Education is seen as an investment in ‘human capital’, and providing children with a good education is considered to be key to securing their future and their success in life. This article analyses how these discourses on education affect young people in the context of the dismantling of public services and growing social uncertainty. Surveys on youth in Slovenia in the late 1990s and 2000s indicate that children are exposed to the pressure of academic success very early in their lives. The article examines the symbolic meaning of academic achievement, the importance of school success in the educational path in post-socialist Slovenia, and its influence on teenagers’ self-understanding and identity construction. The analysis is based on short narratives written by secondary school students about their experiences with school (under-) achievement. The wider social context is clarified based on some research and statistical data. The analysis leads to the conclusion that striving for school success is a response to the neoliberal process of individualising responsibility, which is also reflected in ‘truths’ about the importance of early child care for later academic achievement—these ‘truths’ can be understood as normalising discourses, which have an important influence on the construction of the self and the parent-child relationship.