In a way it seems pointless to thank your parents…thank you is a) just never going to be enough and b) at the same time weird because it’s like saying thank you for accepting the responsibility of parenthood or something. Then again, not everyone accepts the responsibility, and even if they do, not everyone does such an amazing job.

But referring back to a) – I know a lot of people feel that way, but I’m pretty sure father of the century goes to mine this year. And the past 21 years too I’d say.

How do you even start to thank someone who has sacrificed so much for you? A few words in a card certainly aren’t going to do it. Neither are a few hundred words on a blog really, but it’s a start nevertheless. And if you’re reading this Dad, I’ve actually mentally been writing this exact post for over a year now, and the general gist of it forever but probably not nearly shown or said it enough. What can I say, it’s too big to fit in a card, or even a letter!

[Just some of the] Reasons Why my Dad has that – a.k.a. Father of the Century – in the bag without even trying:

(in no particular order, and definitely not complete)

• I’ve been incredibly lucky to have a self-employed Dad, who not only worked his socks off for us above and beyond the call of duty, but who was also always on hand for some advice, scrap paper for my artistic doodles, geometry homework help, tips how to turn the oven on, bedtime stories, you name it.
• My Dad went to the effort (and let me tell you, it requires a lot of patience to hold a four year old’s attention when it comes to essentially voluntary schoolwork!) of doing ‘Correspondence School’, which is usually used by children who live in really remote areas, with me in English when we lived in Germany, as well as reading bedtime stories and always speaking to me in English, which made sure that even if I very rarely spoke it when I was little, I definitely knew the language well enough to be just fine when we moved here.
• In a roundabout way, I have my Dad to thank for ending up trying fencing – he gently nudged me to go on a PGL outdoor adventure type trip in first year of secondary school (that I didn’t really want to go to and thought was way over-priced for just one week), where I tried fencing and kept winning due to being left-handed, which I later remembered when someone from the fencing stall stopped me at the Freshers Fair while I’d actually been on my way to Judo…the rest, as they say, is history, and I now count the fencing club as a vital part of my friend group
• He is also the reason I ended up studying marketing – due to my languag-ey brain not being super compatible with very complex maths equation (not at the pace that was required, anyway), my deputy head suggested that I might want to pick something other than Higher Chemistry in order to cope with Higher Maths, and the only subject choices in that column didn’t appeal to me at all. Thankfully my Dad managed to persuade me to take Business Management, and it was not deadly dull as I’d expected but turned out to be my favourite subject that year! I wanted to study journalism and marketing, but you couldn’t combine the two subjects as a degree so I ended up going for marketing – my reasoning being that it combines writing with a bit of creativity.
• There’s been a lot of other gentle nudging and general guidance, and a lot of making me do things myself which I of course ended up being glad I’d done and feeling proud of, but they are too numerous to count!
• Being encouraging and supportive of…pretty much everything really I think. Or if not, then making me see sense and all the while letting me believe it was my idea, I suspect!
• ‘Talking me down’ when I got completely overwhelmed by my final exams (and lack of preparation for aforementioned exams) recently
• Always reading (actual novels!) to us in English
• Going to London and Germany with me and being my ‘research assistant’ for my dissertation
• Beatles lullabyes 🙂
• Comforting me when my flatmates from halls (who I really had very little in common with, looking back) were planning to live with another girl one of them knew rather than me, when the inevitable bitchiness in secondary happened, and drying my tears on countless other occasions
• Even ‘dragging’ us all the way to Scotland 🙂 I was beyond devastated at the time (the biggest losses were my guinea pig, my best friend, and the ability to go downstairs to see my grandparents rather than having to involve cars and planes/boats/trains to do so) but I am of course so thankful we moved after all, not least because I don’t know if I would have survived another year of Gymnasium unscathed…although to be fair I do usually take a little while to settle and had just started finding my friend group, so I would’ve been ok there too. I did start rather young, being the only 9 year old in my class with the oldest pupils in the school being at least 19!
• Being so calm and nice about the double mini roundabout incident – I was already on the mini roundabout, so technically in the right either way, but not every Dad is that relaxed when the car we got something like a month and a half ago gets a lovely gash on its front…
• Always putting us first and making sure we get experiences too rather than focussing on possessions (that whole presence vs presents thing is very true! You do tend to remember events more than things)
• Proofreading and sometimes even helping me type up my school and uni work – for example my 28 page Advanced Higher English ‘dissertation’ which had to be submitted typed but was handwritten by me because I can write faster and think better that way somehow
• All those other ‘Dad-activities’ like helping me reassemble my Ikea furniture (my flatmate and I didn’t build it flat on the floor like you’re supposed to and then realised there is a reason why they tell you to because we weren’t tall enough to finish it!), sitting with me when I was learning to drive
• Helping me set up my blog