Achievements of all Shapes and Sizes

Let’s talk about grades.

I studied three years of Professional Writing at university with the ambition of training to become a teacher. Time would adjust things slightly, and what I actually found myself doing this week was launching an emergency search for a purple pipe-cleaner whilst Diego cried and stamped his feet on my floorboards and I wondered frantically how many hours it was until bedtime.

I thought that by now, this would have finished, but here I am waiting for the tantrums to stop and I’m sprouting grey hairs. I thought I was done with the terrible twos and trying threes but here I seem to find myself in feisty fours.

People ask a lot of questions and have high expectations. They want to know what you plan to do with your life, what career you want to have and how you plan to change your world. What they don’t ask is what sort of person you are, if things are going as you planned, or in my case, if you are a good parent and if your child is happy.

You’d think that would be the most important job in the world – raising a child. I’m raising my boy into what will hopefully be a wonderful, kind and gentle man with wonderful manners and morals, but all people want to know what my job is. I’m proud of my job, I really am, but I am also proud to be a parent. I want people to ask me about that, because it is the hardest job I have ever done, and I do it almost alone.

Any achievement is worth celebrating. Every achievement is worth shouting about. Only you can progress on your journey and only you can live your life. Believe in what you do.

- By Boneata Bell