This. I never saw the point and never regretted it. I agree that it is entirely up to him.
I just don’t get anything out of ceremonies. I went to my HS graduation and felt indifferent. Didn’t go to undergrad graduation and didn’t miss it. I probably won’t go to graduation when I get out of this school either.
If he’s the kind of person who just doesn’t “get” ceremonies, he won’t regret it later.
My son and three of his friends were walking home one night and came upon a house on fire. They pulled five kids out of the burning house. Now the mayor and some other “big shots” want to give them some kind of a hero’s award. My son thinks it is really lame to waste his time just to get a piece of paper (his friends are pretty lame too that they don’t think this way). Should I make him go to this thing or let him stay home and play video games?
It’s not a major life trauma that I dwell on decades later. But it was boring, hot and depressing and I had a miserable time.
Didn’t come. Also, I stepped on the hem of my robe and ripped it, and had to sew it up afterwards.
Okay, now you’re just mocking me.
They gave me an award, you know. For unspecified achievement. Except that they hadn’t gotten around to engraving it, so they gave me a blank plaque and told me to go get it engraved myself.
But it was a nice thought.
I’ve spent happier periods of time sitting in traffic.
Look, I’m not suggesting that my experience was typical, nor that everyone should skip their high school graduation lest it turn out like mine. I’m just saying that I had a pretty rotten time at mine and would prefer not to have gone.
I marched for both high school and college graduations. The high school one meant something to me at the time, although now I look back and realize… meh. Doesn’t even stand out in my memory as anything particularly noteworthy.
What does stand out is I didn’t want a graduation party. What I wanted to do was go to everyone else’s graduation parties. My parents threw me one anyway and I was stuck at home all afternoon, greeting relatives. Which was fine, I guess. Until I got to college graduation four years later.
For college, I marched, but only because my parents had all three made the three-hour trek to my campus to see it. My friends had all gotten tickets to a Grateful Dead show up the road, which was being held the same day, so I wanted to go drop acid with my friends. Instead, I stayed in town, hosted the 'rents, and marched for my stupid graduation. I seriously could not have cared one whit less. That said, I was seriously pissed off that my stepmonster had insisted upon a high school graduation party (to which my mother was not invited), but there wasn’t even a gift for college graduation, nevermind a celebration of any sort. After the graduation, we all went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then they all went home. I stayed around for a couple days to pack my stuff.
To my thinking, anyone could graduate from high school, but it required considerably more effort, expense, and commitment to get through college. I thought the emphasis for celebration should be on the first kid in your family (the youngest of seven between his kids and hers) who not only went to college, but got through all four years and graduated on time, with little support of any kind. Some of my college classmates got cars and things for graduation. I didn’t get jack squat. But I had a high school graduation party, with a homemade cake, which was my gift from my parents.
So what I resent is my parents not recognizing or acknowledging what to me was the real accomplishment. To them, the important thing was watching me march across the stage, shake some dude’s hand, and be handed a piece of paper that said, “When we’re sure all your outstanding bills are paid, we will mail your diploma/degree.” To me, the important thing was, I was the first kid out of seven to get all the way through college and graduate.
So ask your kid what’s important* to him* and emphasize that, whatever it is.
I didn’t partake in the ceremonies for my undergrad and grad.
I’m going to be perfectly honest. All I wanted was that damn piece of paper that said “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Really not my intent. Honestly I don’t remember much about either time I went to the ceremonies, and they didn’t mean much to me at the time. But I did it each time because that is what is expected of people in normal society. Plus, even though every person in my family was a high school grad, and a college grad, I knew that there were many other of my friends where that wasn’t the case. Who was I to say that this was just a normal thing and why should you make a big deal of it. Sorry, but I didn’t feel like crushing my other class mates’ feelings of accomplishment because I thought it wasn’t a big enough of a deal to waste an hour or two of my time on.
Probably, so what? What the hell is it with you and Spud that you can’t accept that some people didn’t like their time in high school and didn’t want to bother with commencement? You moan about how we’re “clinging” on to “teen angst” yet you two are the ones harping on the subject in this thread.
seriously, what is it to you?
Social norms?
what is it to YOU?
You were going to crush your classmates’ feelings of accomplishment by not going to your own graduation?
Ha. I like it.
I didn’t attend my college graduation. But only because I was already working in my field at the time and didn’t want to burn a personal or vacation day to do it.
I would have otherwise, but it wasn’t that big of deal either way.
Please don’t make him walk if he doesn’t want to. I can’t see what’s to be gained from forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to do that serves no benefit. This isn’t like making him eat his vegetables or anything. Walking to stage is pointless, and people only do it for the sense of satisfaction they get out of it. If he derives no pleasure from this process, don’t make him do it. Walking to stage isn’t some life-altering event that people care about years later. I couldn’t care less about walking the stage at any of my graduations. I skipped half of my ceremonies, and meh. It’s really no big deal. Forcing him to participate is just mean.
Um… someone asked a question in a forum asking for opinions. You have stated yours… I have stated mine. What is your issue?
No matter what else happens, at least I’m not the one losing my shit in this thread.
What it is to me is that I’m a teacher. I spent better than twenty years teaching high school. Graduation is something that means a lot tomany, if not most, students and to a supermajority of parents and grandparents. In those 20+ years I’ve seen a lot of self-pitying little shits drag their whiny little asses sullenly through the practices and ceremonies. Never yet heard a reason for it out of one of them that didn’t amount to one more heap of angsty teen bullshit.
We have a lot of Dopers still wallowing in teen angst decades after the fact. Don’t believe me? Check out a few of our many threads on bullying.
Maybe it’s from too many years of working with teens, but I have don’t have it in me to do much these days except say “put on the fucking cap and gown and walk across the stage so your parents and grandparents can be happy for you; I don’t give a shit if you are happy during the next 90 minutes. Then go out the door, make life for yourself, and forget you were ever here.”
If that answer doesn’t suit you, TFB.
For the record, I enjoyed my time in high school. It was fun and easy, and I had a ton of friends. That didn’t make the graduation ceremony significant to me.
My ceremony wasn’t significant to me either. But there were kids there for whom it was. If I were to say it was no big deal it takes the wind out of their sails… that is the point I’m trying to make here. It isn’t all about me.
Honestly, it kinda sounds like you’re saying that your presence is vital to other people. In other words, even their celebrations are all about you.
Uh…no. If you say it wasn’t a big deal to YOU, then you aren’t making any statement about anyone else’s experience. Only when you don’t include “to YOU” do you sound like you’re taking the wind out of anyone’s sails.
Some people are into pageantry. They want the big wedding and they want the solid gold casket. Some people couldn’t care less. It takes both kinds to make the world go 'round.
I’m in the camp that says that unless school was an emotional traumatic experience, then it’s not a big deal to coax a youngster to march for the sake of the parents and grandparents that supported them. But only for high school and only if it’s the life dream’s of the parents and grandparents. Outside of that, then it doesn’t make sense to guilt anyone to go. If the kid regrets it later, well, too bad, so sad. It’s just one more regret to add to the pile of 'em.
Bold text != losing my shit, but if it makes you feel better to think so, I can’t stop you.
So? Good for them. I’ve made it clear in this thread that I am only speaking for myself. You wanting to speak on others’ behalf is your own problem.
I’m not the one telling people I’ve never met what they should do. Being a teacher doesn’t make you an authority on this.