This is inspired tangentially by other postings in the UK Blogosphere
All of us were children once, most of us with parent(s). Some of you are parents yourselves, or intending to be, eventually. Most of the rest are Aunts and Uncles, either by blood, or marriage (equivalent), or friendship.
All parents want their children to be happy and most want their children to be successful. From time to time, one reads articles that are almost self-parodying, about the anguish parents feel when picking schools for their children. Of course, they don't want their children to be bullied. But the main concern is that their child will have a decent education, which implies good GCSE/A-Level results, which, in turn, leads to a place at a good university. (There are close equivalents in other countries).
My background was two graduate professional parents who were very keen on academic success. All three of us did well at school. My sister's inability to believe that she did well at school reflects the ambition of the school. Parents and the school also encouraged career ambition. I am not saying that my parents hothoused us; far from it. I just absorbed at an early age that education was the gateway to choices in life.
Ask me during my teens what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would have told you one or more of the following: journalist; Radio presenter; novelist; lawyer; Prime Minister. I am none of those. The only one I'm likely to achieve now is novelist - and how likely is that?
After graduation I fell accidentally into a job which enabled me to pursue a professional qualification. It may not be the most-exciting career, but it pays reasonably well, and I have the choice of being a fairly well paid public employee, or, I could move to the private sector and earn oodles of money, but at the cost of very long hours.
Does this make me successful, or not? I question why I am only measuring success in terms of career status. The same teenager would have mocked - did mock - contemporaries whose ambition was to get married, settle down and have children. Indeed, today, I would be horrified at teenagers having that as their sole ambition.
If I were to go back twenty years, it would be good to say, when asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" to reply, "Someone who travels a bit, is enthusiastic at exploring the potential of new technology, is capable of thinking deeply, can enjoy her own company, but be sociable, and, most of all, be someone with a capacity to love in the specific, the general and the abstract."
Are these measures of success? Or would they be measures of success if I had had the wisdom to list them at fifteen?
My brother's entry on Friends Reunited reads "So far have evaded all police convictions, major illnesses, paternity suits etc but luck can't last forever" Does that make him successful?
Back in those formative years of teenage and school, there were a few - not many - girls who had children. There was a tinge of scandal attached even though, actually, most were not under age. The Received Wisdom at the time was that they had 'ruined their lives'. For a long time I thought that Life Ruin followed inevitably from Youthful Motherhood. One of those teenage Mums has an entry saying "Working in Dover as a teacher of Design and Technology. Not married but living in sin." I assume the 'Living In Sin' bit is a joke, but an illuminating joke.
Nowadays I know a few very ambitious people, but most of the people I know have long ago stopped thinking about success. For some, life is a struggle, for others life is fun. I doubt that very many would say that they have lived up to their own ambitions, or their parental/school expectations. Does this make those ambitions and expectations unrealistic or wrong? I'm not sure. I suspect any answers I receive will be influenced by the commenter's own experience. If you could talk to your teenage self, what would you say? I hope I would say 'work hard, and get your exams, because they are the key to a wider range of choices.' I also hope that I would explain that ambition is nothing without drive; to achieve those teenaged ambitions required more drive than I possessed.
But I would also like to think that the most important message I could pass on to a teenager would be "Be yourself - your true self." I would encourage them to take risks, and go against the flow, and I would also encourage them to find themselves. Not by backpacking in the Himalayas, but by struggling through adversity.
I want to say that success should be measured by a sense of inner peace. And yet, and yet, that peace can breed complacency. I found blogging when I was poised to give up the council. It has militated against renewing the friendships I neglected during the long Lambeth days. But the desire to be on the council, the desire to blog, to phlog, has made me a more rounded person, to learn more about the most fascinating subjects on earth - other people, and of course, myself.
To conclude, I believe that, on the whole, I am a making a moderate success of my life, but if I measured that against the goals I set at fifteen, or eighteen, I am an abject failure.
