I’m returning to college, and am ambivalent about inviting my parents to my eventual graduation. This is because circumstances they (mostly my Dad) created in my life delayed me graduating 10 years ago, and I’d just assume not “reward” them when they held me back from graduating when I should have originally.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much now, since you’re a ways away from graduating. Some of these big decisions naturally morph into clarity when you get closer.
Also, do they pay or otherwise have material support for you to go to college this time around?
They were never financing my education, FWIW.
Graduation is a time to celebrate your achievement. You invite those with whom you wish to share that celebration. Doesn’t matter if you’re related to them or not.
I’d expand on Toucanna’s post to include just about any event you’re celebrating. If it’s a celebration for you or for some accomplishment you’ve made, then there’s no reason to invite people you don’t want to attend. Only one member of my family was invited to my wedding - I didn’t want the rest there, so they didn’t get an invite. I haven’t lost a moment’s sleep yet.
You might end up like me and not go to your college graduation yourself!
There’s no point worrying over it now, but when the time comes just invite those you want to celebrate with.
Are you *ever *going to stop blaming other people for your decisions? You are way too old to be sniveling about your daddy making you do anything. You’ve had 10 years to get off the computer and TV and get back to school. You have had so many threads complaining about how your family is holding you back, but the only one holding you back is yourself.
If your relationship with family is so poisoned as to make them not worth the effort, just cut them out of your life and save both yourself and your parents the effort of maintaining a relationship. Don’t wait for your graduation, just do it. It happens - and a lot of Dopers have been there. It shouldn’t be done lightly because its much harder to repair if you regret the decision later.
If your relationship with your family is worth maintaining, it will take effort. That will mean letting bygones be bygones, being willing to forgive each other and moving forward instead of dwelling on the past. It will mean that if your parents will be hurt by not inviting them to your graduation, you invite them (unless circumstances are such that you can’t, like you only get two tickets and decide that your spouse needs to go and you can’t choose between your parents - in which case you explain to them that you only get two tickets).
I have a few relatives I don’t care if I ever see again (uncles and aunts) that I don’t bother to maintain a relationship with or invite to life events. I have good parents though.
10 years is a long time to be blaming someone else. When you graduated high school you were an adult. You could have went to college if you REALLY wanted to. You don’t want to find a way to make it work, so YOU put off for ten years.
I should clarify that the circumstances etv78 has described here before which he says delayed his graduating for 10 years had to do with his father either wanting him or not wanting him to move into his brother’s apt or something mundane like that, which very indirectly led to his circumstances not being as ideal as he would have liked, and he eventually dropped out of college. Unless I’m way wrong, and I have no desire to slog through all of etv78’s whining self-pity rants to find that particular one, he was the one who dropped out, neglected to go back for 10 years, ruined his bladder in a stubborn holding-his-bladder altercation against his brother which necessitated his living in a nursing home for several years, etc, etc, etc. All of these he holds his father personally responsible for, because of that one fateful opinion all those years ago.
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall to whatever fight caused a grown adult to think holding their urine would be the best possible option.
I am currently at my cousin’s wedding, which starts in 2 hours. This is the third cousin (out of 4) to get married and all of them have included all parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and first cousins in the invitations (plus any spouses or children). With this precedent, I would have to think long and hard before excluding anyone, because it would cause a huge uproar. My extended family is quite small and fortunately I like all of them, so hopefully this will never be an issue, but not inviting someone in that group would be a Big Deal.
He acknowledged it was childish, and we have all done childish things. But to ultimately blame it on an father’s opinion from so long before is just too butterfly effect-ish for any reasonable responsible adult to do.
Did you want to get a good seat or something?
The local watering hole just outside campus here used to have a promo called “Bladder Buster Thursdays”. This was before the big push to slow down college-age drinking.
The deal was that pitchers of the local cheapo beer were IIRC 50 cents until the first person at your table got up to pee. Then they switched to the regular price, 6 bucks or whatever it was.
Much hilarity & attempted subterfuge ensued. I don’t know that anyone ever injured themsleves permanently, but it sounds plausible.
That was the one time & place you’d see rowdy frat boys chasing *away *hot young ladies. If she sat down, they’d be screwed in short order.
Having read your previous posts about your relationship with your father, my opinion on you and how you blame your own decisions and your own actions on your father would be best said in the Pit.
needscoffee-You DON"T know me, or the circumstances of my life! DARE YOU tell me I have no right to feel angry about events from my past! Yes, it WAS 10 years ago, but that doesn’t change the fact it happened!
If you can’t take the answer, don’t ask the question.
I hate to be “that poster”, but you brought it upon yourself with your OP.
You have every right to feel angry about anything you want.
But you don’t have a right to escape judgement about your responses to that anger. That’s one of the trade-offs of revealing personal stories on this board.
I say, if you don’t want your family at your graduation, then don’t invite them. You’re a grown-up and that’s one of the privileges of being a grown-up. Being able to celebrate with who you want to.
But there is something to be said about forgiveness and letting bygones be bygones. Sometimes it is best to take the higher ground and not risk escalating familial tension out of sheer stubborness. Because in the end, it’s you who everyone will remember as being the jerk in the situation. Not your father.
I didn’t want to go to my graduation for grad school, which has even more pomp and circumstance than an undergraduate ceremony. I didn’t have any grudge against my family, but I didn’t want them to come up and celebrate. I would have been fine just getting the diploma in the mail or whatever and moving on with my life. But I realized that even if I didn’t want to celebrate having a Ph.D, that didn’t mean I should rob my parents or my siblings of the ritual. They didn’t contribute financially, but they were there emotionally and had helped me get to that point by simply being in my life. My parents still have the picture of me at my graduation on their refrigerator. So it must have been a lasting gift that I provided to them.
If we had been estranged, then it would have been a different can of beans. In that case I wouldn’t have bothered or cared.
If they are important enough to be a regular part of your life (ie you don’t hate em enough to dump their asses for good) then they are important enough to invite to a major life milestone. You just have to tolerate em while they are there, not give booming speaches about how great they are.