Never Grow Up (a nod to Taylor)

I’m watching on, as this cohort of Year 12 parents face the ultimate challenge of letting go. There is no criticism here, I am walking a tumultuous season too – my own confronting detachment from Fairholme and all that goes with that.

Paediatrician and author, Kenneth Ginsburg, in an article written more than a decade ago entitled ‘Letting Go: The Greatest Challenge of Parenting Teens’ says that “holding on tight feels good, but letting go expresses love” (2011). Taylor Swift’s song “Never Grow Up” speaks to the reality that, at this time of imminent change for Year 12s, we may find ourselves as parents, wishing to return to the halcyon moments of a raising a small child.

This wish is juxtaposed cruelly against the stark reality of releasing emerging adults into a future we can’t, shouldn’t or won’t be able to control.

It is the season of “one mores” – wishing for one more moment that we can capture, preserve, and never detach from; after all, in many ways, it is the season of grieving. At Spring Fair, I was blessed with the opportunity to retrace some Fairholme footsteps with some of the class of 2014. For more than an hour we sat in G25, where I had taught some of these young women in Year 12 English, along with my colleague Mrs Cathy Mason.

They were bemused that I could recall where they sat each lesson, who they sat next to – this is a teacher’s privilege for a short time in the life of a student. For parents, this is a lifetime privilege … you are your child’s first, enduring and most influential teacher.

Thus, if the refrain “never grow up” features in your personal narrative at this moment, it is no surprise. Your investment in your daughter’s future has been and is immeasurable.

What I heard and saw in that time with these impressive young women was the power of connection, the ability to reminisce but also the ability to step back quickly into the now. We need both skills. We can take photos of our childhood room as Taylor Swift suggests but only “in our mind” because we can’t stay there, too frightened to leave.

As parents, we can’t hold on either, even if doing so, feels safe. Take heart, that a decade on, these young women are strong, independent but connected, and deliciously hopeful about their futures. I can’t tell you how precious it was to see and hear that – this is what we all want a Fairholme education to be founded upon.

Because we do know that the world beyond the gates of Wirra Wirra Street may deliver a different picture than the one envisaged, and the script that has been so carefully penned may need some readjustments. The choices that have been clear as a seventeen-year-old dressed in tartan may become less apparent in the throng of fellow school-leavers, all with their eyes focused on the future.

Faltering is a human response to significant change. Disappointment is probably unavoidable and freedom sometimes fraught, even briefly, with the feeling of being overwhelmed. It is also a time when we may miss out on the goal, dream, or prize we have strived for – and that is OK because new goals will emerge, sometimes yielding much greater rewards.

We learn as much from missing out at times, as we do from gaining. Quite publicly many, many years ago I said on an Assembly: ‘winning can be a terrible thing’. I meant to say ‘losing can be a terrible thing’ but I’m glad I made the error. I’ve come to appreciate that winning can be a terrible

thing when we forget that its sweetness is gained through previous losses, through the near-wins we’ve endured, through determination and perseverance – all those wonderful life qualities.

How easy, at this bittersweet time filled with the paradox of readiness to go and fearfulness to let go, to forget to acknowledge and celebrate the convolutions of life that lead to the completion of Year 12. It is an achievement for families, for teachers and always, for the girls themselves.

A lot occurs between the cute kindergarten child who clings to mum or dad on their first day ‘alone’ and the confident school-leaver who departs Fairholme; ready and not so ready to embrace the world beyond. A lot. A lot of joys and a lot of disappointments. A lot of learning for us all. Parenting is actually a constant process of “letting go”, after all, our one job, is to ensure that our children are able to stand independent of us, particularly in the toughest of seasons.

May we continue to enjoy what has passed, the images of childhood, the complexities of adolescence but look forward to a hope-filled future – just as I saw in that group of fabulous young women from the cohort of 2014.

Never grow up? I think not, Taylor. There is too much ahead, to be always looking back, or to be held captive in the past.

Holding on tight feels good but letting go expresses love. (Ginsburg, 2011)

Dr Linda Evans | Principal

Reference

Ginsburg, K. (2011). ‘Letting Go: The Greatest Challenge of Parenting Teens’. Psychology Today.