OP: explain to your son that this may be the only chance he gets to wear a moo moo and a funny hat in public without being laughed at.
I am completely onboard with skipping graduation ceremonies. If my son didn’t want to bother I would be glad to skip sitting an auditorium for hours waiting to hear his name read out. My parents weren’t interested when I graduated, thank goodness.
But … when a young person tells me something is a “waste of time” my hackles immediately rise. Really? My son has spent weeks on World of Warcraft. If he tried to tell me that a couple of hours being sociable with relatives is a waste of his precious time then he would be mistaken, and immature.
He does like funny hats, although he never wears them outside the house. Maybe if I let him wear his bright yellow tie dye top hat he’ll want to walk across the stage.
QFT.
This is indeed true. I get this from students occasionally, so I ask them how much they think their time is worth.
I came in to see why this thread was three pages (!). It went in a really weird direction, I must say.
I hated my high school graduation but I was made to do it for my family. I hated my college graduation but I was made to do it for my family. Luckily I’m completely on my own right now and when I graduate with my MBA there is no way in hell I’m sitting through another graduation ceremony. They are absolutely pointless and the time would be better spend being punched in the face.
It really depends. After I graduated high school, I never looked back. I’ve seen about three of the people I graduated with in the last twenty years. I don’t go back to that town, and have no desire to do so. I walked and got a yearbook picture, but wouldn’t have been put out if I hadn’t. It has never been an issue in my life.
On the other hand, if your son plans (or holds out the possibility) to stay local, it wouldn’t hurt to take one day out of his life and go through the line. No sense burning bridges.
I post on an internet message board. Am I allowed to call anything a waste of my time?
You just did 
My high school graduation was kinda blah, but my college graduation was everything to me.
Let it be his choice.
You ain’t kiddin’. 
Give up. Just give up now. They don’t understand why we sometimes want what we want, passed on from some further past generational need. They’ve got other things going on.
***Forget what I just said. Make him cross that stage, kicking a too-long robe and dealing with an errant tassle. I guarantee you that the pic you get, that he initially makes fun of, will eventually become a treasure that he occasionally shows off. “Momma made me do it.”
And momma knows best.
You kidding me, mom? I finally earn a paper that says I don’t ever have to see these assholes again, and the first thing you make me do is see these assholes again?! No, thanks!
I skipped my homecoming, my prom, my school picnic, and yes, my graduation. I don’t regret a single one of those.