June 22, 2013

As of today, the official date of 2013 graduation, I’m the mother of a senior in high school. Next year at this time, I’ll be doing what many of my friends have been doing these past few weeks: celebrating and crying.

I remember my son’s first graduation. He was 4, leaving pre-school to go to kindergarten. They wore paper caps and sang songs about loving Mommy.

Everyone got a diploma. None of them could walk in a straight line. Every parent had a video camera. And we all cried like they were graduating from Harvard.

Next up, he graduated from kindergarten to first grade. They made more paper caps. The parents snapped more pictures. I cried a little less, considering he was just moving down the hall.

His next graduation was from elementary school to middle school. For both my son and daughter, the elementary school graduation was a huge production. Lots of songs. Lots of cake. And more tears - mainly because I knew I’d now have to keep track of emails from two different schools.

Then there was the middle school to high school non-graduation. Our district has decided that moving from middle school to high school does not warrant yet another graduation ceremony. Thank goodness. Instead, the kids get a bagel breakfast and a trip to Darien Lake.

My son didn’t even notice. But my daughter, who is leaving middle school this year for the high school, has definitely noticed how her friends in eighth grade in other districts are celebrating in a variety of ways: dances, moving up ceremonies (not sure what they’re moving up to - more acne?) and graduations with actual diplomas. Who can blame her for being disappointed when she’s been graduating constantly since the age of 4?

One friend told me that his daughter even had a huge graduation ceremony from daycare. They created a 15-minute retrospective video, which is about 12 minutes too long given that the kids are only 4. And the girl’s brother got a graduation ceremony after second grade because they were moving to a whole other building.

They were celebrated by the first graders, who wished them luck in third grade with all those big, scary fourth and fifth graders.

High school graduation must seem like a big letdown when your graduation from daycare includes all that pomp and circumstance. From what I can remember, my high school graduation was unbearably hot and long and - dare I say it - even boring. I can’t even remember who the speaker was, although since I’m from Staten Island it was most probably Guy Molinari, the former Congressman and a borough president from Staten Island. He spoke at every graduation, even the pre-school ones.

My husband remembers who his speaker was. It was him, which is remarkable considering he was a self-described “punk” who was at risk of not graduating. But he was also the student council president, so he was the designated speaker. He thanked his mother and he thanked Vince Scalise, the ever-patient and saintly principal of Geneva High School. I’m sure Mr.Scalise thanked him for going. (Maybe that’s why they let him graduate.) Some high school graduations have special traditions that distinguish them. I’ve heard that the graduates of Skaneateles High School all jump in the lake when the ceremony ends. I asked my husband why they didn¹t do this in Geneva, since it¹s on Seneca Lake. He said: “Colder lake.”

High school graduation makes sense to celebrate. It’s the true moving-up-and-moving-out milestone. And I know this year and four more years will fly right by, and the next thing you know we¹ll be celebrating college graduation. And we’ll be crying true tears of joy - because we won’t be paying for his school anymore.

Congratulations to all of this year’s graduates from pre-school to high school and everything in between.

First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network