by Roger McEwan
THE FIRST DAY
In order to make school mornings easier, I purposely bought a house situated close to the schools that the children were likely to attend. This made the school run a stress-free stroll and has worked brilliantly. But it’s the first day of the school year that’s tripped me up on numerous occasions.
Rog’s first day at his new intermediate school, a weird step in New Zealand between primary and secondary school, was also his first day in a school uniform. The week before school started – a whole week, mind – we visited the sole school uniform stockist to find that some of the required items were out of stock. I’m sure more experienced parents could have warned me about this, and it’s obvious in hindsight that all the mid-range sizes would be in greater demand. I purchased most items but there were no school shirts. The very helpful shop assistant suggested that I try the second-hand uniform sale being held soon at the school. Mentally putting that in my diary, I ordered two new shirts which she was ‘pretty confident’ would be delivered before the start of the school year. Yeah, right.
Parenting lessons, the enduring ones, are mostly gained through harsh experience, and it turned out my next lesson was just around the corner. I learnt that second-hand uniform sales are not a gentle, retail experience and not for the polite. If you’re serious about obtaining the items you need, you have to queue like a teenage girl after tickets to the latest boy band.
I arrived at the sale five minutes after it started, which to me was tantamount to early, to find it jam-packed. When I managed to jostle and squeeze my way into the room, I discovered the parental equivalent of a locust strike. For the second time in two days I was left staring at racks containing only XXS and XXL sizes. There are certain advantages to having a tiny or gigantic child. Megan, the children’s first after-school carer, had a similar experience of the sale. She said she’d seen more order when a rare shipment of beer was delivered to their supermarket in Zimbabwe during the days of hyperinflation.
Leaving empty handed, I asked the security guard on the door how early people had arrived.
‘About an hour or so.’
I started to leave but it suddenly struck me as unusual that a second-hand school uniform sale needed a security guard. I back tracked and asked the guard why he was here.
‘Mate, I asked the same question. It’s a school uniform sale, innit? But last time people barged in early and started grabbing stuff before they were open.’
I never stood a chance. I was competing with seasoned parents.
There were three days left before school started and I was getting desperate. Children, angels most of the time, can be vicious and merciless to anyone who stands slightly apart. Lord of the Flies isn’t an extreme comparison. So acquiring a shirt for Rog became my mission. In my time as a single dad I hadn’t cultivated a network of parent friends and that removed the option of borrowing a shirt. I knew, as a last resort, I could ask Rose to try her friends, but I was keen to avoid this, mainly due to pride. At that stage Rose and I were some time away from being chummy. My second-to-last resort was second-hand sales on TradeMe.
I’m no snob, but buying second-hand clothes isn’t how I prefer to do things. Okay, I’m possibly a snob but I was also desperate. To my joy, it’s funny how your perspective changes, a shirt was on sale that was near the right size. I contacted the seller and everything seemed perfect until he/she mentioned that the shirt was last year’s style and that’s why it was being sold. I learnt that the school had updated elements of the uniform for the New Year, including a new version of the shirt. WTF? I bet that really impressed parents who had children returning.
The new version of the shirt wasn’t radically different to the old one (does anyone else sense a conspiracy between the school and the uniform manufacturer?). If Rog wore his jersey, even though it was summer, then I figured no one would notice. I purchased the shirt with a whole day to spare.
Having gone to all that effort, I wasn’t terribly surprised when I was rung later in the day by the uniform store. The new shirts had indeed arrived. I wasn’t annoyed. If I hadn’t brought the second-hand shirt, the new shirts wouldn’t have arrived. I know that logically the two events weren’t related but, in Murphy’s Law tradition, it seems to be the way the world works. There’s another saying I use in my working life that I think is worth remembering – hope is not a strategy. I bought two new shirts and put the second-hand one away as a future last resort. It never saw the light of day.
With a large sigh of relief on my part, Rog attended his first day looking just like everyone else.
I walked Rog to school on his first day to make sure everything went well. I was astounded by the size of some of the children, who could have been no older than twelve but were Shrek-sized. While I found this slightly alarming, Rog was unfazed. When he found his mates he gave me ‘the look’. Most parents of teenagers will recognise it, but this was my first time. It’s an almost imperceptible flick of the head combined with a fleeting raising of the eyebrows. I took it to mean: thanks Dad, I do love you, but your presence is embarrassing so you can take off now. So I did.
Parental disorganisation take two was a mere day away when Liv started back at her school. I always try to treat Rog and Liv equally and this extends to sharing my incompetence. I had no uniform saga to battle with Liv and she went in her usual three-quarter jeans, T-shirt and jandals. We wandered in together in the warm morning sun, happy and carefree.
As we merged with the pedestrian tide I noticed the other children, along with their immaculately groomed mothers, were weighed down with bags full of stationery: exercise books, lined refill, folders, writing pads, art pads, pens and pencils. Liv, with her unshaven Dad in jeans and a T-shirt, was the only one empty handed (I fail to see the merit in dressing up for the school run but I wasn’t single at the time). How had I missed this? This was not the way to start day one with a new teacher and classmates.
Whenever something goes awry there’s a natural tendency to place the blame elsewhere. In this case I felt, wrongly, that the culprit was Rog’s new school, which provided all the stationery he needed on day one and all I had to do was pay. Fantastic. All schools should do this, though I do understand the financial implications. Somehow I’d imagined that because it was so easy and made perfect sense, Liv’s school must also be doing this. I had fallen into yet another trap for inexperienced parents.
Liv and I found her new classroom, which was crowded with children and parents and in a state of pandemonium. I picked my way through the melee until I reached the already hassled-looking teacher. Better you than me I thought – you’ve got a couple of hundred days to go before your next extended holiday. I explained the stationery situation to her. In other words I made up a plausible lie to cover-up my incompetence. I asked whether it was vital for Liv to have her stationery today. She paused ever so slightly before assuring me that it would be ‘fine’. Fine is such a dodgy word.
I tracked down Liv and made sure she was happy, and explained to her that she’d be okay without her stationery today. She was bouncy as her new class contained a number of her friends from last year, that’s always a bonus. She gave me my usual big hug and I went home planning to carry on my day – but the teacher’s slight pause and use of the F word bugged me. I checked the stationery list, which I had placed prominently on the fridge to guarantee I wouldn’t be in this position. It said, complacently, that the children would require the following items on their first day … About face. Quick march! I headed off, list in hand, to purchase all the required items.
Not everything was available, there’s a surprise, but I managed to get most items and arrived back at the school thirty minutes later. I peeked through the window of Liv’s class and saw the teacher holding up an exercise book and instructing the children how to label it. Not needed indeed. Every child was rummaging around looking for the right book except Liv, who was helping someone else. I stuck my
head around the door, caught Liv’s eye and held up the bag of stationery. She bolted across the room, startling the teacher who gave me her version of ‘the look’. Unfortunately for her, and something many teachers forget, ‘the look’ doesn’t work on adults. I was so tempted to give her a wink accompanied with a cheery ‘Carry on, luv’, but I didn’t.
In the corridor a beaming Liv gave me a giant hug and grabbed the stationery.
’I told everyone that you’d gone out to get it,’ she said smiling.
‘But I hadn’t.’
‘But you did.’
‘But you didn’t know that. You lied,’ I said smiling.
‘I can’t have, can I?’ Liv held up the stationery to prove her point. Still beaming, she disappeared back into the classroom.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. If I’d believed the teacher would Liv have had a bad day? Might it have thrown her off stride for a couple of weeks? Probably not, but I’d already been scarred by a lesson in how Liv’s schooling is affected by her happiness. When she swapped schools, in amongst the other changes brought on by the separation, she was exceedingly unhappy and wanted to return to her previous school and friends. In this frame of mind she scored 50 per cent in the entrance-level maths test. But Liv has always been a maths whizz. Six months later, an adjusted, happy and bouncy Liv scored 98 per cent in exactly the same test. My lack of organisation created the stationery situation, but I left knowing that Liv was happy. I left feeling like Super Dad.
MORNINGS
Once the children and I survive the first day of the school year mornings quickly become routine. Not routine in a monotonous way – routine in a structured way. I start my days before the children are awake with coffee and the news. I like to know what’s happened in the world. I’ve done this ever since I received an email early one morning cancelling a meeting and cryptically remarking that he didn’t fancy his upcoming flight. Puzzled, I turned on the TV and sat riveted for the next five hours watching the 9/11 coverage.
When the children were younger I would tip-toe around the house with the TV turned down to a whisper to avoid waking them. I wasn’t concerned about waking them per se, but if I did wake them they would descend on me wanting breakfast in front of the cartoon network. In other words they’d force me to be a parent, and I wanted to stay an adult until at least seven.
Now they’re teenagers and I can blunder around the house like an elephant because experience has taught me there’s no danger of waking them. Rog in particular is difficult to rouse on school mornings, despite my singing ‘Morning Has Broken’ while whipping his curtains back to let the dazzling light consume him. Occasionally I have had to resort to beating him with his own stuffed toys – his Wellington Zoo snake is perfect for this. Liv’s easier to arouse. She staggers into the lounge and collapses on the sofa, leaving only her dishevelled hair sticking out from underneath the blankets she has dragged in with her.
Once coffee has worked its magic, I’m ready to face making breakfast and the school lunches. Breakfast is usually a plain affair but also sufficiently nutritious to get the children off on the right foot energy wise. I’m not sure why I still look on making school lunches as such a chore, as single-serve packs have made the process relatively simple. I don’t care if I’m paying quadruple the price per volume: I adore the ability to stand at the pantry and throw packs of chips, biscuits, muesli bars, dried fruit or snack foods into lunch boxes. Add fresh fruit and a sandwich, which takes 90 per cent of time, and I can flee the kitchen.
I make a special effort to ensure the children’s lunches are varied and interesting. This is because I snuck down to Rog’s kindergarten and watched his face light up when he saw a mini-muffin covered with sprinkles. I love the idea of my children opening their lunch boxes and experiencing delight, and I’ve been trying to recreate that scene ever since. To do this I include treats, different snacks or obscure fruit like pomegranate seeds or banana passionfruit. It also earns attention and intrigue from their schoolmates, which is a bonus.
I dutifully check their lunch boxes in the evening to see what’s uneaten. I’m mildly devastated when the sandwich is returned, usually unsampled. It’s the one part of their lunch that has involved significant effort and I try to craft a delicious sandwich then sell it to them in the morning – today we have roast beef and homegrown lettuce on fresh wheat bread. Rog usually eats his; it’s Liv whom I have to bully and threaten with reduction of other treats. I then have a decision to make about the returned sandwich – bin it or put it in the fridge for tomorrow. I reckon 90 per cent of mums would bin it and 90 per cent of dads would put it in the fridge, or eat it. If it looks pristine, I give the sandwich, and Liv, a second chance. Never a third though. Honestly.
With the children fed and the lunches made, I quickly shower and just after eight we should be ready to go. When they were both at primary school we used to wander along together, the round trip taking about ten minutes. Now Rog is in high school he leaves first, as he walks with a friend, and I drop Liv about five minutes later on my way to work. Her school is closer than Rog’s but she isn’t a big fan of walking, especially by herself. I can understand that.
INJURY AND ILLNESS
School mornings run like clockwork – unless one of the children claims to be stricken with a virulent illness. Rog and Liv, and children in general, have no idea the chaos their illnesses cause. My day is planned, it has to be, and a significant part of it revolves around patting them on the head as they disappear off to school. ‘You’ll be fine’ sums up my response to most of the children’s illness claims. In order to have the day off school they have to be closer to death than they realise. I generally bang some paracetamol into their systems and say ‘We’ll see how you feel after school’.
Illnesses and accidents are an area where Rose and I see the world from opposite ends of the spectrum. Rog jokes that if he cuts his finger Mum sees a severed finger while Dad sees a scratch. I’ll never forget the time I bounced Rog, five or six at the time, slightly too high on our trampoline, as dads do. He came down awkwardly, yelling out in pain and holding his back. It didn’t look bad to me but I got him to lie still so I could give him an amateur once-over. Before I could start, the world seemed to slow as it does in the movies and I turned to see Rose bearing down on us in terminator style. If this was a movie, unless I was a superhero, I was dead.
Arriving at the scene in an instant, she took charge. I was genuinely impressed at her ability to simultaneously comfort Rog with tender words while giving me an absolute gob full. That’s true multi-tasking. She then sprinted to the children’s play fort, while cataloguing my shortcomings as a parent and adult. She had the intention of using the slide from the fort as a makeshift stretcher, but the fort wasn’t intimidated and put up a brave struggle, momentarily deflecting her attention from me. By the time she had detached the slide and returned, Rog was back up and bouncing. I never said a word, but on the inside I smiled broadly.
I realise you’re not meant to send children to school sick and I don’t. But the recommendation to keep them home for a few extra days in case they’re contagious – that advice can only have come from someone who is either childless or has a sock-darning partner. If the children are genuinely sick I don’t send them to school, I’m not as gung-ho as I make out. One morning Rog, while not looking too bad, was moaning and lying lethargically on the couch. Sceptically I checked his temperature and nearly burnt my hand on his forehead. He was dosed up and packed back off to bed and I spent the day working from home.
It’s a fine line judging illness from general malingering and, let’s be honest, children like to malinger. We all do. This is especially the case if there’s something on at school which is unpleasant, like a cross-country run. But slogging around a sodden, desolate, windswept, god-forsaken farm once a year is a right-of-passage and so I’m unsympathetic. It didn’t make a man out of me but it d
id a good job on some of the girls.
As a parent you develop intuition about when something’s really amiss with your children. It isn’t anything in particular, but one look is sometimes enough to tell skiving from something serious.
One morning I received a call from the parent of one of Liv’s friends. Liv, who was nine, had fallen off her ripstick and hurt her arm. Although the children weren’t with me that week, and therefore I was off duty, I was thankfully around and I strolled down to check out my allegedly damaged little one. I could tell from the look on Liv’s face that she was hurt and it was instantly obvious that I needed to get her to the doctor. I pretended it wasn’t too bad, and using her T-shirt as a makeshift sling we walked to the car while I kept up a dialogue to distract her. Ten minutes later, and with a decent dose of pain relief, she was being treated for a broken arm.
Signs at the doctor’s asked patients not to use mobile phones, but I furtively texted Rose to let her know what had happened and that everything was under control. She tried to ring but, being the relatively law-abiding person I am, I had diverted it to voicemail. I texted back: ‘I’ll call when I can.’ The phone rang again and she left a message. It was remarkably similar to the one I had heard during the trampoline incident. I deleted it.
Rose arrived about fifteen minutes later, calm and relaxed. It’s amazing what a few deep breaths can do. Soon Liv was the proud owner of a fluorescent green cast and a story to tell the next day at school. She managed to look adorable in her cast and had been so brave throughout the ordeal. No tears.
POST-SCHOOL
I find after-school pick-ups aren’t a problem, at least for me, and it’s when having a reliable nanny pays dividends. Even when I’m nanny-less, picking up the children is painless. I know where they are and where they need to be and it’s just a matter of logistics. Nevertheless, the number of extra-curricular activities such as sports, music and the odd detention has increased, and I believe I know what life would be like as a taxi driver.