Uncertainty equals stress and never has your external world been so uncertain. But this coming of age is historic, one to tell future generations, and what stories you’ll have. Of rowing in a Head of the River with no traditional school send-off or spectators filling the stadium; of walking through a thermal imaging device when school returned; of managing to watch an entire series of Grey’s Anatomy during lockdown study (ahem.)
This is Story, my darling, all of it. History. Endurance. Lesson. We adults will be watching out for your 2020 cohort; treating you all with a certain regard and tenderness, I suspect for some time to come. You’re our brave guinea pigs who’ve had a baptism of fire into adulthood. “I was a COVID 2020 graduate,” you’ll always be able to say.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you,” poet Maya Angelou wrote, “but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” You have not been reduced, you’ve grown, so much, through this; and I see that in all the graduating kids I know.
On Anzac Day you stood outside at dawn among the surfboards, in your army cadets uniform, and from a distance The Last Post played as I wept; I’ve never been prouder of you. How on Earth did it happen, where did it spring from so suddenly, this fine young man before me; when just yesterday you were the archetypal clotted, grumpy teen? You demonstrated that morning that you’re an Australian who respects the value and generosity in service, and for that I say good on you son, well done.
Your father and I trust you, and that can be a tricky thing to convey as parents of a teenager – it’s perhaps the highest honour we can give you. But ever since your school reports moved from paper to online your dad and I have trusted you to tell us what’s in them, because we have no idea how to log on to the newfangled school system. So when you’ve said “it’s fine”, we’ve believed you, because that’s the boy you are. And if there’s a problem, well, that’s fine too, because it’s going to be a bloody good life lesson for you.
As for the future, you may change courses and careers down the track; I say who cares. Everything is experience, everything is diving you deeper into the riches of a vividly lived life. You want a blazing one, so go for it. The journey doesn’t always have to have a destination; change mid-stream, learn in the process; hop off one bus and onto another. The only wish I have for you, in whatever profession you choose, is that you find a deep happiness within it – because job contentment will filter into all aspects of your life.
One day you may be nostalgic for this time. This is history, something to tell the grandkids. “I turned 18 during the pandemic. I was that finishing year. This is how we survived…” And those younger will learn from you. You’ve absorbed deep lessons from these extraordinary times, at a crucial, transformative period in your own life; insights about patience, resilience, calm and the dignity of service. In a way COVID has been a gift to this 2020 cohort, because it’s shaped you all profoundly and marked you with difference and not one of you I know has been diminished by it. It’s grown you up, Generation COVID, most beautifully. My son, thank you for the gift of you. Go. You’re ready for the world.
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To my son turning 18 during lockdown: happy birthday, my darling boy. What a time to be coming of age. During such a dramatically disrupted year, when so much has been stolen from you. All those rituals of leaving your school years behind, of leaving your childhood behind; and we still don’t know if you’ll get a formal, a schoolies, a farewell assembly where your parents become teary and insist on photos and mortify you.