What has happened to high school graduations?? When I was a kid it was a quick ‘practice’ where they told us what was going to happen, then we showed up, listened to some really boring speeches, got our diplomas, threw our hats in the air and went home. Pretty standard stuff.
Today the picture has changed radically.
Before I get to that, let’s look at how we got here. It’s MY belief that we got to this ‘festival’ attitude about these graduations for the very same reason kids now go to their proms in groups. The old traditions were dying out. The world has changed in a lot of ways and there was nothing about these events to attract the kids any longer. They were no longer important in the ways they had been in decades gone by. In the ‘days of yore’ when two people went to the prom together that was nearly a commitment of marriage and graduating high school used to be a major life-altering event – and going on to college was a rarity. Suddenly kids were still kids when they graduated high school. Graduating college became the NEW high school graduation. In order to keep the kids going to these events the schools and parents had to come up with new ways to attract them. So they got creative.
Now we have seniors spending most of the month of May going through a series of events leading up to the ‘big day’ that isn’t over with the graduation itself. No, no, no!! There’s a big party afterward that resembles the party at the end of ‘Grease’ and a series of parties that follow the next day at the homes of the kids for the graduates. Of course, the parties the next day are more for the parents than the kids, but the ‘graduates’ get to show up and look like they’re having a good time – if only for a little while to make their parents happy.
So what we’re doing is bribing our kids to go through a rite of life they SHOULD be old enough to cherish on their own. All we’re demonstrating is that they’re not ready to be released on the world when WE’RE ready to release them.
Today the picture has changed radically.
Before I get to that, let’s look at how we got here. It’s MY belief that we got to this ‘festival’ attitude about these graduations for the very same reason kids now go to their proms in groups. The old traditions were dying out. The world has changed in a lot of ways and there was nothing about these events to attract the kids any longer. They were no longer important in the ways they had been in decades gone by. In the ‘days of yore’ when two people went to the prom together that was nearly a commitment of marriage and graduating high school used to be a major life-altering event – and going on to college was a rarity. Suddenly kids were still kids when they graduated high school. Graduating college became the NEW high school graduation. In order to keep the kids going to these events the schools and parents had to come up with new ways to attract them. So they got creative.
Now we have seniors spending most of the month of May going through a series of events leading up to the ‘big day’ that isn’t over with the graduation itself. No, no, no!! There’s a big party afterward that resembles the party at the end of ‘Grease’ and a series of parties that follow the next day at the homes of the kids for the graduates. Of course, the parties the next day are more for the parents than the kids, but the ‘graduates’ get to show up and look like they’re having a good time – if only for a little while to make their parents happy.
So what we’re doing is bribing our kids to go through a rite of life they SHOULD be old enough to cherish on their own. All we’re demonstrating is that they’re not ready to be released on the world when WE’RE ready to release them.
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