FAQs

Top o’ the morning to ye.

I’ve never heard an Irish person say that, btw.  But it’s a nice sunny day here and all’s well with the world – at least here in my kitchen – so it seems appropriate.

When I have conversations with people in New Zealand there are a few questions that come up fairly often so, because I know you’re all on the edges of your seats waiting to hear about me and my life, I thought I might as well answer them here.

Are you still planning to go to America?

Short answer: I don’t know.

Longer answer:  Seattle is still sort of the Holy Grail for Josh’s career.  To be promoted he needs to be visible and have his work noticed by higher-up people.  That’s chugging along all right here but there are more people-who-need-impressing in Seattle.  It is the Amazon mothership after all.  Also, Ireland has high tax rates and America has much lower ones which doesn’t matter too much now but in a couple of years, assuming he’s still working for Amazon somewhere, he will start getting shares as part of the salary package and they’ll make a bigger dent in the mortgage if they’re not taxed at 40%.

On the other hand, there’s Mr Trump bellowing around like a bull in a china shop and things seem…unstable.  The main concern for us would be health insurance.  Under Obamacare insurers had to cover pre-existing conditions.  It’s been said that this will continue, even though Obamacare will be gone by lunchtime, but who knows.  Amazon pays for Josh’s health insurance, and subsidises it for the rest of us, but with things in flux because the president is such a loose unit we don’t know what that will mean.  If pre-existing conditions are not covered by whatever insurance Josh is given and the rest of us can afford, the first large-ish medical event that isn’t fully covered could cripple us.  Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, and it’s not just poor people or uninsured people suffering.  We don’t have to put ourselves in that position, so we’ll do the research and maybe decide that it’s not worth the risk.

Then, we may not get the choice in the first place.  We’d be immigrants.  White and professional but still not Americans.  Back in the day, when Josh was first offered the position in Seattle, his visa application was put in a lottery.  We were told that 70% of applications would be pulled out and processed.  His was in the other 30% and was returned unopened.

Now, he’s been told by colleagues visiting from America, Amazon doesn’t bother putting anyone in the lottery at all.  It sounds like they’re not even trying to hire foreigners for positions there any more.  We would use the internal transfer process, but who knows how successful that might be.  If it was, the visa he would then hold would entitle him to work at that one job and that job only.  If he wanted to leave Amazon, or had to, we would pretty much have to leave the country the next day.  Previously, if he had been working in Seattle, they would have started the process of getting a green card for him, giving us a lot more freedom.  But now, frankly, it’s beginning to feel a bit like they may not want us.

Then there’s the question of whether we want them.  Out of all the options, is is the best place to raise children right now?  I don’t know.  No country is perfect.  There’s racism everywhere, there’s poverty everywhere, there’s injustice everywhere.  There’s stupidity everywhere.  I do see signs, though, that in all those regards and others, New Zealand is at least trying to head in the right direction.  So is Ireland.  But America?  I’m not so sure.  There would be opportunities there that the children don’t have here.  At the moment, though, it’s in the wait-and-see box.  We have told the children that they will definitely be here until the end of the next school year.  Amy will then sit her Junior Certificate, giving her something to show for a so-far fairly piecemeal secondary education. Beyond that?  Watch this space.

How’s school working out?

Broadly speaking, pretty well.  Cassia is about to finish Senior Infants, and she loves school and her teacher and all the things.  Apart from reading Astrosaurs books she certainly isn’t anywhere near the level she would have been if she’d stayed in New Zealand, but I’m not bothered.

Seeing the system from within has changed my perspective on children starting school at four.  As a teacher and a parent I was horrified by the way that children in Britain often start at four, and I see from the social media discussions that pop up from time to time that I’m not alone.  The reality, at least here, is a bit different than I imagined.

In Ireland all children start in September, at the beginning of the school year, and they can start aged four or five.  Most seem to be four.  They do look so tiny in their uniforms.  When Cassia joined the Junior Infants last April, aged five and a half, she was a great big bruiser beside most of them.  However, it’s not like putting a four-year-old into the school system that we’re used to.

For one thing the school day for the first two years ends early.  At our school it’s 8:50 – 1:30 for the Infants.  The school down the road finishes at 1:15.  So in length it’s really more like a kindy session.  That includes lunch time, so they could go home and fit in a nap if they wanted.  Cassia will be a week off seven before she has to do the full school day of 8:50 – 2:30.  And it’s definitely a kindy curriculum.  Cassia joined the class last year at the start of the final term of the year and they were still spending plenty of the day on developmental play – blocks, cars and dolls, like that.  Now, a year later, her homework in maths and literacy is still very much the ‘draw a line between two shapes that are the same’ type thing that she was doing in pre-school three years ago.

I can’t speak for the rest of Britain but I can say that in our experience, the wee ones are not really starting school at four.  They’re starting two years of pre-school that just happens to be in a school setting.  They’re playing, they’re painting, they’re growing endless sunflower and tomato seeds, and they’re certainly not being put under the pressure of spelling tests and reading levels that my first three children were.  Yes, Cassia could be writing more and doing more sophisticated maths. But she’s reading fluently and she’s happy and she’s allowed to stay young a little bit longer and all the rest will come.

Noah has had a rocky few weeks because he got a new teacher in February when she returned from maternity leave and she’s mean and shouty.  So would I be probably if I had a little baby and a full-time job.  He adored the previous one, who was kind and gentle and gave a group of them the harder maths work that he wanted, so the contrast isn’t helping.  After a good few evenings of tears and mornings of sore tummies I had a chat with the principal who said I was not the first parent to complain (far from it, was the impression I got) and he was taking it very seriously.  He told the teacher not to be mean and shouty and assured Noah that he’ll have a different teacher next year then we looked on the calendar and found that there’s only three weeks left, and we’re all okay again.

I think part of the problem for Noah was boredom.  When I buy their stationery at the start of the year it’s in the form of a workbook for each subject and separate ones for homework.  The books have set work for each week and the kids work their way through them over the course of the year.  They are bright and colourful and fun, but they do seem to operate on the assumption that every child will be at the same level and working at the same speed for the entire eight years of primary school.  When Noah got his new maths homework book in September and realised that he could already do all of it, and his spelling homework book with a year’s worth of activities to teach words he already knew, he got pretty upset.  We spoke to the teacher and she set up a maths group with a new book and all was well until she left.  They do other things in class as well as following the books, and some of it must be ability-grouped.  I will be going in to talk to the new teacher in September, though.  It does seem like his time is being wasted to some extent and I don’t blame him for being frustrated.

Apart from that we still love the primary school.  It is friendly and gentle and none of them have ever been made to feel that they’re not good enough.  If only Daniel could have had a primary school experience like this, how different his attitude to school and learning might be.

Daniel has finished his first year of high school.  The school system here is about thirty years out of date, by our standards.  It reminds me very much of how it was back in my day.  No technology or digital learning, three years’ work being measured in one set of all-or-nothing exams for Junior Certificate with no internal assessment, very limited optional subjects of the cooking/woodwork/art variety and none of the more modern graphic design/outdoor education/drama type classes offered at the college he would have gone to in New Zealand.  This won’t matter for the other three, who can thrive in that environment well enough, but it’s a backward step for Daniel.

Daniel’s in all these photos, if you squint, except for the middle one.  That’s his friends.  He was busy on the bouncy castle when that one was taken.

It is what it is, and he just has to manage.  The teachers are very responsive (apart from the English teacher who appears to be mostly asleep) and they do their best for him under extremely trying circumstances.  He was given a scribe for the end-of-year exams last week and he certainly felt that it was helpful.  Results will arrive in the mail eventually so we shall see.

Amy changed schools at Christmas.  Among the small pool of 25 or so girls in her year at the local school, she just didn’t find any that she had much in common with.  It’s in a socially disadvantaged area and she felt that most of the class time was wasted by behaviour problems.  So we put her in a convent.

Finding a new school wasn’t the easiest.  By the time we eliminated private and boys’ schools, it was clear that she’d have to travel out of the area and that she’d be lucky to find a space.  However, it all worked out.  It’s a long day with the bus ride, but she has bus buddies and, like all high schools, they finish at 1:00 every Wednesday which takes the pressure off a bit.  She now has friends and challenging work and it’s all much better.  It’s not really a convent these days.  It’s a 180-year-old Dominican Sisters college and they’re taught by teachers, not nuns.  It’s very multi-national and the religious education component is true religious education – learning about various different religions, philosophies and belief systems – rather than catechism.  The library is in the former chapel in the oldest part of the building and it’s this long narrow room with huge vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows, and it’s marvellous. So, all’s well that ends well.

 

And this is one of the things I love about Ireland.  Everything is old so there’s always a story.  Or at least a bunch of interesting photos.  These are all from the archives at Amy’s school:

 

How does Josh like the job, after all that?

Mostly fine.  Some days not so much, but that’s the nature of the beast.  Almost nobody there is Irish so if we have an Irish-person question I have to ask around the school gate.  They hired something like 600 people in Dublin last year, so he’s like an old-timer now.  The working conditions are fine and the people are nice.  They held a lovely Christmas market with free stuff for the families, and do occasional other social events.  Every two months or so he’s on call for a week and can be paged to fix things any time of the day or night, which is a bit like having a new baby – if you get a decent few hours’ sleep you’re really grateful – but it’s not usually too bad.  In the last year Josh has worked in London for a few days and in Seattle a couple of times, which is enough travel to be interesting but not difficult.  Worth coming all this way for?  Yes.

You don’t appear to have a job, so how do you fill in your time?

No, I don’t appear to have a job.  This is because a) I don’t have a working visa, b) I don’t really want one, and – mostly – c) with Cassia finishing school at 1:30 every day and with the ridiculous three-month school summer holidays, it’d be more trouble than it’s worth.  When September comes and Cassia’s occupied all the way to 2:30, I should probably look into it.  In the meantime, however, I do a fair bit of not much.

I do almost all the free stuff on offer at the primary school (although I did draw the line at flower-arranging): book club, yoga, card-making, bus trips.  I’m getting a bit disillusioned with yoga though, to tell the truth.  I got active-wear and everything and expected to become all thin and flexible in no time but – well – maybe I should ask for my money back on the active-wear because it just doesn’t appear to be working.  I’ve done it heaps of times, too.  At least, like, fifteen. Hmph.

I go to another book club at the local library, which is also my go-to for Irish person questions and for movie buddies for the Monday night programme at the local cinema.  (Or, in Irish: going to the fillums).

I go along to school for the various reading-with-the-Infants type programmes, and I go to the library, and I (grudgingly) keep the place vaguely sanitary.  I organise our various trips away, which can take a surprisingly long time, because six people is a lot for hotel rooms or airbnbs or rental cars.  It’s good fun though.  For every trip we do I get to spend about six times as long researching all the possibilities.  I can avoid many a boring household task by checking out every campsite in Donegal, or whatever has taken our fancy.  I have found treehouses in France and yurts in Scotland and glamping in Venice and hot pools in Iceland, and we haven’t got to them all yet, but if I’m willing to sacrifice enough vacuuming, there’s still time.

How bad is the weather really?

Not at all, in my opinion.  Winter is cold but we have the miracle of central heating which I just love.  Having warmth in the whole house instead of just the lounge?  Brilliant plan! And, at least in the time we’ve been here, cold hasn’t always come with rain.  When autumn came last year I was a bit worried about the kids getting wet and cold walking to school every day but it didn’t happen.  All through November and December and January they were fine.  It rained in the night often enough but always stopped by morning.  It wasn’t until February that they came home soaked a few times, and it wasn’t many.  In winter it’s dark by 4:30 but I enjoy it.  We turn on the lights and heating, maybe light the fire, have tea and send everyone to bed nice and early.  Excellent arrangement.

The summer is well and truly as warm as I need it to be.  I have no heat tolerance these days and the New Zealand summers had me completely wrecked.  May was gorgeous last year, and April and May this year have been lovely too.  My mother was here for six weeks through April and half of May and there was only one really wet day in that time.  Every other day we were able to be out and about  We even got sunburnt one day at the beach.

I can see why people like to do the traditional ‘sun holiday’ every summer – a week or two in Ibiza/Corfu/Majorca/Lanzarote – to get some real, dependable heat.  There are spectacular beaches here but I doubt the water ever gets, say, Mediterranean warm.  We’re going to Scotland this summer which I think will be much more to my taste.  There’s a tearoom in Perth where you can eat cake for charity and I’d rather do that than get a tan any day.

 

So that’s how it is.  Now you’re up-to-the-minute informed.  If anything changes, you’ll be the first to know.