Oh goodness, what a few weeks we’ve had.
I’ve been watching the news this week the way we’ve all been watching it. One eye on the telly, one eye on the kids, one hand on the kettle, and my heart in my throat half the time. Hoping against hope that it all settles. Because this isn’t just affecting us here, is it? It’s rippling out across so many countries, so many families, and we’ll be feeling the echo of it for years. Mums everywhere, all holding their breath at the same time. You can almost feel it.
And can I just say, is it not time we put a few mums in charge of this whole mess?
Honestly. Give me two mums, a kitchen table, a pot of tea and a packet of biscuits, and I reckon we’d have world peace sorted before the school run. No mum on earth would let this carry on. We’d sit these statesmen down, look them dead in the eye the way we look at our teenagers when they’ve “lost” another water bottle, and remind them that this is bigger than any of them. Meet your responsibilities. Understand both sides. Say sorry and mean it. Done. Home by lunch. ?
But back on planet earth…
I have to say, I remain so, so grateful to this beautiful country of ours for the dignity it has shown through all of this. Even with all the back-and-forth over school reopening, every decision has been made with our children’s safety at the heart of it. And that is everything. A few more days of distance learning are just that, a few more days. We can do a few more days. We’re mums. We’ve done harder things before breakfast.
And knowing that when our little ones do go back, the schools have had extensive readiness checks, proper evacuation plans, safe areas within the buildings, and real psychological and mental health support for the children and the teachers, well. I hope with every fibre of my being that none of it is ever needed. But knowing it’s there? That’s a weight off.
Monday morning, mums. Deep breaths.
Let’s be honest, back to school is a whole thing at the best of times. You know the drill. The shoes that fit last term but somehow don’t now. The water bottle that has vanished into the same dimension as all the odd socks. The child who suddenly, mysteriously, cannot find a single pair of clean pants in the entire house.
Now add nearly seven weeks at home, a region in turmoil, and a lot of very big emotions into the mix. Monday is going to be a lot.
So please, expect separation anxiety this week. Theirs. And yours. Oh, especially yours. Our babies have been glued to us for weeks. They’ve reformed attachments to you, to the sofa, to the dog, to the safety of being within shouting distance of mum at all times. Some wobbles at the school gate are completely normal. So are yours, by the way. If you sit in the car afterwards and have a little cry, you are in very good company. I’ll be right there with you.
Trust your instincts. Be gentle with them. Be even gentler with yourself. None of us have parented through anything quite like this before. We are all, every single one of us, making it up as we go. The world is going to take a little while to feel steady on its axis again, and that’s okay. We’ll wobble together.
For my mums who are still out of the country
I know. I know. The messages have been flooding in and my heart goes out to every one of you trying to work out the right thing to do from a hotel room or a grandparent’s spare room thousands of miles away.
Please, please don’t overthink this. If your children aren’t in an exam year, a few more days away is absolutely fine. They’ll survive. You’ll survive. Nobody’s future hinges on missing a few more days of Zoom lessons, and frankly most of them will be skipping home the day they hear online learning is finally over.
And can I just say, I’m hearing more and more of you quietly wondering if this is the moment to try homeschooling properly. I see you. I completely understand the instinct. After everything we’ve been through, the idea of keeping them close where you know they’re safe is a very powerful one.
I genuinely take my hat off to any mum who has homeschooled well. It is not the easy option, not even close. It takes an astonishing amount of discipline, planning and patience (and wine, probably, let’s be real). If you’re seriously thinking about it, please just go in with your eyes wide open:
- Pick a curriculum before you leap. British, IB, American, or blended. Know what you’re signing up to.
- Be honest about timelines. Is this forever, or is this a bridge? Do you have a way back into mainstream if you need it?
- Plan the assessment route. IGCSEs, A Levels, or the equivalent, because you want doors open when they’re eighteen, not closed.
- Build in the stuff school gives them for free. The friendships, the squabbles, the group projects, the “I’m not sitting next to HIM” drama. That’s where resilience lives.
It’s absolutely doable. Loads of mums do it beautifully. Just go in prepared and not purely on a wave of “I can’t let them out of my sight ever again,” because that wave will pass and then you’ll be stuck teaching fractions in your pyjamas at 2pm on a Tuesday.
And now, the exam situation. Breathe with me.
I’ll only touch on this briefly because every school is handling it differently and I don’t want to pile onto the WhatsApp chaos you’re already drowning in.
Here’s where we are: Pearson Edexcel, OxfordAQA, Cambridge and the IB have all now confirmed alternative assessment routes for our students here in the UAE this year. That is a lot for our teenagers to carry. And I know it’s sitting heavy on you too. Watching your child stress about exams when you can’t fix it for them is its own particular kind of heartbreak.
But listen to me on this, please. All that matters from these exams is that your child gets to the next stage they want to get to. Sixth form. University. A gap year. Art school. Whatever it is. That’s it. That’s the whole point. The qualification still counts. The route to it is just different this year, and different is not worse.
We have to trust that schools have this. Every teacher, every head of year, every exams officer is working flat out behind the scenes to make sure our children come out of this with results they can be proud of. So please, work with them. If they ask for the coursework to be redone, get your teenager to redo it (yes, I know, good luck, bring snacks). Take the extra half an hour on the assignment, even when everyone’s fed up.
This is not your school’s fault. They are navigating shifting guidelines from multiple exam boards while also being human beings with their own families and their own worries. Please don’t take the frustration out on them. They are frustrated too, and they are about to work some genuinely brutal hours to get our kids through this. A kind email, a thank-you, a “we see how hard you’re working,” honestly, it costs us nothing and it means the world to them right now.
It isn’t perfect. Nothing about this year has been perfect. But our children can still walk out of it with results they are properly proud of, and a story to tell their own kids one day about the year they kept going when the world wobbled.
And finally…
I always say, trust the process. And right now we are being asked to trust a lot of processes all at once. The UAE. Our schools. The exam boards. The ceasefire. Each other. Ourselves. That’s a big ask on a Sunday night when you’ve still got PE kits to find and lunchboxes to pack.
But here’s what I keep coming back to. Every single person in this, from the ministries right down to the lovely lady on reception at school, is pulling in the same direction. And that direction is the best possible outcome for your child.
So hold the line this week, mums. Put the kettle on. Have the cry if you need the cry. Message the group the second it gets wobbly, that’s literally what we’re here for. Be soft with yourself. Be soft with your babies. And know that whatever Monday morning looks like for you, you are not doing it alone.
We’ve got this. And we’ve got each other.
All my love,