Yet the consequences of parenting are serious. Children and adults alike, are shaped in profound ways by those who guide and care for them.    Leadership, character and wellbeing are influenced by early parenting experiences. Governments recognise this impact, shaping parenting through policy and stepping in when support or intervention is needed.

It makes sense to help parents thrive, and to muster parenting expertise in ways that help our own children and communities. To this end, the MGGS Parents’ Association (PA) works closely with our School to support parents, build community, help parents engage, and help our children thrive.

The PA helps parents engage with our lovely school community. It exists to help all parents and families become an integral part of the School, build the community that makes MGGS a special place, and create opportunities for parents to thrive and contribute. The PA runs on generous volunteering, on community spirit, and on fun. Each year, dozens of parents run the PA and its uniform swap shop, support year-level meetups, and convene art exhibitions, boarder meet-ups, celebrations for fathers and mothers, as well as STEM and sports events.

"Approaches to parenting are ever evolving. What remains stable is our MGGS community."

Interactions with our diverse and committed parents have led me to reflect on the current state of public parenting, at least as I see it. The world seems filled with young people who have gone well beyond traditional forms of excellence to define their own distinguishing forms of success. By the time they grasp for whatever lies beyond school, many students have already excelled academically and in sport. Increasingly, we are also seeing students forging ahead as burgeoning entrepreneurs growing alongside emerging politicians and business leaders.

It is both an impressive situation and one that can be daunting as a parent. High-performance parenting seems all the go – the quest to leverage every moment to edge our children forward. So too do high-performance childhoods.  

If the 2010s were the era of ‘tiger parents’ (虎父母), the 2020s feel like a decade of ‘executive children’. Holidays, once spent flicking marbles in the laneway and eating pizza by the pool may now involve entrepreneurial endeavours, strategizing for grades, or networking. It may be that children are responding to digitalisation, globalisation, changing careers, or broader economic shifts. Whatever the reasons, keeping up with young people’s diaries, and servicing their contributions and requirements, is demanding.

Recently, I did a little gimmick parenting and stuck a printout of a positive personality word list above the dining table. I thought we could point to it to deflect squabbles, to stuff more adjectives into our toolkit, and at random moments to uplift everyday moods. We have made reasonably good value of this A3 sheet, especially compared with the rest of the bland ceiling. My daughters asked why I did not print it in Chinese or French to compound the derivative virtue!

Parenting is diverse, and fads – including ‘executive children’ – will come and go. There are things which tend to be good, things which are evidently bad, but also much in-between. Engaging with other parents and families often helps us to see new and different ways of parenting and sometimes causes us to wince when we see our own parenting foibles reflected in others. Formal parenting guidance abounds, lots of which is well-informed and sometimes useful, but it tends to be far away from most people’s daily lives.

We want to help parents to enable playful, creative and relaxing experiences that are just as important to their daughters’ abilities to thrive. Chatting by a river with other parents is a lovely thing to do, and essential if young rowers are to have the supportive community they need to excel. In the flux of busy life, catching up with other parents over lunch is fun. Encouraging our daughters into science and technology happens through the curriculum and is richly augmented by drawing on parents’ leading expertise. Art events take creative learning outside the classroom and campus, into our community.  All these diverse events and approaches are part of supporting a rich and close school community.

Approaches to parenting are ever evolving. What remains stable is our MGGS community. Getting into the sandpit, the canteen, or the Art room for the first time can be a bit scary, especially for parents. The MGGS PA is here to create opportunities for parents to engage, especially given the nature of our community, which draws from highly diverse and often very busy families spread across Melbourne. Like any organisation, the PA is only as good as the energy invested in it. We encourage all parents to reach out and get involved.