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I don’t do celebrations well. I handle rituals with equal clumsiness. Last month, I had to witness, for the second time, a celebratory ritual that I find devoid of meaning, and it’s almost certain that I will have to go again, for the third time, next year.
The pre-school graduation ceremony. A contrivance meant to celebrate some accomplishment? A ritual meant to mark a passage of some sort? Does anyone actually fail to leave pre-school? The past two years, CJ has participated in her daycare’s pre-school graduation ceremony, as the younger daycare children fete the “graduating” class.
CJ is an only child in a two-parent, upper-middle income, high SES family. She will, almost by definition, be doted over, her every passage marked. Already, more pictures have been taken of her than of Becky and I combined over our entire lifetimes. Pre-school graduation is an exercise akin to those sports leagues where every child, even the lowliest bench-warmer, gets an award.
As with a lot of things, Becky and I disagree on this.
I feel that our circumstances mean that CJ will be over-indulged and coddled. We don’t need to go out of our way to participate in fabricated events to celebrate her “achievement.” She already gets showered with praise and attention every day. She’s not the seventh child of nine that gets lost in a crowd of siblings. It’s the same reason I don’t buy her pink things and nurture an interest in princesses and ballerinas…she’s already predisposed to do that, I don’t need to encourage it.
As attentive, engaged parents of an only child, our challenge is not making sure that she’s sufficiently praised and honored…quite the opposite.
