Dad's world: Passing with flying colours

MY CHILDREN’S school exam results finally arrived this week. I was warned not to open them under penalty of death, so when the first of them finally arrived, I instinctively stepped back.

My middle daughter ripped her envelope open.

“Well?” says I, full of trepidation. “How did you do?”

“I’m kind of disappointed,” she said. “I only got 85 out of 100.”

“What do you mean ‘disappointed’?” I said. “Sure, they are great results.”

“But my friend Darragh just texted to day he got 100,” she said.

“Never mind Darragh!” I said. “You did brilliantly.”

We celebrated that night with ice-cream, but all the while I was secretly thinking, how come my daughter wasn’t No. 1? Sometimes, looking into your children’s eyes is like looking into a mirror.

The next day, my eldest daughter ran upstairs, waving her school report. “My results are here,” she screamed as she shoved her report into my hands. She was almost dancing with excitement.

There were so many ‘As’ that I was dazzled, and one ‘B’.

“Amazing!” I said. “Brilliant! Well done! How did all your friends do?” I asked, eyeing her ‘B’ to see what her overall mark was — 85. Okay, I thought.

Had I got 85 out of 100 in anything, let alone got ‘As’, when I was her age, there would have been two moons in the sky.

“Daddyyyy!” she pleaded, stopping me in my tracks. “It doesn’t matter how my friends did.”

“Sorry!” I said.

“I was one of the top five students in the year,” she added.

I calmed a little.

We celebrated that evening with melon for starters, oven chips for mains, and for dessert, strawberries dipped in chocolate, all of which my eldest daughter prepared herself, such was her delight.

But it wasn’t until yesterday that I learned my lesson. My teacher? My youngest daughter.

“Well done!” I said when I saw her results, which were every bit as good as her sisters’. “You did brilliant!”

“What are my teacher’s comments?” she asked, handing her mother her report to read it.

“‘Bubbly, pleasant, always alert’,” my wife read out.

“Doesn’t sound like our daughter at all,” I quipped. “House devil, school angel!”

“Daddy, don’t say that!” my youngest pleaded. “We are all we Number Ones, daddy.”

“Who says that?”

“Teacher. We are all originals.”

Maybe it’s time for me to go back to school, I thought.

So, who are my children? Teacher says my eldest daughter is a pleasure to teach and very diligent.

Teacher says my middle daughter is mature and articulate.

Teacher says my youngest is bubbly and well-mannered.

These are their beautiful points and what will get them through life. My daughter helped me see that. Here endeth her lesson.

Have I passed?