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<p>Have you spent much times with guys?</p>
<p>Yes, my father is one, I married one, and I gave birth to one :-).</p>
<p>Both DH and I attended our h.s./college grads. </p>
<p>S1, big state u. grad, opted to skip his “big” graduation ceremony last May but did attend his departmental one. There were also two commissioning (Navy) ceremonies to attend. He felt four ceremonies in two days would be way too much so chose to skip the bigger less personal one. We agreed. We ended up doing a commissioning ceremony one day, then departmental and second commissioning ceremony the next day.</p>
<p>S was very excited about the commissioning but far less about the graduation. He didn’t even buy a cap/gown…borrowed them from a friend and only bought the tassel and honors collar.</p>
<p>I skipped my huge university one – frankly, my parents could have gone and never, ever known whether I was there or not. </p>
<p>For my graduate degree, I went to the school’s graduation ceremony, which was very special, and my parents and husband were there. Again, I skipped the mass gathering in the stadium and have never regretted it. I don’t think that very many (if any) of my graduate school classmates went to the big ceremony. </p>
<p>I agree with making the reservation. Most departments have events in the day or so before graduation, so even if he decides not to “walk” in the big one, there may well be related events for you each to enjoy. And, maybe by that point he’ll decide he’s willing to go through the big graduation as a special gift to you. I hope so. (My parents really didn’t like things like that – my mom actually missed all but the last ten minutes of my high school graduation, so my skipping the big ceremony didn’t bother her in the least.)</p>
<p>I skipped my graduation at UMich - sort of. Sat in the stands at Crisler Arena with my parents, my roomate and his parents and read the titles of the PhD dissertations. Massive hangover.</p>
<p>I’m really shocked that there are people who don’t think it’s ok for any two people who have a relationship to be able to say to each other “this really means something to me, would it be possible for you to accommodate me?” and get a respectful audience. I’m also not sure that attending a graduation ceremony equates with a wedding. A wedding is about the two people getting married and everyone else is incidental. A graduation is something else entirely, the rite of passage, a culmination of the parent/student partnership. I’m sure there are lots of good reasons not to attend, but I think it’s also valid for that to mean something to a parent and the parent’s wishes to be considered and accommodated if at all possible.</p>
<p>For example, it would mean a huge lot to my husband and me because we didn’t go to college and we both feel that having a kid graduate from college would be a huge accomplishment for people like us. We would ask our kids to attend unless there was a good reason not to. If there was a good reason, that would take preference but for something like a hangover or a bad mood I wouldn’t understand.</p>
<p>Agreed. Unless the child/student has a conflict of some sort, is it really that much to ask to sit through a ceremony that’s going to make a special person in your life very very happy? By that age, “choosing your battles” can apply to the young adult as well as the parent.</p>
<p>As someone a few years younger, and who really isn’t interested in graduation ceremonies, here is what I think you should do. For what it’s worth I didn’t go to my high school graduation and I likely won’t for college either.</p>
<p>Tell him you paid for his college (presuming you did) and that you’d really like to see the ceremony with him in it. From your post it seems like he told you he doesn’t want to go, and you replied with something like “Oh, okay, well… bye” or “Well, I booked a hotel, but if I needed to I guess I could cancel it” and not something direct like “I’d really like you do go.”</p>
<p>Honestly, I imagine most kids would just say “Okay, I’ll go” at that point.</p>
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<p>I completely agree, zmom. Very well stated. It’s not really about whether it’s important or not in the absolute to attend a graduation ceremony – it’s about whether it’s important to a loved one.</p>
<p>I went to my hs graduation and my undergrad, not MA.</p>
<p>S went to both hs and UG. For hs it was absolutely beautiful. For UG we skipped the big, general one (26,000) on the first day, but went to his really small departmental one the next day. For all three levels of graduates there were only 60!</p>
<p>D’s hs was a bs, and the ceremony was not nearly as nice as S’s, but she herself would be mortified if we didn’t go to hers for UG, one year from today exactly. It’s a class of ~ 600.</p>
<p>She has already made the reservations for us!</p>
<p>If you help with the $$$, then your son is being very selfish and immature. I’m sorry</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with not attending graduation as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. My son didn’t attend his high school graduation, and nobody in the family was upset about it. And when he graduated from college a few weeks after I started a new job, he was gracious about the fact that I could only attend one of the two ceremonies that constitute graduation at his university because I didn’t have enough time off coming to me to attend both.</p>
<p>Some families, though, would have been horrified by both of the situations described above.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see graduation as a culmination of the parent/student partnership. I see it as a ceremony to mark the student’s achievement of a goal – earning a degree. But it’s the degree that matters, not the ceremony. </p>
<p>I attended graduation when I received my bachelor’s degree, but I did not attend when I received my master’s degree. Both degrees are equally valid.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my husband and I did have a (small) wedding, when we both would rather have simply gone to City Hall and gotten married with no fuss at all. We did it to please our parents. It was a very awkward day. Both sets of parents were divorced, and there were also three stepparents present. Moreover, my mother and my fiance’s father weren’t speaking to each other because the two of them had been involved in a business transaction that turned out poorly. Maybe City Hall would have been a better idea. The people there would have been in better moods.</p>
<p>Interesting that you mentioned your wedding, Marian. Maybe this dislike of ceremonies runs in our family , because neither my husband nor I wanted a wedding–so we did elope. Went to town hall with 2 friends and got married–it was no big deal and suited us fine.</p>
<p>But my son’s graduation represents a milestone of sorts for me and I was disappointed when he said he didn’t want to go. I know we’ll have this conversation later, and maybe he will change his mind. And to answer those of you who suggested that if we financed his education he should go to the graduation if we want him to, he got a huge merit scholarship so his education hasn’t cost us much at all.</p>
<p>martharap, I didn’t go to my university graduation (my best friend asked me to be in her wedding that same day in another city). Only later did I realize how much that hurt my parents - who were much less involved than today’s parents tend to be. They paid for 4 years (including tuition my senior year after my wedding!), they deserved to be able to see me graduate.
I’m not bringing this up with my youngest yet, but we have reservations for graduation 2011 already. It’s a tiny town and we found a great place. Refundable if there is a change of plans, but now I can cross one worry off my list. I’d suggest you just reserve a spot now, and keep it quiet for a while. If graduation is delayed or he refuses to participate, cancel the room.</p>
<p>For the student, there’s 2 decision points.</p>
<p>First, is the ceremony worth going to or not: Majestic Chapel with sunlight streaming in through the stained glass window, walk across the podium as each of 600 names are called out loud, be welcomed into the “Body of educated Men and Women” by the booming voice of the President as the organ music starts to swell, march out into the sunlight through the beaming faces and ecstatic clapping by family and friends… Heck I’d attend every year if I could. Football field graduation with 10,000 others: not so much.</p>
<p>Second, the relationship between child and parent. DS apparently toyed with not attending his HS graduation, but decided to attend (after all the cap/gowns were ordered, so we scrambled for leftovers). He never said anything to us about his indecision, but I am sure if I had asked him to attend, he would have willingly obliged.</p>
<p>I think there is one important point that no one has mentioned yet; you can’t go back and do it again. It is one of those events that happens once in your life. You get one bachelor’s degree, one master’s degree, one Phd degree (with a few exceptions for some people here…). If you miss the ceremony, you don’t get the chance to find out if it would have meant something to you or to your family - and it may not be something that you know in advance. Perhaps you are very blase about the ceremony and think ,“big deal”, it’s a waste of time… but if you do attend, perhaps it will stir your soul or help bring closure to the years you spent with the academic community, or move you to tears or bring you that feeling of triump and jubilation and closeness with your college friends… a shared event… a marking of the moment…<br>
I was part of the “meh - who cares” group about high school graduation a million yeras ago. Boy, am I glad I changed my mind and attended. I missed my undergrad graduation due to taking the GRE; at the time, I said “meh - so what”. Now, I really wish that I had walked with my peers and attended graduation.<br>
For the effort and time it takes, I think it makes sense to attend graduation. You have not much to lose and MUCH to gain! JMHO! :)</p>
<p>“And to answer those of you who suggested that if we financed his education he should go to the graduation if we want him to, he got a huge merit scholarship so his education hasn’t cost us much at all.”</p>
<p>Since you’re posting on CC, you more than likely have long been involved with his education, and he may not have gotten the merit aid without the emotional and other support you’d provided throughout the years. His going to graduation would be a nice way of showing appreciation for that support.</p>
<p>My mother went back to college during the time that I was also in college and she graduated during my junior year. I flew down for her graduation (as my college didn’t let out til mid-June). She could not have been more proud, of course – we were all so proud of her. Can you all imagine if I had said I didn’t want to be bothered with an event that was important to her?</p>
<p>I sat through Barney. D can sit through commencement. :D</p>
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<p>I agree. Emotional blackmail is the best way to foster a strong, loving relationship with your children. </p>
<p>But seriously, though, it shouldn’t matter whether or not you paid for his college or not. Unless money is the only reason why your son still talks to you, he should have some sort of affection or (dare I say) love for you. It’s not like you’re asking for a kidney or something; all you’re asking for is a few hours’ participation in a ceremony that might be a little hokey, more than a little unpleasant based on the individual. Whether or not your son worked his way through college or you paid for the whole thing yourself, those details like that should be irrelevant to your relationship. </p>
<p>It always sort of creeped me out on this site about how many people suggest that parents reflexively use financial threats to hammer their kids into showing even tiniest bits of affection. How long is that really supposed to work? I’m glad that there are a lot more actual parents on here giving actual good advice to this OP.</p>