Few kids have significant memories prior to the age of 5. All of that is beside the point of going to celebrate the thing you’re most happy to celebrate (or do something else because legacy educational certificates are a joke).
In order not to offend either the kid or the SO, I would skip them both and go to the ballgame.
Minor league baseball games can be a lot of fun. Love the silly games to engage fans. Sounds like a perfect day bring them both! After preK graduation, and the cookies have been eaten, the koolaid has been spilled, take the kid with, cruise by the university pick up the GF and go to the game.
The custodial parent gets a break, and the GF gets a taste of your family life. Kid has best day of his life. lol.
I’m coming to the party late – I had this mostly typed up two days ago but didn’t get it finished til now.
Yes. I’ve never even heard of pre-K graduation. Graduation means the completion of some level of schooling or academic program. Pre-K “graduation” is literally marking the end of not going to school. My kids did not have a pre-K or a Kindergarten graduation, and I’m very glad they didn’t. It’s beyond silly. I went to my kids’ elementary school graduation only because they wanted me to.
This is the answer for me, I think. Assuming that the relationship with the girlfriend is serious and long-standing enough. If I’m the only parent to my kid who would be attending the kid’s “graduation,” then I would not just skip it and have my kid be the only one without their parent there. So I would either make sure their other parent was attending, or take the kid with me to the Masters graduation.
If when they’re older, my kid winds up feeling hurt that I was not present for a meaningless made up milestone that they don’t even remember, then I have failed my kid in much much bigger ways since then.
You can do right by your kids in more ways than being in pictures with them. Modeling the importance of being there for others, being a loving partner, and valuing true academic achievement and hard work are some of those ways. I’m not interested in modeling for my kids that a parent should give their kids everything without regard to their own happiness. That’s not how I want to live, and not how I want them to live.
This. IMHO, graduations should not be a thing until Highschool. And I even despise those…
I never had to make such a choice, but I can say that I attended my daughter’s pre-K advancement ceremony and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t remember it as she approaches her 40th birthday.