When First Child Starts School.

You think you’re ready. You’ve spent five years practising. 

You’ve survived teething, tantrums, projectile yoghurt, and that phase where your child would only answer to the name “Captain Waffles.” You’ve even mastered the art of assembling a packed lunch that meets all modern nutritional guidelines while still being something a child might voluntarily eat, which is like trying to design a car that is simultaneously a Ferrari, a tractor, and a submarine.

But nothing  and I mean nothing  prepares you for the first morning of school.

It begins at 6 a.m., when your child bursts into your bedroom wearing their brand‑new uniform, which they have somehow already stained. You don’t know how. You don’t want to know. Scientists don’t know. The stain is simply there, like Stonehenge.

You then spend the next hour trying to take a “nice first‑day photo,” which is impossible because children have a biological instinct to ruin photographs. The moment you lift the camera, your child’s body goes into a spontaneous interpretive dance routine. Their limbs become noodles. Their face becomes a Picasso. Meanwhile, the school run clock is ticking like a bomb in a Hollywood thriller.

Eventually you get a photo in which your child looks only mildly possessed, and you decide that’s good enough because you are a modern parent and your standards have been eroded by life.

Then comes the walk to school, which is only three minutes long but somehow takes 45, because your child must stop to examine every leaf, pebble, cloud, and microscopic organism along the way. You try to hurry them, but they look up at you with those big innocent eyes that say, “Why are you ruining my joy, you monster,” and so you slow down and pretend to be fascinated by a stick.

And then suddenly  you’re there. The school gates. The point of no return. The place where you must hand your tiny human over to a group of cheerful professionals who, judging by their calm demeanour, have either achieved enlightenment or are heavily medicated.

Your child, naturally, is fine. They march in without hesitation, without fear, without even a backward glance, because they have spotted something far more interesting than you: a plastic dinosaur.

You, on the other hand, are a wreck. You stand there clutching a book bag like it’s a life raft, trying not to cry in front of other adults who are also trying not to cry. It’s like a support group, except nobody speaks because if anyone says a single word, the entire playground will collapse into a communal emotional meltdown.

Eventually you shuffle home, where you spend the next six hours pacing around like a confused Victorian ghost. You check your phone every three minutes in case the school has called to report that your child has accidentally glued themselves to a wall. You consider doing something productive, like cleaning, but instead you sit on the sofa staring into the middle distance, wondering how your child is coping without you, and also whether you remembered to label their water bottle.

Then, finally, it’s pick‑up time. You rush to the gates, heart pounding, ready to embrace your child and hear all about their day.

They emerge, look you dead in the eye, and say the same thing every child says on the first day of school:

“Can I have sweets?”

That’s it. No details. No stories. No emotional reunion. Just sweet based demands, delivered with the urgency of a hostage negotiation.

And that’s when you realise the truth: they were ready. You were not. You will never be.

But you’ll get through it  one stained uniform, one chaotic morning, one sweet request at a time.