Several of the oldtimers here on cc ( eg @abasket, @BunsenBurner, @lookingforward, myself and others) have noted (as @abasket eloquently described on the “random questions” thread, and recently discussed on another thread as well) that our traditional terminology of using the # after “DD” or “DS” to refer to the HS or the college graduation year (eg DD22 would mean HS or college class of 22, depending on where it was being discussed) is now being replaced by some newer posters using the # to mean the student’s age. This is getting even more confusing!
It seems that on some other forums/facebook groups, etc, posters THERE are using the # to mean the age. But HERE the number has traditionally, consistently been used to mean the HS or College “class of” date, since this is a college site.
While at times change can be helpful, it seems here, since the “class of” terminology has been used for 15+ years, it makes sense to stick to the verbiage/terminology used here and not have the # refer to the students’ age. We might even consider using DD-HS21 or DD-C21 to clarify if it is HS or college “class of”.
We can certainly discuss this, but it seems prudent to stick with the terminology used here. Many of us are confused enough already ;). Lets please not make it worse!
Someone pointed out that at some point it won’t be so much of an issue (when we get to the mid-20’s of the 2000 years for instance) but for now it can be an issue.
For instance if someone is asking about advice for their D21 spending nights with a BF my response would be totally different if the “21” refers to daughter’s age, HS or college graduation!
when I first joined this site; I had a S15; and a D16 (graduating years). They were opposite with ages – S was age 16. and D was 15. It was very confusing for me at first!
But now those years are gone. I like using the graduating year as that’s more important here than age.
But also I’ll note that some of us (who have been here for years or even others) have kids who are in their upper 20’s/30’s. No sense in putting those grad years! I guess if I feel the need to describe my oldest D I’d put “my D who is 31” or something like that.
Thanks, @abasket, @bgbg4s. Its confusing enough with the HS vs college “class of”. To add yet a third possible meaning for the # would be unnecessarily confusing! Besides, my kids’ ages change, but their “class of” does not. Easier to stick with that affiliation.
While age obviously varies as time passes, and high school graduation year is least likely to vary, college graduation year does vary, and not always predictably from when the student starts college (lots of students graduate college in a different year from initially planned).
That goes without say, @ucbalumnus . But around here, its likely the majority of students do graduate with their class. And even if they don’t , they may still affiliate themselves with that class. I had classmates who took a year off and came back, and though they officially graduated a year later, they considered themselves a member of our class.
Sure some take a gap year, or time off. BUt, IMO, without parsing this unnecessarily, lets stick to the plan-- and lets please NOT use the age delineation.
I’ve always used the age designation! It seems simpler to me. If someone uses a graduation year, I have to work backwards to figure out the person’s age.
Some posters use birth order, such as D1, D2, etc. Such posters do tend to have separate counts for each gender, so (for example) a daughter followed by two sons is D1, S1, S2, rather than D1, S2, S3.
Most everyone uses DS1, DD2 to reflect birth order, and it seems t5o be independent of sex . But thats of topic with respect to the is cushion of the age/class year discussion.
Wow, ML— thats surprising. Most all the longtime posters here use the graduation year. But understood in circumstances where a student doesn’t finish college.
I have always used my kids high school class grad year when referencing them here. As my name implies, I have four kids - two boys and two girls, one of each in college and one of each in high school.
Even IRL, my friends (parents whose kids go to school with mine) and I often talk about our kids with respect to their high school grad years. We all have several kids, many of whom are the same ages. For instance, when talking about school events, we might say something like “whose house are the 2021s going to before the dance?” We even have parents’ Facebook pages set up by class year to share info about school events, etc that are class/grade specific. And all my kids played club sports at some point, which are organized by h.s. Grad year even when they are still in elem school, so it is very common in my circles for h.s. grad years to be ingrained in our heads.
I only have a S & D and never use a number with them. If their age is relevant, I will add it to the thread. I do find the numbers confusing—age, grad from HS or college, # of kids?
@HImom I think for those of us whose kids are still in h.s or college, we are often posting on pages where the grad year is relevant as a way to differentiate what kid we are discussing. For instance, many of us post on the Class of XXXX pages to talk about high school classes our kids are taking, or when they are taking the SAT or what college visits they are doing, etc. and many of these parents post on different Class of XXXX forums b/c they have more than one kid, or more than one Son or daughter so it helps to know which one they are talking about. If you post in the forum long enough, you get to know who has what kids, etc and it becomes more of a community. I suppose, then, when coming here to Parent Cafe, it’s not necessarily relevant to include class year, but just so used to doing it on other forums that we do it out of habit. At least for me it is.
Whoops-- post #9 had weird autocorrects. Should say “that’s off topic with respect to the discussion of the age/class year discussion”.
And the “class of” forum page groups started, IIRC, with the College class of around 2013, b/c it didn’t exist when either of my s’s was graduating HS or college.
The HS grad year is very helpful at least for HS or college age kids so we understand where they are at in the process.
Since other forums I’m on use age (and “DD” instead of just D), I’ve taken to putting in an apostrophe here to denote grad year and help keep myself straight, and maybe clue in others that it referred to a year. I have a DD’17 and DD’19. At one point DD’17 was DD19 (age) and DD’19 was DD17.
I have been posting on this forum for a long time. I don’t recall ever using a number after my kids’ DS or DD. Really, the body of my post usually indicates where my kids were/are.
They have both been out of HS for such a long while, I can’t imagine I need to include the year of their HS graduation at all.
Is there any reason why we can need to include the HS year of graduation unless it is very pertinent to the topic?
ETA…some folks put DD1 to indicate first daughter…DD2 for second. Clearly, these kids aren’t 1 and 2 years old. Some folks do D1 or S1. Again…indicating they are first son or daughter in the family. Has anyone ever gotten confused about this?
I guess if I feel the need to describe my oldest D I’d put “my D who is 31” or something like that.