I feel like I have
run a marathon. My legs ache, my head is heavy, I am taking to my bed at seven
at night and I have the energy of a sloth. It’s not only me. The kids are
literally walking into walls, crying without hesitation, whining like they’re
going for a world record and dropping like flies. The daily fight for a
hairbrush between the girls in the house is now a full-blown Katie Taylor
inspired brawl, leaving carnage and hairballs on the kitchen floor before nine
in the morning. All of this is because it is the end of the school year and
since last September we have been slaves to the school calendar. A few more
days to go and we will be free. Free to lie in until midday, free to wear
pyjamas for the entire summer and free of the constraints of the school
lunchbox. Roll on long hazy, lazy days
of the school holidays (realistically that feeling lasts until week two by
which stage I am ready to be airlifted out of the house into a strait jacket
and committed to a facility for the temporarily insane).
“I’m going to make
a cake for my teacher” announced the ten year old last week. “Everyone in my
class is making her a cake.” It was the annual stress of how best to thank the
teachers. For a year I have handed my three little fledglings over to the
teachers. They in return have spent a year educating them well and they seem to
know what they are doing. Thank
goodness, because I really don’t have a clue. In our house, parenting comes in
equal measures of luck, guess work, self help books, peers, grandparents and Dr
Phil. Like a load of other parents we cling on to the hope that our particular
method of child rearing will be enough and they won’t end up on Prozac. The
detailed, thoughtful school reports that came home this year meant a great deal
because it reminded me that all in all my kids have had a good year. They genuinely
love school because they have had three great teachers. They are thriving in class and for that reason
alone, teachers should be thanked; it is basic manners.
A cake would be a
nice gesture but the over analytical person that I am thought about it. If
every child in the class were to make a cake for their teacher, that would be
somewhere in the region of thirty cakes, that’s before we’ve even established
if the teacher likes cakes. What if she is diabetic? Wheat intolerant? Is
allergic to eggs? The gift of a cake would be a big sweet risk. “Buy her a smelly candle. Teachers like them”
piped up the teenager. Once again my mind went into overdrive. If everyone gave
their teacher a nice scented candle that would be thirty candles, imagine the
danger she would put herself in if she lit them all at once. A teacher friend
of mine received twenty candles one year. They all went to a charity shop a
month later. “Body lotion?” “Perfume?” “A pen-knife?” The suggestions were
coming thick and fast. I could feel a headache coming on.
I know a woman who
bought her child’s teacher a designer handbag last year. Another sent teacher
for a meal for two in a restaurant. Another mother sent in a case of wine. “I
like to keep them sweet” she shared. I am sure that most teachers would love a
bottle of wine but I am not sure that sending little Johnny in clutching a bottle
of Chateau Neuf du Tesco is sending out the right message to young children. I
did it one year but it felt wrong. “You’re the best teacher. Now get
trolleyed”. What if the teacher ended up in rehab? I’d have yet more guilt to
carry around on my already over burdened shoulders. One year I gave them
lottery tickets. Upon reflection it was mad. If they had hit the jackpot they'd have left the school for Barbados. The kids would be have been devastated.
I decided to take
inspiration from a teacher who a little while ago, for no reason whatsoever,
sent some considered, handwritten letters home. These letters were sent to let a
few parents know that their child had done something special in class. The
result of this gesture was that for a short while, parents sat and read someone
who knew their child well, to point out a simple but wonderful achievement that
he or she had accomplished. As parents we don’t spend enough time celebrating
our children. I know that the letters are still kept today by those parents. They
are cherished because they are a true gift from the heart, not TKMaxx.
So Deidre Chute,
Linda Marshall and Jenny Kavanagh at Scoil Bhride, Athgarvan, I shall not be
buying you candles, perfume or a bottle of wine this year. I shall not be
buying you a necklace that you might never wear or a voucher you’ll forget to
spend. I shall not be buying you a handbag or scented draw liners and
definitely not a pen-knife either. Instead I shall take this opportunity to
publically praise you for your kindness, intelligence, patience and skill in
making my children very happy this year and on their behalf I am taking your
kindness and paying it forward. This is not a new concept but one I hope you
approve of. As part of the SVP Gift of Hope campaign, in your names, some mosquito
nets, chickens and a few fruit trees will be going to a small village in Zambia
to feed and protect a not so lucky group of children.
Enjoy the summer
holiday and think of me. Because I shall be spending it hiding under the
kitchen table with a cushion over my head wondering just how on earth you
teachers do it. Thank you.
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