KEY POINTS:
I might be the naivest parent on the planet, but I'm playing catch-up fast.
My 13-year-old headed off to her first day of high school the other week and there wasn't a tear to be found in the house.
It's not that I'm heartless. I blubbered like the
baby I thought she still was when she started primary school eight years ago.
My girls changed fairly dramatically, fairly quickly when they first started school. One started her school life in New Zealand, the other in Australia, and the same thing happened to both.
The new routine, the extra stimulation, structure and widening circle of friends, plus the fact that someone other than me now held my child's interest for the best part of their day all added to her growing noticeably stronger, smarter and streetwise within the first week.
My elder girl doesn't seem a lot different from that first day of primary school. But she is different. She knows it, and I know it even when I don't want to acknowledge it. And I do my best to make it so that she doesn't have to prove it to me.
"Let her go and let her be" has been a good practice over recent months. It's me who's taught her most of what she knows up until now. I hope I've done a good job because from now on, that's a role her friends will take on.
I trust the eight years of classroom lessons and schoolyard tests that she's had so far will hold her in good stead for what lies ahead.
On her first high school day, while there were no tears, there was a tug at my heart as I clicked off the obligatory photos of her in uniform for grandma and friends back in Melbourne to sigh over.
I tried to treat the morning like any other school day. I think I blew it when I offered to make her lunch. Both girls have been making their own lunch for a few years now - my "If you want to eat you gotta learn how to feed yourself" theory.
In our home it runs alongside the "If it's dirty, clean it, if it's lost, find it, if it's not yours, give it back, if it barks, put it outside" rule. And the slightly twisted but brilliantly effective "If you want it in the rubbish, leave it on your bedroom floor".
Like most mothers, I've tried to buy a uniform that's going to last the four years it needs to. As I pushed enter, after gasping at the three-figure sum on the eftpos machine at the uniform shop, I knew it just wasn't going to happen.
It has something to do with the fact that parts of her uniform fit her younger sister and parts fit me. There's some growing to be done in between.
My sewing ability (skills may be flattering myself) did cope with the uniform hem. Hem length is one of the first battles most mothers will stumble across with daughters too young to be dressing to impress.
Once upon a time (last year) I took the "I am mother, this is how short it won't be" route and thought I'd won. Then I happened to drive by one of my daughters walking home from school with what looked like someone else's micro mini skirt on.
Twenty minutes later, as I waited for her to walk in the door at home, her skirt was back to ordinary length. I discovered that waistbands can be rolled up three times without looking obvious under a school top.
Part of me had to admire the creativeness and willingness to forgo comfort for style - welcome to womanhood little girl. The other part of me listened to a friend who had already seen two daughters survive high school and who said: "Just hem the thing up to school rules." So I did. And wished I had at the beginning. That wasn't a fight worth the battle.
I no longer have children at an age where they see the world in black and white and me the only colour they need to brighten their day.
I have children who realise the world's a rainbow and they're already climbing up it, ready to discover what's on the other side.
The Barbie dolls and Hi-5 songs have gone and I suspect there's something scarier like boys and driving lessons around the corner.
I'm okay with that. I learned some time ago that nothing lasts forever and to never say never, to enjoy each season as it comes because those things around the corner are here before you know it.
I listen to the parents, willing and generous with their advice, who've been here already, and I use what makes sense to me.
Apart from making her favourite honey sandwich that first morning of high school, the best thing I did was to hide any tears and the nervousness I felt for her, from her.
The brightest part of my day came as she ran through the door after school, leaping into my arms with the best smile and a squeal of excitement, sounding just like the 5-year-old I remember starting school all over again.
* Jennifer Watts of Napier is a former journalist.
