THREE down, two to go.
My only son is graduating from Year 12 in the coming days, spelling a big sigh of relief for all involved.
For a kid who disliked school as much as I disliked telling him to get there on time, this feels like a real team victory.
It also feels like every other parent has a child who’s had their career mapped out since day dot, while I’m the one banging on a locked bedroom door pleading for the smallest clue.
Those cute preppie questions asking “what are you going to be when you grow up?” have morphed into “what are you doing with your life” and as school ends: “You’re not hanging around this house without a job!”
Ours kept us guessing right up until the end before cleverly picking up a school-based apprenticeship two weeks before graduating (better late than never), with a full-time job waiting after Schoolies.
To say I’m relieved is an understatement, although I’m still walking around with my heart in my mouth. At the signing for the apprenticeship, things didn’t start well: no tax file number, no super details, a few critical forms missing and the aptitude test not completed. “Did they ask you to bring this all in?” I enquired.
“Yeah. I guess,” he shrugged, nonchalantly, as the kids say.
So sending off our baby boy – well, 6ft 8in of him – in his 4XL high-vis uniform was a proud and only slightly worrying morning.
And while the stakes edge higher as they age, not much changes from the day you first sent them off to prep.
Back then it was: find good friends, be kind, don’t get into trouble.
Now it’s all that plus fill the tank, don’t crash, save your money.
So while the uniforms are different, the risks a little greater, but the same lump forms in your throat as you watch them walk away. Does parenting ever get easier? I’m beginning to think not.
PLANNING WELL
My kids – especially my newly minted apprentice – were front of mind this weekend when I read a story about a townhouse in the middling suburb of Mount Gravatt being sold at auction for $1.5m.
Housing affordability is a dilemma – perhaps a crisis – that governments have been unable to fix for decades now.
In the hinterland $1 million doesn’t get you much to write home about these days and it was reported you need eight times your income to buy in today compared to four times just 20 years ago.
The issue comes as the Minister for Housing was in Beerwah last week talking up the government’s latest social housing project.
But while social housing rightly supports those doing it toughest, it’s the step before that’s missing – the path for working young people who want a future in the towns they grew up in.
We need more homes regular families can actually afford, so our kids can aspire to something beyond rent inspections and share houses.
That’s a critical foundation worth building.