I don't know if it is true but I do know that I feel sick. Actually, physically, violently sick. I could vomit right now. I was the same four years ago when my daughter was expecting her results. I've looked up the places available on clearing and checked the grade boundaries that were published today. Not that any of this helps because I really don't know much about it.
I've been trying to work out if it is worse for parents or if it's just worse.
Things were certainly different when I got my A level results. Well, they were for me. I was temping in London when they came out and our results came by post. I remember sitting on the train home with my friend who was working in the same place (as a tea lady - I was a cleaner), discussing the option of not going home to the envelope. We were nervous but we pretended not to care. We were less prepared than our children are. Now, our kids know what they are likely to get. They know that their grades will be similar to the grades they got for their AS levels. My results were a complete surprise. Mine was the last year when how many questions you got right didn't determine the grade.you got but rather grades were awarded to show who did the best (ie the top 10% got an A). We didn't get articles in the press by smug journalists who had managed a sneaky peak at the result statistics suggesting that this was the 'worst ever year for boys' or that this year's good grades make a 'mockery of the system.', or maybe we did and it has just taken me until being a parent before I regularly read the Guardian. Even though it was the eighties and we had been told in every assembly that none of us would get jobs and have to retire by the time we were 50 (Oh how we wish!) most of my year group didn't go to university. They got jobs. These days it appears you need a degree to work a photocopier or change a bedpan.
"Oh, my son is super relaxed," I say to anyone I meet in the street who asks but in truth he emerges from his bedroom every now and then moaning, "Oh, tomorrow," like a zombie before scuttling back in with a plate of food. We both feel sick. When someone wished him luck earlier he grimaced and said, "It's fine, I don't need it." adding, "Oh Jesus," under his breath. "It's just because of the high grades you need for the Uni you've chosen, you'll go somewhere, " I reassured. He agreed and told me that one of his friend's parents had asked what he needed and replied with, "Fuck me," before clapping his hands over his mouth and apologising.
We feel sick because there is nothing we can do. We are capable of nothing. We try to focus on things but it is no use; our brains keep turning back to the thought of 'Thursday' being tomorrow.
We try singing "Que Sera Sera,"
This morning I was discussing the situation with my mum.
"It was different for me, mine came by post." I reminded her.
"Oh, yes, that was terrible. Waiting for the post to arrive."
"But I was at work. I had to wait until I got home to open them."
"Really?"
"Yes, I was working in that solicitors office next to St Pauls, where all the solicitors had been to Oxford and wore pink striped shirts and braces under their suits and the other cleaning ladies and tea ladies were called Ada and Ivy."
"I wonder if I steamed them open? I wouldn't have been able to wait."
"Maybe it was worse for you then because I remember you waiting for me to open them and me being very nonchalant about it, shrugging my shoulders and saying, 'Biology's not bad.'"
I remembered as soon as I put the phone down. I knew. I had taken one look at the envelope and I knew. I noticed a small crinkled feel to the envelope and could see the steam mark from the kettle on the back. I remember thinking that they knew how I'd done and were pretending not to know. I remember trying to work out my grades from their body language. I remember being nonchalant on purpose and I never, ever let on that I knew, not even to myself. Being relaxed about my A level results is a lie I've told myself for over thrity years just to annoy my parents.
This weekend the Sunday Telegraph published a guide for parents on how to act at this time, maybe I should read it, or it could be too late already because I doubt that blogging that you feel sick is on the list of things to do.
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