I was that fictional girl of which you speak , the "Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school. Stay at home, save up your deposit … then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27." That was me at the age of 16 as I left school after finishing my gcses still no wiser as to what I wanted to achieve in life than I had been all those years before as I played with my sindy doll in the sandpit
That was me who thought higher education or college was of no use for me as the teachers I'd had had made it more than clear I wasn't capable of amounting to much more than stacking supermarket shelves despite a fine grammar school education .
That was me working hard from the age of 17 till 22 paying my own way for everything at home while my older brother was cadging money off my mum when he came home visiting from university.
She was also the girl who after several disastrous attempts at romance with "nice boyfriends " sought love comfort and security in the arms of a much older friend to protect her from any further humiliation on the dating scene.
The girl went from all out indie nightclubbing bird to nice homely dormouse girl hermitting away in the safe confines of her little relationship bliss world where five years later the decision was made that as he wasn't getting any younger they should try for babies now rather than leave it a while. I was that magical baby making machine of 27 who thought her one purpose in life was finally raising itself and showing me the career that would fulfil everything id dreamed about.
except it didn't ,
some ten years later although I adored having my kids around and loved them with every fibre of my being , the nagging thought tugged in my head that maybe being 37 and a school cleaning lady wasn't exactly where id seen myself heading as I walked out of those school gates for the last time some 20 years before.
and the fact i was hearing whispers that some people thought i was some empty headed dolly with no opinions of her own verging on Stepford housewifery whilst others just looked right through me like i was an invisible lady made me start to really doubt anyone even noticed anything about me at all.
so I decided I needed to do something about it
and despite protestations of what do you need to do that for cant you just be content with what you are i did find something that i was good at after all , my life did have more meaning than cleaning school lavvies and making the kids packed lunches.
But happy as I am now I do wish id done that all a long time before I settled down and had children, I wish id taken more time out to live my life instead of thinking boyfriend and kids was what I needed to make me feel complete . that's the thing about finding out what you really want to do with your career after having children , you have to have a really tight ultra organised schedule to fit anything you have to do to achieve it in . if I had waited till now to have my kids I could have had the time to go onto higher education but the thing is kids, an other half tend and adult responsibilites to get in the way of just swanning off to the student life not to mention time and costs for those sort of things when you have quite a few mouths to feed.
so im not going to knock kirstie for what she thinks is the best thing to do , ladies , if she believes that's whats best for any fictional daughter of hers then let her think that
But I say, go with your heart on what you think is the right way for you because only you know what it is ....
Who knows maybe what someone has told you would never be a success in might just be the making of you , don't you reckon mr careers advisor / English teacher who told me I couldn't write anything that anyone would be interested in reading and sent me on a work experience placement working in a supermarket because that's where they reckoned I'd end up being !