I live in Ohio, where parents throw a party for their graduating high school senior. I get invited to these parties even when I have never met the senior. I really really hate it.
I was wondering, is the a custom all over the country? I went to high school mainly in Maryland, but we moved to Texas my senior year. There was no point in having a party because we didn’t know that many people. But I never even heard of these parties until I moved here to Ohio.
One time I was invited to one, and another invitee said, “How do you wrap up a slap in the face?” Because that girl was so incredibly ungrateful and snotty to her mother for years, all we wanted to do was slap her.
They seem the norm in Michigan. Generally what we’ve done for our graduating children is invite all the relatives and a few of the neighbors. The kids will invite their friends by word of mouth. For inviting relatives, I go by the “walk in the door” test. If I wouldn’t know them if they walked in the door, I don’t invite them.
I threw a joint high school graduation party with a friend and we invited all of our friends and some family. It was meant to be in honor of our friends that were graduating, too. At the end of my freshman year of college I went to a high school graduation party of someone a year younger with whom I was friends, and again the year after that. These people were all friends though, it wasn’t an “invite the whole community” type of thing.
The parties weren’t a big deal. Have the guests at your house, totally casual, dinner is a 6 foot hero or something, and not everyone brings gifts. Are the parties you’re talking about fancier affairs?
It’s common here. They are usually structured like open houses, with hours on the invite card and people come and go as they please. Often it is at a park or someone’s backyard. Usually pretty casual, set up as a picnic or BBQ. Close friends and family often bring a small gift or cash, most everyone brings a card of congrats.
It does get a little ridiculous sometimes because everyone is having them at the same time and you can end up going to 3 or 4 every weekend in late May / early June. I remember our graduating class basically all invited each other and it was impossible to get to all of them.
I don’t remember many graduation parties from when I graduated in 1975. I know that we kids had a party (with spiked punch!) in a friend’s basement, but I really can’t remember many others. Maybe I just didn’t get invited! There was so much going on with prom and graduation and after-grad parties that family parties seemed a bit redundant, except to score gifts from aunts and uncles and grandparents who couldn’t attend graduation because we each got only 2-4 tickets per graduate.
I went to the above-mentioned grad party a bit late, and it seemed like it was pretty much adults only…all the kids were off to other parties! And now daughter #2 is graduating, and she deserves the same slap for making her parents’ lives so difficult the last two years. Sometimes I’m a bit glad my two children never finished high school. I saved so much money…no senior pictures, no prom, no college tuition, no financial assistance headaches, no senior activities fees. I had the same difficult, stress-filled years, but at a much lower dollar amount! And now I have really great relationships with my two. Of course, they have no jobs, no plans, no direction…but you can’t have everything.
If my kids ever graduate from anything, there will be a party. A really big party. With balloons. Because that would be a real reason to celebrate. And I’d want Lillith Fair to be there for me, not for my kids!
I had to endure many, many of them growing up in Michigan. It’s pretty much a spring ritual where I’m from (the Upper Peninsula). The irritating part of being drug to them was they usually weren’t aimed at the kids–it was so the adults could socialize. The kids would usually make an appearance and bug out for the real party elsewhere. Since they were usually parties where I didn’t know the anybody well (usually friends of my parents), I’d be stuck in a corner somewhere for several hours until my parents decided to leave. Fun!