The Constant Graduation

What is it with the exponential growth of graduation ceremonies across America? How many different educational levels does one need to graduate from?

Also, where do I get me a kid who is graduating because everyone is using that as an excuse to miss work right now.

I had two graduations in my lifetime. One when I went from 5th to 6th grade, I was changing buildings so I guess this was a sort of big deal, and another from college.

The only person in my family who came to my college graduation was my mom. That's it. I'm not proud of this fact, I don't wear it with a badge of honor or anything, but back then, I didn't think it was a really big deal, and it didn't bother me that the whole family didn't come. (Now I realize how messed up that was).

Now that I see all these graduations occurring, from kindergarden, pre-school, middle school, Junior High, High School, and how important it is to the entire family, including grandparents -- as important as say, a wedding-- I'm starting to wonder if I've been jiiped of the graduation experience. 

At the same time, I tend to think graduation is more for the parents than for the kid. The parents are graduating from not paying exorbitant tuition, they know what they're really celebrating, the kids on the other don't really know what hit them, and most importantly what's coming next (unless it's a consulting or investment banking gig). I also always found it weird when my parents came into my school universe. On one hand, I was really happy to show them my world and introduce them to friends, it made telling my stories at home easier and got me intelligent commentary from my mom (oh, forget about so and so, he's 19 and basically the only thing he cares about is sex), on the other, I was happy when they left. 

There's something that Americans do exceptionally well and that is ceremony. No one manages to bring more gravitas to anything than the US. No one markets that ceremony to the masses better than the US either. Graduation is pure marketing genius. And multiplying the number of graduations is pure marketing genius. Sure, it's great to mark the rite of passage, these things are important, but to me, a non-parent (disclaimer), the whole graduation phenomenon seems excessive. One does not need to graduate four times before college. The more you graduate, the less weight it has when it actually means something. And won't the kids who are constantly graduating now expect something of the sort later on in life? And who's gonna tell them that it's not gonna happen every four years, but maybe once or twice in a lifetime? Young people always seem kind of entitled to the older generation. Initially, I didn't think that was all that true because I too was young once and thought I was awesome and un-entitled of course. I'm from Gen X, I always worked diligently and didn't ask for much in return (that was totally my bad), and maybe my elders thought me entitled (except I so wasn't). But it's true, now that I'm old(er), I can see and feel the young folks' entitlement. I've sat with other Gen Xers over the last few years marveling at the extent younger generations can't seem to just deal, plus they complain and ask for performance reviews and a promotion every 6 seconds. Maybe that's a good thing, I don't know. But one thing's for certain, young entitlement is no sham. And I think it's because they had, like, 12 graduations.