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On our way back from tuition on the eve of his mocks, our lad declares, “I don’t need GCSES. I’m getting an iPhone anyway.”

The promise of a shiny smartphone was supposed to serve as motivation, to give him something to aim for. This worked for his sister, as the promise of a HiFi or PC did in our day. But the notion of reward seems lost on our lad, in a world where possession of these high value items is simply the norm.

“We could’ve bought ten new iPhones for what we’ve spent on tuition,” says his mum, “but it’s not about that. We’re trying to help you succeed, so you can get into a good college to do your A-Levels.”

Unhelpfully, this is where his sister decides to impart her wisdom about our old fashioned mindset. “You know, he doesn’t have to do A-Levels. Most of the people at my college are doing building apprenticeships. There are lots of routes into a career these days.”

It’s not that I don’t agree with her. I’ve pondered on that much myself. If he works hard, it’s true, he could make a better living as an electrician than as an IT professional. But hard is the operative word, a concept in short supply. No, but our daughter hasn’t finished yet.

“Most electricians and plumbers earn more than dad,” she says.

“Even a gardener earns more than dad,” laughs our lad from behind me, reassured that whatever hopeless path he pursues, everything he wants will be within easy reach.

That, after all, is the appearance all around us, evidenced by the nice cars and expensive gadgets everyone else owns. Another operative word. It’s true that I collect a public sector salary, presumed to be on the low side, but whatever we possess we actually own.

No car financing. No mortgage. No monthly subscription. The cost of us not sporting the executive car or fashionable tech is debt-free financial independence. What others might spend on a luxury marque, I’m saving up to put the kids through university.

This is where I could talk about my actual experience over the past twenty-four years trying to make a living. But I have to be careful about what I say here, because too much “I’m a failure” will only be used against me. And for a reluctant learner — much as I was — it might just give the wrong impression.

I’d like to tell them about the difficult years when I couldn’t get a proper job, in those early days of marriage. But that would open up too many questions, too delicate to discuss just now. So instead we must just adopt the responsible parent personas, appealing to the ease offered by a reliable, consistent salary, in the face of extortionate property prices, high rents, and volatile living costs.

But right now, our lad just sees GCSEs as something we’re doing to him. Something we’re forcing him to do against his will, when all he really wants to do is hang with his friends and play computer games. Notions of a future somewhere out there just doesn’t make any sense to him right now.

But then it didn’t mean much to me, at his age. This is all just hindsight talking, after a quarter of a century faced by reality. Alas, the wisdom we seek to impart can only be learned by experience. Perhaps it will only become real to him when he has a fifteen year-old of his own raging against his interference in his affairs, protesting that he doesn’t need to study either.

Ultimately, we will all back off. We will do what we can, but in the end these are his choices, just as they were mine before him. In the end, we all just have to learn from our own mistakes.