Simply celebrate; show your pride, enjoy

Any trip into public the last few weekends has brought sight of a fleet of limos filled with fresh-faced young adults, dressed beautifully in formal attire for their school proms.

The rhythm of life of the academic year states graduation ceremonies are soon to follow.

It's time for a refresher course on the different roles involved with high school graduation.

For parents: Your role in your child's graduation is simple: Stick your chest out with pride and make a fuss. In your child's life, there are milestones that come complete with party favors. Birth is one such milestone. Other milestones include birthday parties involving their school friends, the first driver's license party, and, better yet, the party to celebrate your new teenage driver finding car insurance that costs less than a Third World country's annual operating budget.

Have you missed making a fuss over some of your child's milestones? What are you waiting for, your child's retirement ceremony? I polled people of all ages, asking, "What do you remember about your high school graduation?" Very few mentioned the cap and gown ceremony. Everyone mentioned the fuss their family made - or the lack of fuss.

Your child is reaching an age where they leave home, fight a war, vote, go off to college, get a full-time job, even do their own laundry.

Celebrate in a big way.

Worried about what gift to give? Don't be. Cars, plane trips, and voyages as graduation gifts are as rare as winning Lotto tickets.

My graduation gift was a basketball. I loved it. OK, deep down, I'd rather that my parents had given me genes for a better vertical leap to play basketball, but therapy is helping with that.

For ex-spouses: Graduates today often have two families involved in graduation planning.

Ex-spouses and new mates should note that even in wartime, celebration days were a cause for a cease-fire.

I offer a plan I call the Nike solution. Take a Nike sock to the graduation ceremony. Feel like saying something catty? Bite on the sock. Just do it.

It's not your day; it's your young graduate's day.

Think I'm overstating this? A parent I know recently stated that she hoped her child's graduation would be a day of harmony. That graduation is over two years away, and there's already concern!

Our kids ingest our fears as quickly as they do pizza. Be an adult. Smoke a peace pipe.

For graduates: Revel in this major accomplishment that has been 12 years in the making.

I started thinking about my high school graduation in the fifth grade - and I got it from a reliable source that school officials in Toledo, Ohio, where I grew up, had been counting the days until my graduation ever since that overblown inkwell incident in first grade.

Speaking of the rest of your days, make sure you have a lot of them.

Celebrate wisely, showing off that newly acquired adult status and the responsibility that goes with it. In my poll, a common theme was how cool the school-sponsored graduation party actually was. I did hear two people mention they regretted not going, even more than not buying early issues of Microsoft stock.

Don't beat yourself up, worrying about what comes next.

Most of us didn't know exactly what we wanted to be after graduation. Just choose something that puts you in a positive environment for something good to happen.

Don't just hang. Ed McMahon is not coming to your home bearing a big cardboard check. He's lost, looking for my address.

College, the military, trade school, art school and Uncle Joe's plumbing business are all good choices.

After graduation, I joined the Air Force to further my education and to become a weatherman.

I passed all the written tests in basic training and was breezing until the color-blindness test. I couldn't see a single number in all those colored circles. So I rubbed my eyes claiming eye strain, got back in line, and copied the answers of the guy in front of me said.

I was told, "That's amazing! You're as color-blind as the last guy."

I woke up the next day assigned to the black-and-white world of computer school.

Ask an adult how they ended up in their career. The answers might surprise you and just might take the pressure off.

One last piece of advice, for everyone:

Enjoy the day.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.