover of a telephone conversation. At least not with her parents. But our relationship is based on a deep mutual trust and respect and I learn as much from her than the other way around. I hope the bonds we have strengthened in the last four years will hold us together over the next.

What I do know is that I need to ready for how I’m going to feel again as I drive away in October to come back to our house with one less person in it.

Thank you for reading.

with gratitude

Jacqui x

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