Are We Destined To Do What We Do?

Last week, my eleven-year-old daughter came home with the news that she’d been sent to the principal’s office.

When she told me, I didn’t know how to react. The exact same thing had happened to me when I was her age – except for my daughter at least there’d been signs, so the school hadn’t reacted as severely.

What had she done?

She’d written a poem. A good one. Her teacher had been ‘mega impressed’ and told her to ‘go see the principal, because we might put this one in the school newsletter’. Of course I was proud. What parent doesn’t want their child being sent to the principal for good work?

On the other hand, I wondered what it might mean. When I look back on my life, it was obvious I’d become a writer. That incident when I was my daughter’s age? I’d written a poem and been accused of plagiarism.

“This clearly isn’t your work,” my teacher had said on reading it. She’d seen no signs of literary talent to that point – back in my day, we didn’t do nearly half as much creative work as my children do at school now. “Tell me where you copied it from, then write your own as you were told.”

“But I didn’t copy it.”

My parents were called. I came from a family where no one finished school. Mum and Dad already knew I was an oddity, and they encouraged it – education was the ticket to opportunity and freedom. Still, we had no poetry books at home and I hadn’t been to the library.

Finally I was believed. More than that: my poem was pinned to the classroom wall.

My daughter’s poem got a principal’s sticker.

Does this mean she’ll become a writer like me? She’s already won awards for her stories, as has my son. In a way, I hope not, because it’s such a tough gig. You have to constantly expose your self-esteem to rejection. Chances of success are slim. There’s little money in writing alone. There’s no off-switch. Self-employment brings risks and juggling. In many ways, it’s easier and more secure to be employed with a monthly wage, which is why I resisted being a writer for many years, working instead in publishing, as a copywriter, even as a lawyer.

Of course, as stories themselves often tell us, there’s no denying who you really are. When I was fifteen I wrote a 77-stanza poem for fun – who does that? My teacher thought it so good she made me read it aloud to my class (that one made me popular!). When I was sixteen, I established the school’s first writers’ group. At eighteen, of course I went on to read English Literature at university. Whatever made me suppose I could be anything other than a writer?

What my daughter will be, she will be, of course, and she has plenty of talents I never had. I’ll support her no matter what. Same with her older brother. Husband too, who tried not to be the graphic designer he is for a few corporate years.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that my daughter’s poem is better and a tad more mature than mine at her age:

Owls & Hedgehogs – Zena, aged 10

Hedgehogs busy scurrying around,

Digging up food from the ground.

Eating worms, beetles and slugs,

Gathering up all kinds of bugs.

An owl lands on a branch in the park,

Then he dives down on a mouse in the dark.

“Yum!” he says, as he lands on the tree,

“That was a really lovely tea.”

Primary Dreams – Ophelia, aged 11

My last short days fly by like a white dove,

My last term slips away like cold wet ice.

The one year I thought I had ticks away,

My long primary run begins to end.

Memories I have made, ones that I share,

Those special days and journeys must start over.

Those friendships will not ever be forgotten.

As the long hard run to school starts again,

There are many allies and friends to make,

And many experiences to have.

My graduation sets me on my way,

As I then become the young one again.

As I sit at my desk writing this poem,

I know I will never come here again.

What about you?

Do you think you were always going to do what you now do? Does destiny call?