<p>Cobrat, if and when you have your own children, you can speak from your own experience, not that of relatives or bosses or former coworkers family issues from decades ago. Your feelings might change.</p>
<p>Did you read kmcmom’s post 287? It was carefully, thoughtfully and beautifully written. Is there a reason you have chosen not to respond?</p>
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<p>No, they won’t as I regarded my older relatives’ example on this issue to be a positive one I plan to emulate with my own kids when I have them. </p>
<p>That and I don’t feel it’s right to make an event which should be about someone else(the graduate) “all/mostly about me” just because I’m the parent.</p>
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<p>Actually, I did respond at length. However, you may feel I didn’t respond to it because I disagreed with the applicability of her example or the fact graduations should be just as much/more about the family/parents than the graduate him/herself. </p>
<p>Difference of opinion…not lack of response.</p>
<p>People’s feelings, opinions, DO change with time and experience. Best not to be closed minded about that. Ditto about the insistence that this is all/mostly about the parents feeling and not at all about the graduate’s feeling. Posters are not saying that at all. </p>
<p>Once again, what are your thoughts about kmcmoms post?</p>
<p>*** editing in response to your edit:</p>
<p>Sometimes a non response is a response. A lot seems to have been missed, or selectively ignored.</p>
<p>Just celeberate the fact that she completed her education.</p>
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<p>I did respond. I think the issue is that you didn’t agree with it. Seems like you and posters like you can’t tolerate folks who feel differently…</p>
<p>With all due respect you do not seem to grasp the concept of how other people think or feel. That is painfully clear.</p>
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<p>As Hillary said: “It takes a village …”. If the Ceremony had no meaning, schools would quickly figure that out and stop having them. Just because they have no meaning for you does not mean they do not have significant meaning for others.</p>
<p>There are many ceremonies that are done for the community, or for the benefit of individuals within the community. The community bond is just as important as family bonds. You live in a society, and part of growing up is learning to get past “me”, and start thinking about others. Just because you, personally do not benefit, does not mean you should not do it for others. There may come a time when something is important for you, and other people do it for you.</p>
<p>cobrat, I have to say that you seem to be the one who cannot grasp how other people feel. You need to use some imagination. I know that it is frustrating to be told “just wait until you have kids,” but in fact that is one of those things that is often and irritatingly accurate. As a friend once said to me, “I thought I knew all about it until <em>I</em> had a kid. Then I realized how clueless I was.”</p>
<p>If you ever do have a wife, I don’t think you will get far by informing her that her feelings are not legitimate because they are invalidated by the experience of your third cousin or a friend’s former coworker’s brother’s boss.</p>
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<p>There are situations, venues, and situational contexts where considering the feelings of others is appropriate…especially when their feelings/input are central to them such as a funeral.</p>
<p>Graduation ceremonies IMHO aren’t one of them. </p>
<p>Moreover, a parent, relative, or friend who insists on making it about him/herself in that situation is IMHO…missing the point and overstepping their bounds akin to a guest/audience member at someone’s birthday party or honoring ceremony making it all/mostly about them rather than the birthday person or guest of honor him/herself.</p>
<p>It is ALWAYS appropriate to consider the feelings of others.</p>
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Bingo. </p>
<p>And a guest at a birthday party is far different from a parent at a graduation who struggled and sacrificed to pay for their child’s education. To equate the two shows a painful lack of understanding.</p>
<p>Pizzgirl wrote: “I think it’s all in the same broad bucket. I think you just made graduation ceremonies different on an arbitrary basis.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree. There is a logic about that distinction.
A funeral is not about the person attending.
Going to visit a person for thanksgiving is not about the person attending.
A graduation ceremony is about the person attending.
As pointed out before, it is hardly a family event. You only can invite maybe 2 people, you don’t sit with them and you don’t interact with them.</p>
<p>Of course, any thing can apply to the idea that the event/decision impacts the family so you can apply the rule of “do what a family member wants” to weddings, where you live, what type of job you get (oh, you will hurt my feelings if you work the evening shift since we can’t have dinners together and that is a great tradition too), whether you have kids and how many (what? no grandsons? Keep trying!!).</p>
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<p>It is not a matter of “struggle and sacrifice” of the parent. Some people view it like an award ceremony where they take pride in their child succeeding and being recognized for the success.</p>
<p>Cobrat: What would you think if the Olympics eliminated the ceremony of awarding medals? When the first runner crosses the finish line, they should just hand him the medal and be done with it.</p>
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<p>Seems you do not, either. You cannot accept that another being could feel differently, on the side of the daughter, even if they have their own children and experiences to draw from. You assume that anyone who has a child will feel exactly as you do.</p>
<p>The parents on this forum are, on average, fairly uniform in the sense that most are well educated, financially stable in some way, and have generally good relationships with their children. But not all families come from the same cookie cutter. My parents were upset with me for wanting to attend my graduation ceremony, and complained about how awful it was during the lunch we had after. In short, not all parents value such things and would prefer to celebrate in the family’s own way. </p>
<p>Yes, I would love to see my children walk the stage at their own graduation - but if they do not want to, it is their choice. Why? Because I’d rather see them up there happy and celebrating, not sitting there upset and/or uncomfortable because I guilted them into going. That would not give me pride or appreciation to know they did not want to be there, but were there just because of me. Forcing them to a family dinner at Thanksgiving is very different - you’re attempting to make and sustain familial bonds. A graduation? Not so much. A few photos is all that will remain 10 years after, particularly since the graduate is separated from the family and has few, if any opportunities to create memories with the family during the ceremony. </p>
<p>Parents have 18 years to instill their ethics into their children. If at the age of 22 the parents still feel the need to control their child’s behaviors and teach them basic morals, then the time is up; too much too late. You are still a support system and teacher, but the ground work should have already been done by age 22 and if you still cannot trust your child to make some basic decisions, then there is something wrong.</p>
<p>No one knows why this daughter doesn’t want to go. What if it is anxiety? Should she suffer for her mother’s sake? From a psychological perspective, no. If she chose to suffer through it, it should be for herself, not someone else - otherwise there will be resentment. And if there are other reasons she is not sharing, then she has reason not to share and it should be respected. There are always two sides to every story. We are nipping at each other’s throats over what a mother is saying - which may or may not be the whole truth. Some people only share what they need to in order to get the most favorable response. I am not accusing the OP of lying, just pointing out that no one here knows the full situation to judge how other posters may feel on the limited information that was given. Some think outside the box and consider all possible scenarios. Some respond only to what is shared and do not think any deeper. These factors can drastically alter opinions based on how one chooses to read into the situation.</p>
<p>Cobrat wrote: “Moreover, a parent, relative, or friend who insists on making it about him/herself in that situation is IMHO…missing the point and overstepping their bounds akin to a guest/audience member at someone’s birthday party or honoring ceremony making it all/mostly about them rather than the birthday person or guest of honor him/herself.”</p>
<p>I agree. This does seem to be part of a trend about parents wanting to live vicariously through the kids. It isn’t just the kid’s accomplishment that they graduated, it is also mine since I paid the tuition. </p>
<p>As a parent, I would be more bothered by why my DS didn’t want to go to the ceremony (did something go wrong in the last 2 years that I didn’t understand?), than about my not going to a ceremony in which my DS was unhappy to be at.</p>
<p>With all due respect, nova, you are entirely off the mark. Whats more, I base decisions on my experiences, not those reported third hand by some supposed relatives or aquaintances. Thats rather peculiar. Moreover, decisions should be made taking all parties feelings into consideration, as many of us have said ad nauseum here over and over. IT is not all about any one person’s feelings. That is painfully clear. Or should be.</p>
<p>I will share something that I hadn’t thought about in 25+ years.</p>
<p>I married my H when he was a third-year medical school student - so by the time his graduation rolled around, we had been married a year.
The school put on a graduation ceremony combined with a dinner reception. </p>
<p>We invited H’s parents and 2 siblings. We didn’t think to invite my parents, who lived 300 miles away at the time. My parents were hurt and expressed their feelings to me - they loved my H like a son, and they wanted to be included in a milestone event. I recognized that I was in the wrong, got additional seats for them, and we all had a nice time at the events. My H was delighted that they cared enough about him to want to celebrate a nice event. Indeed, it was I who was in the wrong for not thinking to invite them.</p>
<p>My S’s college is local, but my D’s college is 1000 miles away. I fully anticipate that my mother will want to fly out and attend D’s graduation. If I said to my D, grandmom wants to come, and she said, well, it’s not all that important to me that she come, it’s all about me, would that be the right response?</p>
<p>Part of relationships are recognizing what is meaningful to another person and doing your best to accommodate.</p>
<p>OP,
I do not understand what is an issue of either going or not going. Why is it so important? This kind of arguments should have never started, there is no any kind of importance here. The most important is to maintain great supporting environement for the kids. I do not see how this argument is contributing to this goal, opposite, i think, it is desroying it.</p>
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<p>Cobrat, discussing topics on a message board with you is like such:</p>
<p>Other Person: My experience and feelings about Situation X are ABC.
Cobrat: Well, that’s wrong. I knew a supervisor who knew someone for whom Situation X happened, and THEIR feelings are DEF. </p>
<p>Could you, for ONCE, stop talking about anecdotes that you hear third-hand through other people? Why would you think your supervisor’s anecdote about someone she supervised would be more compelling to us than our very own experiences?</p>
<p>^ EXACTLY PG. It is about acknowledging everyones feelings and doing ones best to come up with a practical plan. </p>
<p>I do agree with nova that there is surely more to the story than we are privvy to in this thread, and did mention, for eg"
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<p>Of COURSE we posters have different thoughts , opinions and feelings about this. Otherwise there would not be much to discuss. I do think that when one becomes a parent they (or most) learn that their needs no longer come first. It is a feeling that a person without kids may or may not understand. That doesnt mean the parents feelings dont count, but they understand that there are compromises to be made. That said- compromises take two. </p>
<p>If my parents had not wanted to attend my graduations, I don’t know how I would have felt. But, whether or not I wanted to attend was not an issue as I was sensitive to what was special and meaningful and important to them. And it was my pleasure to participate in it.</p>