RM October 12 - Kids the second mortgage

Kids – the second mortgage

Only weeks after the start of the school term and all the expenses that incurred, I have forked out a small fortune over the last week. At times having a child is like that saying people say about owning a car, the repairs aren’t €20 and €40; they run into figures akin to your week’s wages.

It feels like I have been handing over large amounts of money regularly, oh yeah that’s right, it is not just a feeling I have.

First of all was the weekly drama classes which cost €200 a term, then there was €100 for supervised study in school in preparation for the Junior Certificate exams.
And hopefully they are both worth it.

You might remember we had a deal – Sundays through Thursdays, she is mine; the weekends are hers, well within reason of course.

Only so far it has not been working out that way, she seems to be under the misguided impression that Mum’s time begins when she arrives home from school. The fact that she has arriving back later and later is giving me no end of headaches, not to mention the fact that she has been getting it in the neck for all this nonsense.

Oh and she still thinks she is entitled to her weekends.

In fairness the last two days she has been making an effort but only after being punished by not being allowed to go to a friend’s house one evening.

That will continue over the weekend but she will go to drama; the reason for that is bigger than the punishment.

She has never really been involved in anything. I’ve brought her to different activities in school and she never really got into whatever it was. I think it is something that needs to be driven by the child too, there is no point me thinking that camogie is great if the only thing she enjoys is standing leaning on her hurley chatting to people.

I was motivated to do sports as a teenager, the Young Wan is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Then somehow since she started secondary school it has been harder to organise her to do things, between work and school, and the fact we do not have a car and someone to ferry her about while I am at work have all contributed.

So I was determined that she would start something this autumn, something that was not related to school, where she could still learn while having fun. And she loves the class so far, well she is a drama queen being a teenager. She loved the people and had lots of laughs and she cannot wait to get back.

It’ll be so good for her confidence never mind being occupied, which is always a great thing particularly at her age.

I thought the supervised study would be a different story. But the first day home she seemed thrilled. Now I am not fooling myself – she may have been practising her newly-learnt acting, but she did seem proud of herself.

There was lots of ‘I feel so good, I have actually STUDIED’.

Like many other teenagers and I was no exception she needs to be forced to study and forced she will be.

Will she study in reality, who knows, you can lead a horse to water and all that.

So as I said both these pursuits have cost €300 for this term alone, that is bloody expensive with the same amount to be spent after Christmas and after Easter, I may try to start saving now. Oh yeah that’s right I have nothing to save having forked out €300. But sure hopefully it will be worth it.

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