Go to your child's pre K graduation or your SO's Master's degree graduation?

In My Humble Opinion
121

What? Sixteen is old enough to live alone, get married or join the army, and you think a 16 year old can’t spend one day at home on their own? If the teen just got dumped or something and is upset then sure, cancel the date, but not just because their plans fell through.

When I was 16 I was allowed to spend the day at home alone while my mum was working, and it was awesome.

You’re assuming the kid’s parents were in a serious relationship. For all we know, they were just dating and the pregnancy was an accident.

But it does happen. Last year a couple moved into a house down the road from us, and the guy had a 4 year old son from a previous marriage. Seems they split up pretty soon after the kid was born.

You’re ignoring the fact that with shared custody, the other parent will have the kids for some percentage of the time, which gives at least one of them time for dating. Whether it’s advisable with a young child is another question. I have to agree with this:

These studies are mostly going to be looking at kids raised from birth by their own parents who stayed together. Getting that kind of committment from a step-parent does happen, but it’s not common and should not be assumed. And parents’ partners are far more likely to abuse kids than the kids’ own parents are.

I was going to say this. I attended my daughter’s nursery events, and we both went to her ‘graduation’. She isn’t going to remember any of this when she grows up, but she would have been very upset if all the other kids’ parents were there and we weren’t.

I don’t know what I’d do in this situation, it depends on the seriousness of the relationship and how important the events were to the respective participants. Presumably the kid’s mother will be at the graduation, so they won’t be completely alone. Asking another relative to attend seems like a good idea to make them feel supported. And yes, talk about it to them in advance if you’re not going to be there.

122

Why would a child have been there without their parents? Did they walk there on their own? Even in some scenario where they got dropped off by someone else, surely their parents would have explained why they couldn’t make it so [other person] was taking them.

If these places are making such a huge deal about some minor event that the kid is going to bear psychic scars if mom and dad don’t show up, that’s a failure on the organization. There’s tons of reasons why someone might not be able to attend besides “girlfriend’s graduation”.

I doubt the kid wants to attend a university graduation event. And “other priority” might be a job or something else where it would be inappropriate to include the child. I’d say that, if this is important to the child, you offer to celebrate it in some other way and make sure to stick to it.

123

Now, where it could actually be an issue would be if the choice were between one graduation and another, instead of a graduation and a complete nonevent: Say, the SO’s master’s and the child’s high school. On the one hand, that’d be a significantly harder question. On the other hand, it’d also mean that all parties involved are old enough to have a mature discussion about it beforehand, as a family.

124

It’s celebrating a transition from preschool to formal school. Preschool is the child’s life for a significant portion of their lifespan up to that point. It can be important to the kid because their life is undergoing a change.

It’s similar to a birthday party, except it’s a group transition instead of an individual one. I assume no one here is against birthday parties. Would we be even having this discussion if the choice were between a four-year-old’s birthday celebration vs post-grad graduation?

I don’t like the attitude that one has to earn celebrations. Life is worth celebrating for itself, even if you’re not winning.

125

You mean, participation parties? Fuck that, you don’t get a party just for surviving an extra year. /s

126

Yeah, the idea that 4 is some sort of age where all your bandwidth is required as a parent to the degree that you can’t live for yourself is just utter nonsense to me. I mean, every child is different, but my kids, now 9 and 11, were easiest at about 4-7. Hell, my youngest was 4 during Covid, and I literally did not know half the time if she was in my house or the neighbor’s house playing (we had an open door policy with the neighbor who had a kid roughly their age.) I’ve always encouraged that kind of independence. I show them I love them often enough, but the whole of my time is not spent showing them my love and interacting with them. They’re my kids, but I also need time and energy for myself to take care of them. Were I in the dating pool at the time, I would not find it that difficult to juggle. I grew up not being helicoptered or my parents even taking much of an interest in anything I did because they were busy working, and I still felt loved and still love them very much.

127

I find the absolutist opinions exhausting. Not everything needs a judgment from on high.

Me, I managed to attend both my SO’s master’s degree graduation and my child’s pre K graduation, using a clever strategy that I recommend: I married my SO a year after the master’s graduation, and we attended our child’s pre-K graduation about fifteen years later. Both attendances inform my perspective, alongside the experience of being a parent and of being the child of divorced parents who essentially single-parented me through my adolescence.

The master’s graduation was a major milestone. My then-girlfriend had been working toward this achievement as long as I’d known her. Following the ceremony, she’d move into a different stage of life: for the first time, she’d have no school in front of her. She’d move to a new city and start looking for a career. And we’d start talking more seriously about marriage.

The pre-K graduation? I mean, it was cute. The kids more or less sang songs, and wore cute little outfits, and mostly seemed confused at why everyone was staring at them. If they’d gotten the choice to stay at the ceremony or go play on the playground, 90%+ of them, including my daughter, would’ve run out to the playground. I almost wish they’d been putting on, I dunno, a Star Wars play instead: then we adults wouldn’t have had to pretend that what we were attending was real, instead of play-acting.

The master’s graduation was way, way more significant to me and to my family–even though at that point we weren’t hitched. The pre-K graduation was just another evening obligation, less significant to family cohesion and love than nightly dinner.

Different kids, different SOs, different outcomes. But if I had to go back in time and cancel one of those two obligations, no question I’d cancel the pre-K graduation. It just didn’t matter in the same way.

NOte that in a few minutes I’ll be attending the fifth grade “moving up” ceremony (I’m glad they’re not calling it “graduation”), and I’ll probably get a little teary: these are kids I’ve worked with for 3-6 years, and this’ll be the last time I ever see some of them, and there are some magnificent people in that bunch. I’m not opposed to this sort of milestone for kids.

But the particulars of my own experiences with the two ceremonies from the OP clearly favor one above the other.

128

Our resident Millionaire has hit it on the head. If they broke up over this, that means SO is making the guy choose. If SO is making the guy choose today, what happens tomorrow, when it’s a different kids event that she doesn’t want to feel subordinate to?

Is that another special event that Mom attends while Dad does stuff with his girlfriend? How many times can Dad skip things to be with his girlfriend before the kid realizes she’s not important?

Thing is, I can support going to the SOs event instead, but not if it’s a demand, that’s the red flag.

129

Sure, but not all celebrations are equal.

Well, if it was my kid’s birthday party I’d schedule it for a better day/time and then there wouldn’t be a conflict. If I wasn’t able to, I’d tell the kid and make clear (and stick to it) that we’ll celebrate in some other fashion on another day. People celebrate birthdays on their not-birthday all the time. You don’t throw your kid a huge bash on a Tuesday night generally – they have it earlier or wait until Saturday. Same thing here.

When my younger kid finished his year of pre-K, they had an afternoon picnic at the school with some various games and little plastic medals. It was a “Come when you’re able if you’re able” type event. The idea of making these things huge milestone events for the kids feels almost manipulative. You could tell some four year olds that tomorrow is Throw Your Shoe At A Tree Day and get them all excited then crushed when they don’t get to participate – because they’re four years old. Set up the event but let the parents decide how hard they want to hype it to the kids, which will probably be determined in large part on whether or not they can all attend.

130

But this is a situation where you have an ex-spouse who’s also making decisions for your child. Stipulate that your ex is an asshole for scheduling your kid’s birthday party at the exact same time your current partner is graduating.

131

Right, that was my next sentence

If I wasn’t able to, I’d tell the kid and make clear (and stick to it) that we’ll celebrate in some other fashion on another day. People celebrate birthdays on their not-birthday all the time. You don’t throw your kid a huge bash on a Tuesday night generally – they have it earlier or wait until Saturday. Same thing here.

132

I haven’t read the whole thread, so I don’t know if it’s been suggested:

The day before the graduations, ask the kid’s teachers for their “diploma”.
Take the kid to the SO’s ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, ask permission to go onstage, and then give the child their diploma, just like the grownups got theirs. Everyone will think it’s adorable, and the kid will love the attention.
Problem solved.

133

Instead, I agree with this:

Sure. And while we are at it, let’s have a party when the kid transitions out of diapers. Or sleeps through the night. …

As far as birthday parties go, I will not object to certain types of birthday parties - with the immediate family, or a few friends. But if you are going to suggest the “invite the entire class for a blowout at the roller rink/amusement park”, or “invite a bunch of adults who bring more gifts than any household needs,” yeah. I’ll be against them! :wink:

Life is full of milestones/transitions. The vast majority of them are pretty minor and of very limited interest - even to the folk most immediately involved. The idea that a “celebration” ought to be made out of someone simply achieving the bare minimum - not failing pre-K (if that is, in fact, possible) - is something I do not understand. I think it contributes to what I perceive as a modern trend of convincing each kid that they are truly exceptional and worthy of praise for not really doing anything special.

Of course, if you want to simply seize on any excuse for a party… But I tend to not be a big fan of most parties.

134

Of course.

Exactly so.

There are three debates here.

  1. Pre-K “graduation” as an “event”. IMHO it simply isn’t. Open House is a much bigger deal. A school group sing is. And in today’s world with many single working parents and two working parent households creating silly events is evil. My wife and I were fortunate enough to have control over our work schedules but many people not so much so. Stay at home parents come to all these faux events. Working parents have to pick and choose which ones to attend. Attending one of the never ending parade of child events is not the measure of being loved or cared about. Specific to @DemonTree - I never competed with my kids’s friend’s parents. They parented how they chose to for the circumstances they were in and we did us.

  2. How much does it matter to the kid? To them feeling loved and important? If attending a performative faux event like this is a major share of the deposits you’ve made into the bank of love and attention to your preschooler then you have a problem. Again IMHO. And personally I would never want my kids to have gotten the message that they are the only thing that matters in my world.

  3. A contention that a single parent shouldn’t date, let alone develop other serious relationships. What a strange position! It seems to me like a pathological approach to parenting. A bit of advice I do give to new parents is that you can’t take of your kid if you don’t take care of yourself. An adult human is entitled to adult companionship and romance. Sacrificing that in a distorted belief that parenting requires it will, in my strongly held opinion, make you a worse parent, and make your child worse off. 100% agree that introducing a rotating cast of people as parent figures is to be avoided. And there are many ways to avoid that and date, including serious relationships.

135

Yes. That’s exactly what I meant. Obviously in an emergency situation you should go for ice cream instead.

136

My response would depend on the particulars: am I a single parent to the kid? Or am I still with their other parent and the adult graduate is another member of our polycule? Or is the Master really a Mistress and I’m skipping preK grad on the sly to cheer my sidepiece? Or is it the divorced parent scenario most of y’all are going with?

137

I definitely feel that way, although I know some families have different structures. For some folks, rituals are key, and a ritual like this is a big way to show love. For me, big rituals are much less important than small rituals. I read to my kids every night until they were in middle school (and beyond, but eventually they wanted to read silently instead), and we eat dinner together almost every night, and we do a ton of smaller things together that matter tremendously.

When it comes to it, the masters graduation IS a big stinkin’ deal to me, whereas the pre-K graduation is a bunch of confused kids sitting and mumbling words to songs they don’t really get.

138

Really good post, man.

139

I agree. To me, the question is not “which graduation is more important?” but “which graduation is the least pointless and stupid?” and they seem to be tied.

I definitely skipped my own master’s degree graduation.

140

It’s a pain for sure. School is still designed around the idea one parent will be at home, and that’s not the reality for most families.

I’m lucky enough to work from home so I was and am able to attend most of them, and my husband went to the others.

Having a nursery graduation is ridiculous IMO, another silly import from America. They didn’t make a huge deal of it, but everything is exciting to kids that age, and they don’t really understand you can’t always get away.

I don’t think it’s going to scar the kid if you can’t be there, but most are going to be upset.

I wasn’t talking about competing with other parents, but that is also a difficult question. I don’t want my daughter to feel left out - she’s already struggling with making friends. Other parents set the standards of what’s normal and expected, and you can’t ignore that completely. It’s all so different to how I grew up, though.