David O'Mahony: They grow up so fast — but please don’t make me do higher-level maths again
Maths and I are, if not at daggers drawn, then glaring across the room at one another. You know what you did, quadratic equations. Don’t look at me and tell me you don’t. File picture
By the time this prints — or goes live, depending on your reading fancy — my two boys will be teenagers.
God and Cthulhu help us, it’s all over, isn’t it? Given that their sister, at seven, already has the poise, style profile, and withering death stare of someone around 17 or 18, that might as well make three of them in the house.
Throw in the cat, at 15, and my wife and I are a touch outflanked. Always outnumbered, never outgunned, to rob a phrase from a Prodigy album.
Where has the time gone? Just recently, Facebook surfaced a photo of my wife in Venice 15 years ago while we were on our honeymoon. There isn’t a child in sight. There isn’t even the idea of a child in sight.
Surely that was only yesterday, and we’re not, in fact, staring down the barrel of double puberty (as it is, one of the boys has been tall enough to pass for a teenager since last year).
It hasn’t helped that one of the boys, who I’ll just call Twin 2, started secondary school a couple of days ago (his brother, who is autistic and attends a special school, has different arrangements).
Arriving on his timetable next week are things like graphics and wood technology, which are both fine subjects he chose for himself but in which my wife — who is also back at school this week — and I have little, if any, expertise with which to help him if needed. I don’t think my one year of technical drawing in secondary school will pass muster.
Still, we nearly had engineering in the mix as well. Another fine and worthwhile subject, but maths and I are, if not at daggers drawn, then glaring across the room at one another. You know what you did, quadratic equations. Don’t look at me and tell me you don’t.
So, yeah, please don’t make me learn higher-level maths again. I just about survived it for the Leaving Cert. Words are my mistress, to quote Stephen Fry. Algebra and mathematical proofs… not so much.
History? Now, that we can do. Doctor of history here, and my wife teaches it. Geography? Well, guess what I was really good at in school and what my wife has also taught. Accounting and business studies? Old friends. It’d be like riding a bike.
Not that we want him to do things just because we’re suggesting them. We’re not monsters. He’s off on his own adventure, and as long as he’s interested and feels like he’s getting something worthwhile, then godspeed, young man.
At the moment he’s thinking of pursuing the likes of programming, game design (he’s been experimenting with apps on Steam), or maybe robotics. All I’m thinking of here is support structures for what is a very different system for him than the primary school he’s just left.
Perhaps that sense of familiarity would be good for all of us, but then again, if he doesn’t get the chance to be supported in expressing and exploring his own interests, that seems almost criminal.
You can’t discover new oceans unless you allow yourself to lose sight of the shore, to slightly mangle the French author André Gide. And he’s not going to lose sight of the shore unless we help him realise how to be comfortable, even confident, in his own decisions.
We could all remind ourselves of that. I know I have to, sometimes.
Whether his own plans will survive contact with the enemy, I mean the junior cycle, is another thing. But why should it be a problem? As I’ve written before, time is on his side, and I don’t want him to rush into anything. He has his whole life to be a grown up. I’m pretty sure I was born one, so maybe he can teach me a thing or two.
Now, future ambitions in his head or not, Twin 2 has been remarkably lackadaisical about the whole secondary school thing, having convinced himself it was starting next week. This is rather on brand for him, to be fair.
Describing himself as having “mixed feelings” about the whole thing, he survived day one at least. And that, like the D-Day landings, gives you a fighting chance of pushing on to victory.
His sister moved into second class, which is now far enough away from infants to make me feel like she’s growing up just that little bit too fast. Not that I want her to stay where she is, or anything like that.
But sometimes dad is verging on the haggard, and he doesn’t quite move as quickly as he used to (and given that she won a medal in the city sports earlier this year, she actually moves very fast indeed).
At the other end of the spectrum, my youngest nephew began preschool this week, while his slightly older brother moved into junior infants and their sister into third class.
In a way, that’s sort of drawing a line under the whole thing. There are unlikely to be any more younglings in my family unless, or until, one of that cohort of cousins has a child of their own. So I guess the various branches of the family tree are now moving into their mature stage.
Just please, let it be without too many tears or crash outs — and those would be just from me.
- David O'Mahony is assistant editor and a writer. His book is out next week
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