My de facto Sally is, at the time of writing, just over 40 weeks pregnant. It’s our first. We’re expecting a boy. And I want our son to have all the things that I never had: a prescribed career path, parental pressure, and a boater. So, to get our boy off to the best possible start, Sally, belly and I went to the recent Independent Schools Expo to ” ask all the questions parents need to ask to assess a school’s suitability for their child” or, in this instance, foetus.
” Getting in early I see,” said the woman at the entrance to the hall.
” We want to give him the best possible chance …” I said.
” Of course you do.”
” … the best possible chance of becoming a lawyer. Just like his old man.”
She waved us in. It could have been any corporate expo – full of peering touts – except that half of those smiling and beckoning with lollies, were children.
And despite the passage of time, and despite the ‘perspective’ that a pending progeny is supposed to bring, the twinkle of prefect’s badges on blazers burned like a hot poker in my competitive heart. The little shits could tie a half-windsor as well.
I marched Sally over to the nearest adult.
” I hear yours is a good school. How can we enrol our boy-to-be?”
” Well,” said the deputy principal. ” You’ll need a birth certificate first.”
” Shouldn’t be too far away now.”
” Why? When are you due?”
” Last Friday,” said Sal.
” What! What are you going here? Do you want to sit down?”
” No, I’m trying to walk him out.”
” We figure if he drops at a particular school, then we’d have to pick that one.”
We were given a show bag and shooed away.
Sal spotted a school with a cupcake stand that needed relieving. We hurried over, and partook.
” Eating for two here,” I said gesturing to Sal. ” She’s baking a lawyer, we hope. Have many of your students become prominent lawyers?”
” Hmmm,” mused the cupcake distributor. ” Can’t think of any right now.”
” Justice Bergin,” I suggested. ” Had a run in with her once. Most of us lawyers have. Come to think of it,” I said studying the pink icing, ” isn’t yours a girls’ school?”
” We do both genders these days.”
” How very modern.”
But they wouldn’t say how many lawyers they make. The next school wouldn’t say either, though everyone insisted: ” many of our students have gone on to become plumbers or electricians and are doing very nicely thank you” .
Wandering and waddling around, we came across an ‘old boy’ with too much time on his hands, pushing his old school.
” You don’t know where you’ll be living when your boy’s ready for school,” he said. ” So it’s good to keep your options open. You might choose to put his name down at a school in the lower north shore and also one in the upper north shore.”
” My sort of thinking,” I said. ” We’re hoping he’ll become a lawyer like me.”
” Oh, we don’t focus on that.”
(Not true. I later found a pie chart in a brochure showing that 12 per cent of their boys study law. Absent the pie chart, were those in the plumbing or electrical trade.)
” Wow, bubs is going crazy,” said Sal. ” I think he really likes your school.”
” Or maybe he hates it,” I said.
A silence. The old boy turned back to Sal.
” Are you a lawyer as well?” he asked her.
” Oh come on,” I interrupted. ” I’d never wish that on myself. Just on Sal here, and whoever hitches up with our son.”
For our final school, we visited the largest cubicle in the room.
” Why do you have the ‘corner office’ here today?”
” Because we helped create this event.”
” Do you create many lawyers?” I said. ” I’m a lawyer and that’s what I want for my son.”
” I thought most of you lawyers hate the law.”
” We do. But we do it for our kids – to give them the best possible education.”
” So they can … go on to become lawyers as well?”
” Exactly,” I said.
” Well, we can help you with that.”
” Great,” I said. ” Let’s sign him up.”