The December Lie: What Every Matric Parent Needs to Hear

My daughter wrote matric in 2020. During a pandemic. With masks and sanitizer and the constant fear that exams might be cancelled.

My son wrote matric in 2023. "Back to normal," everyone said. "At least it's not during COVID," they said.

(Spoiler: There is no "at least" when it comes to matric December. There's just different flavors of impossible.)

I'm writing this now, in November 2025, because if your child is writing finals right now, or if you're about to enter that special December waiting room, you need to know something: It doesn't get easier. But you're not imagining how hard this is.

The 2020 Version: Pandemic Edition

Five years later, I can still feel that December. We weren't just waiting for results. We were processing trauma. The year that was supposed to be special—matric dances, forty days, last hockey matches—became WhatsApp PDFs and masks during Physical Science papers.

December 23rd, 2020. She finally broke down. Ugly crying. The kind where words come out in gasps: "What if I failed because I couldn't learn properly? What if nothing matters because everything is broken anyway?"

You know what I did? We stood in the garden at 10 PM and screamed. Just... screamed.

(The neighbors definitely thought we'd lost it. We had, a little.)

The 2023 Version: "Normal" Edition

Three years later, my son's matric year. I thought—genuinely thought—it would be easier. Schools were fully operational. No masks. No lockdowns. Normal teaching. Normal exams.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: "Normal" matric is still insane.

December 2023 hit different, but just as hard. While my daughter had grieved lost milestones, my son was drowning in TOO MANY milestones. Every teacher trying to make up for the COVID years. Every event bigger, more intense, like they were compensating for 2020.

The pressure wasn't about surviving anymore. It was about excelling in this supposedly "normal" year where everyone expected pre-2020 results with post-2020 anxiety levels.

One night that December, my son said, "At least my sister had an excuse if things went badly."

That's when I realized—the pandemic kids had the world's understanding. The 2023 kids? They were expected to be fine. To perform. To be grateful things were "back to normal."

(Normal. As if any of us remember what that means.)

The 2025 Version: Here We Go Again

And now? Now it's November 2025, and I'm watching my friends and clients go through it with their kids. New challenges this time—AI anxiety ("What if they think I used ChatGPT?"), load-shedding that's somehow worse, a job market that makes 2020 look stable.

Every year, parents think, "At least it's not [insert previous year's crisis]."

Every year, they're wrong.

Because here's what I've learned: Matric December is its own special kind of impossible, regardless of the year.

The Universal December Truth

Whether it was 2020, 2023, or right now in 2025, here's what every matric December actually looks like:

Week 1: The Crash The adrenaline stops. Kids sleep 16 hours or 2 hours. Both are normal. You find yourself standing in Woolworths at 10 AM on a Tuesday, forgetting why you're there, holding a basket full of things you don't need.

Week 2-3: The Pretending Family gatherings where everyone asks THE question. You develop a glazed smile. Your child develops selective hearing. You both pretend the Christmas tree means something.

Week 4: The Breaking Point This is when someone—usually you—loses it over something tiny. Runny eggs. Wrong wrapping paper. The way someone breathes.

My 2020 breakdown: Screaming in the garden. My 2023 breakdown: Crying in the garage because the Christmas lights were tangled and somehow that represented everything wrong with the universe.

(Same breakdown. Different location. The universe remains unimpressed.)

What Current Matric Parents Need to Know

If you're heading into December 2025 right now, here's what five years and two matric experiences taught me:

Your Specific Stress Is Valid Whether you're dealing with load-shedding during study time, or AI paranoia, or university applications that now require video submissions (really?), or the economy, or just the regular impossibility of Grade 12—your version is hard. Full stop.

The Waiting Is The Worst Part During exams, at least you're doing something. December is just... floating. With tinsel. And relatives who mean well but make everything worse.

Comparison Is Poison Every other family looks like they're handling it better. They're not. I promise. I've been through this twice and I'm a therapist, and I still had breakdown moments both times.

The Results Won't Define Everything My daughter from the pandemic year? Working, thriving, barely remembers the specifics of that December anxiety. My son from the "normal" year? Two years into university, doing something completely different from what we planned that December.

Neither of their December anxieties predicted their futures.

The Permission Slip You Need

Here's what I wish someone had told me both times, and what I'm telling you now:

• It's okay if December 2025 is weird and hard

• It's okay to hate the festive season this year

• It's okay to cry in strange places (gardens, garages, Woolworths)

• It's okay if your child is not okay

• It's okay if you're not okay

• It's okay to just survive until January

For Those Who've Been Through It

If you're reading this and remembering your own matric December—2020, 2023, any year—you know. You know the specific weight of those weeks. The way January 5th (or whenever results dropped) felt both too soon and impossibly far away.

We carry those Decembers with us, don't we? Little trauma ornaments on our mental Christmas trees.

(And if you're like me, watching friends go through it now brings it all back. That's normal too.)

For Those About to Enter It

Your child might sleep too much. Or not at all. They might be angry. Or numb. Or cycling through emotions faster than load-shedding schedules.

You might find yourself rage-cleaning. Or paralyzed. Or baking enough to feed the neighborhood. Or unable to remember how to make toast.

All of it—ALL of it—is normal.

The Truth That Helps

Five years after my daughter's pandemic matric, two years after my son's "normal" matric, here's what I know:

December ends. Results come. Life continues. Paths reveal themselves.

And that impossible December? It becomes a story. A "remember when" that you'll tell differently as time passes. The sharp edges soften. The funny moments get funnier. The screaming in the garden becomes family legend.

But right now, if you're about to enter December 2025, just know this: Every parent who's been through matric December sees you. We remember. We know.

And sometime, maybe at 2 AM when you're googling "is it normal to want to run away during matric results wait," know that somewhere, another parent is googling the same thing.

(It is normal, by the way. Completely, absolutely, universally normal.)

The 2025 Reality Check

You know what's different about this year? You have us—the parents who've been through it. The 2020 pandemic parents. The 2023 "normal" parents. We're all here, proof that you survive this.

Not gracefully. Not without scars. But you survive it.

And in a few years, you'll be writing your own version of this, telling the 2028 parents that their specific version of impossible is valid too.

P.S. - To my kids: Thank you for surviving those Decembers with me. Also, sorry about the banana bread (2020) and the rage-wrapped presents (2023). But mostly, thank you for teaching me that we can do impossible things. Even if we do them messily, anxiously, and with occasional garden screaming.

P.P.S. - To the parents entering December 2025: January will come. The results will arrive. And whatever they are, there's always a next step. Always another path. Even when December makes it impossible to see.