Hilarie: Here’s to a future delving into the past

Feb 20 2010 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SECONDBORN is at that stage in life where she is having to make some big decisions about her future.

When people ask her: “What do you want to do when you leave school?” they expect a serious reply.

Many moons ago the question was always suffixed by “when you grow up.”

At that time it was her dearly-held ambition to become a knight/dragon tamer/prince and she would proudly announce this.

Her favourite book was Jane and the Dragon which is about a girl who wants to become a knight. It’s still in print and comes highly recommended for little girls. The Girl’s collection of plastic, jewel-encrusted swords, purchased with pocket money at The Royal Armouries, is now ‘rusting’ nostalgically in a bin bag in the attic and Jane and the Dragon has been put away ‘for the grandchildren.’ There are boxes of books, a vast Lego collection, Sylvanian family house and cupboard full of board games all awaiting the patter of tiny grand-feet because I have reached that stage in life when I dare to hope for such things – in the future, you understand.

The Girl, however, has different ideas and says she’s never having children. She’s going to own a dog instead. I’m not too worried because I recall feeling exactly the same way when I was 16.

What’s most important now, I tell her, is to find something she will really enjoy doing and get stuck in at school so she keeps as many options open as possible.

Like many young people she has changed her mind often about what she wants to do. Her brother was much the same and it wasn’t until his final year at school he had one of those revelatory moments and chose physics – a decision he has never once regretted.

This time last year The Girl was pretty sure that psychology or nursing were her way forward and we encouraged her in this as she has always been a people person.

“What is that man thinking?” she would say whenever we found ourselves sitting opposite a stranger in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room.

But a few weeks ago she came home from school and announced that she had been looking at university websites and was thinking about applying to do archaeology or archaeological science.

My daughter the archaeologist. It has a certain ring to it.

Of course, she’s fully aware that jobs as an archaeologist are as thin on the ground as the bones of Paleolithic Man and as rare as unbroken Roman glassware. And that some parents would be saying; “what’s the point, it won’t lead to gainful employment.” That’s certainly what my parents would have said.