To­mor­row is the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) in Trinidad and To­ba­go, one of the most piv­otal ex­ams in the ed­u­ca­tion­al jour­ney of stu­dents in this coun­try.

De­spite its im­por­tance, there has al­ways been an on­go­ing de­bate about whether the SEA is an ef­fec­tive way to mea­sure a stu­dent’s po­ten­tial and ca­pa­bil­i­ties, with crit­ics ar­gu­ing that it places too much pres­sure on young chil­dren.

For me per­son­al­ly, this mile­stone has spe­cial val­ue, as my youngest child will do the ex­am, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant tran­si­tion in her life.

As I watch her to­day, I feel the weight of time in ways that I nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ed. It is sur­re­al to think that the lit­tle girl who once clung to me for com­fort and se­cu­ri­ty is now step­ping in­to a new chap­ter, one that will grad­u­al­ly lead her to­ward in­de­pen­dence.

Watch­ing her grow up is both a joy­ful and a bit­ter­sweet ex­pe­ri­ence, as I re­alise how quick­ly the years are pass­ing by. It feels as though I blinked, and she went from be­ing a cu­ri­ous tod­dler to a young girl about to take a cru­cial ex­am.

As a work­ing moth­er, I of­ten find my­self stretched too thin. Life be­comes a bal­anc­ing act. Jug­gling the de­mands of a ca­reer, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of run­ning a house­hold, and the emo­tion­al toll of rais­ing chil­dren can leave lit­tle room for pause.

There are so many ear­ly morn­ings and late nights, and count­less mo­ments of try­ing to bal­ance work dead­lines and meet­ings with help­ing with home­work, mak­ing din­ner, or sim­ply spend­ing time with my chil­dren.

I some­times won­der where the time went. How did this lit­tle girl who once al­ways want­ed to hold my hand be­come this young pre­teen who is now prepar­ing to step in­to a new phase of her life? There is a cer­tain sad­ness that comes with this re­al­i­sa­tion.

Of course, I am proud of the per­son she is be­com­ing, but I can’t help but feel a sense of loss. The care­free days of her child­hood are slow­ly drift­ing away and as much as I look for­ward to the young woman she will be­come, I will al­ways long for the days when she would run to me for com­fort, when her world was small, and I was the cen­tre of it.

Soon, I will have to con­tend with the teenage years and all that may come with them. Un­pre­dictable moods and be­hav­iours, test­ing bound­aries while form­ing their own iden­ti­ties, not to men­tion is­sues like peer pres­sure, and the in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the SEA ex­am marks more than just an aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment; it sym­bol­is­es the grow­ing in­de­pen­dence of my daugh­ter, and, in a way, the last step of my jour­ney as a moth­er of young chil­dren.

My old­er chil­dren have al­ready gone through this process, and while I felt emo­tion­al then, this mo­ment feels dif­fer­ent. She is my youngest, the one I still see as my ba­by, and it is hard to let go of the role I have played in her dai­ly life for so long.

I have al­ways been aware that my time with my chil­dren is lim­it­ed. The de­mands of work of­ten mean that I would miss out on some of the small but im­por­tant mo­ments of their lives. But de­spite that, I have tried to be there for the mo­ments like these, when my child is on the verge of some­thing big. Watch­ing her pre­pare for the SEA ex­am, I am filled with pride, anx­i­ety, and love. This is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of ef­fort, not just on her part, but on mine as well.

In the qui­et mo­ments be­fore she goes to bed tonight, I will watch her as a lit­tle girl. I will kiss her good­night, and though words will not be enough to con­vey the depth of my feel­ings, I will wish her the best for to­mor­row and still hold on to the mem­o­ry of her as my lit­tle girl, even as she grows in­to the young woman she is des­tined to be.

To­mor­row, as she walks in­to that ex­am hall, I will be let­ting go in a way. And though it is hard, I know that it is all part of the jour­ney. The jour­ney of a par­ent who, de­spite all the chal­lenges, is grate­ful for every pre­cious mo­ment spent watch­ing their chil­dren grow.