<p>Looking for some advice here. Hardly anyone in my family or H's family will be attending our D's high school graduation. She is our only child and we are not from the area, so we don't expect all family members to attend. Both sets of grandparents are long gone, so all I have are 2 sisters and 2 aunts. One sister is attending with her 13-year old D and that's it. Other sister declined because it's her boyfriend's daughter's birthday. Aunts are elderly and unable to make the trip (even though my H offered to pick them up and take them home). H's family is all in Philadelphia and they all have huge families themselves and several graduations at the same time, so we have no expectations on his side. I know my D feels hurt, especially since most of her friends are from this area and will have many more family members attending. I'm not happy about it myself, but realizing that I have never had a close family, I can't be too surprised. Any advice is appreciated.</p>
<p>Unless your daughter is upset about having less family present than her friends will have, who cares?</p>
<p>Besides, by my family's standards, you're bringing a huge crowd (yourself, your sister, and your niece -- and maybe also your husband, although you didn't mention him). The only person attending my daughter's graduation will be me. Her father will not go because it's an evening graduation on a weeknight and he has to be up very early the next morning for work, and her brother will not go because he is involved in a summer research project on his college campus. She has no other relatives except for an aunt in California, who certainly would not want to attend.</p>
<p>However, in our family, this is a step up in terms of graduation attendance. Nobody attended my son's graduation, not even him. He didn't feel like it.</p>
<p>We specialize in low key.</p>
<p>If you think your daughter will feel insufficiently fussed over, maybe you could suggest that she have some sort of graduation celebration with her friends, at your expense. Having one's parents pay for dinner for say, eight kids in a nice restaurant smoothes a lot of ruffled feathers.</p>
<p>We only had two extra people at my son's hs graduation and just one more then that at my daughters. Actually, my older son played in the band so he didn't even sit with us for his sisters grad. We also don't have family that lives close by. Does your daughter have a good friend in another grade? Perhaps you could invite him or her to join you. Afterwards go out for a nice meal.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to downplay the importance of the graduation ceremony and instead plan a nice party within a couple of weeks if you can. Our high school gives out about 7 tickets per student for graduation and many kids give up tickets because they also don't have family nearby.</p>
<p>PCM - same here. My D is the youngest. Her brothers both had big turnouts. One was the first grandchild (both sides) and the other had a formal recital and reception with good attendance. In the meantime, folks have died, or gotten too old to travel, or too busy. One of her two brothers will be here, and my mom. That's it. My sister lives in my neighborhood, but hasn't gone to any graduations at all, so we didn't even invite her this time.</p>
<p>We are having a cook-out next weekend and calling it a graduation celebration (with no gifts). Invited lots of friends - hope somebody comes. I also had a tea party for her and several of her friends and their moms (see "Bag of Wishes" thread in cafe.) It was something special I could do for her that her brothers didn't get. We asked everybody to dress up, and made a real event of it. </p>
<p>I suggest you rack your brain for something your D would love to do to mark the occasion. Invite a handful of friends to go white-water rafting, or take them to a pro game or a concert or a musical or whatever your D loves. Make it very clear that this is a celebration. </p>
<p>Your D will not be the only one with sparse attendance at graduation. They are bigger deals to some than to others. Around here it is popular to put signs in yards announcing graduations. My D does not have one. She thinks it makes it look like the family is suprised. Graduation ceremonies are rites of passage to some, and necessary evils to others.</p>
<p>When the time comes, D will have only one person - me. Grandparents are deceased. Distant (cousins and second and third cousings) family is too far away to attend. And the more I think abou it, the more I think it will be better. No one to attend to, no picking up, etc. And D and I will have some wonderful 1-on-1 time before she takes off for parts unknown. Plus, I will have to help her move, so not having anyone to look after or entertain will certainly be a plus.</p>
<p>Some kids have parties after graduation ceremony, so I'd let your D attend one if invited.</p>
<p>My H and older S and I are the only ones attending younger S's graduation next Sat. and we don't have any sort of party planned. Our closest relatives are 1500 miles away or on the opposite coast, I wouldn't expect them to fly to us for a weekend graduation, and none of the surviving grandparents are well enough to travel anyway. It hadn't occurred to me that this would be a problem. Might it be a regional thing? The suggestions above of a party or special celebration sounds like a nice option to mark the occasion.</p>
<p>It sounds as if your D will have two extra relatives in attendance, PCM, that sounds like a lot of fun and good support for her! I hope she's able to perk up about it and enjoy having her aunt and cousin along for the joyous day. I hope you have a wonderful time.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, son's HS graduation was not that big of a family event. It was rather rushed. The grads had to be at the stadium very early, so we didn't have a dinner together (this was on a weeknight.) After a longish ceremony, we went out for ice cream, and that was it. Son wanted to savor his last few hours with his friends, not his family! Enjoy the visit with your sister and niece, and send graduation notices to the other relatives so they can at least send a card.</p>
<p>Graduations are generally filled and crowded so in a way you're giving other families a chance to see their graduates in a large group. Look at it this way: Your D will be sitting with her classmates and the only time she'll ever see the audience is when she walks across the stage. Half the time, people don't even know where their families are sitting if they didn't pass them at the beginning. So I'll bet that your D might not even think about it too much.... I remember being more focused on my high school memories and thinking about my classmates.... </p>
<p>Definitely do something special afterwards- throw a big party for her and her friends or take several of them out for a very nice dinner at some point. You could even consider the next family gathering (maybe it be Thanksgiving?) as a graduation party for the family!</p>
<p>Don't worry- I didn't even have a whole lot for my graduation. I had only expected my immediate family and my mother's parents but my aunt and two of my cousins showed up as a surprise. Nevertheless, it was big enough!</p>
<p>Also, at least you don't have to worried about divorced couples... YIKES. It's even worse than having just a parent show up for a graduate!!</p>
<p>I don't see why your D is expecting people to come from so far away for a h.s. graduation. In fact, I think she's fortunate that her aunt and cousin are attending. </p>
<p>I skipped my own h.s. graduation as did older S. Just my husband and I attended younger S's high school graduation last year. S didn't even send out invitations, and wasn't interested in having a party. He loved high school, had friends, enjoyed graduation, but didn't see it as such a big deal that relatives come in from hundreds of miles away (all of his relatives live at least 600 miles away) to watch my S walk across the stage in 5 seconds.</p>
<p>At our S's graduation, it seemed that most of the students who had large numbers of family members present were those who had lots of relatives in town or were first generation high school graduates. From what I saw, the big deal for the students seemed to be that it was the last time their class would be together, and most seemed more interested in hanging out with each other after the ceremony than having to stand for pictures with proud relatives.</p>
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Also, at least you don't have to worried about divorced couples... YIKES.
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<p>It's bad enough to have to deal with this at your wedding. My husband and I both had divorced parents, and three out of four were remarried. All the pictures show people glaring at each other from across the room. We should have gone to City Hall and told our families about it afterwards.</p>
<p>I decided not to participate in mine because no one was coming to see it. Why should I practice for a week before and then participate in a drawn out ceremony if no one else wants to see it. I surely don't care about it.</p>
<p>For my S's graduation there will only be his dad, me and his sister. We, too, have no family nearby, and all his grandparents (except one, and she has alzheimer's) and several other family members have died in the past 4 years. We had an open house for him and one of his best friend's on Saturday. It was wonderful, a way to have a large celebration with his friends and extended "church" family. I think he had a fabulous time, there was a wonderful turnout with lots of former Sunday School teachers, mentors, high school friends, etc, folks who've known him since he was 4 years old, and most have more intimate contact with him than our very small extended family. You might consider something like this.</p>
<p>Zebes</p>
<p>We too, will be a small group (3 + the bf), but D's schools gives each grad only 5 tickets, so we're approaching the max.</p>
<p>We specialize in low key too. My Mom and my sister came, but otherwise just immediate family. My D was in Europe for S's graduation, so she missed it.</p>
<p>One thing I would add--though we don't usually do all the corny accouterments of special events, my D hinted that she would like it if we did, for a change (I woulda thought it would embarrass her, but our town runs that way.) So, we had a fancy cake, balloons and signs on the house, flowers when we met her afterward, etc etc. Those kinds of things might help your D if she's feeling a little un-pampered.</p>
<p>our HS limits the tickets a family can have because the ceremony is indoors (thankfully,air conditioned and dry!!).I believe our # was 6. Have a party afterwards,thats the time to celebrate!!</p>
<p>Pre - I can sympathize with your D's feeling a little bit that "nobody cares enough" to attend. I agree with the posters who suggest a party with a bunch of her friends. It doesn't have to be formal. D#1 invited a group of friends to the beach. We supplied food, drink and equipment for a few beach games. It worked out great.</p>
<p>PS, Actually we have the flip side to your problem. D#2's HS hands out just four tickets for each graduate. That means an ugly choice between siblings and Godparents.</p>
<p>Everyone and their brother came to my wedding, but only my Mom came to my high school graduation (they were overseas and my Dad couldn't get away.) My brothers were in boarding school with awkward schedules. Pretty much the same thing happened in college and grad school. No one will be attending our senior's high school grad except the immediate family. All our families live out of town.</p>
<p>It was just me and her dad. 14 year old brother didn't even go. I don't really blame him since it was rainy and wet on graduation day and the ceremony was held outside. We sat with the parents of a girl D had known since kindergarten, the girls weren't that close but we had been friendly with the family for 13 years and they were also there alone so it made it seem more special for us all. D didn't care who was there, and we all went out to dinner that night (brother included). She moved to her college town 3 days later so I guess she was just mentally DONE with HS by that point. LOL.</p>