Pomp and Circumstance

Your children are as precious as flowers, as unique as a snowflake. Your children look positively dashing in those mortarboard. Your children will all be president someday.

None of the above fact-ish statements justify graduation ceremonies. Sorry to rain on parents' parades, but there is just no reason for this big waste of everyone's life. The graduation thing has got to go.

I went to High School graduation, all festooned in my green grown (go Bears!). My parents were in the stands, as were my grandparents and brother. There were tears... but none from me, because it was graduation from f'ing high school.

I went to college graduation, this time in a black ensemble that, frankly, didn't really do justice to my figure (go Spartans!). My parents and grandparents and brother were in the stands, and there were tears, because it was graduation from f'ing college.

In both of these cases, there was something coming next. When I finished high school, I was months from starting college. When I finished college, I was weeks from starting grad school.

Graduation was a milestone, but only as much as the mile markers on the turnpike... the ones that are like 3"x6" and on the other side of the guard rail and that you never pay attention to unless you're bored and 342 miles from home... 341.9... 341.8...

You know what will be fantasic, and will maybe even move me to tears? The graduation from grad school (knock on wood, throw salt over the shoulder, cross your fingers, and spit thrice), when I walk down the aisle in the hallowed halls of the RAC wearing enough velvet to clothe four drag queens. Because this one will be the last one. Terminal degree, my friends, means terminus.

Here is where I need to clarify the misunderstanding: There should be a college graduation, just like there should be a high school graduation. It should be for people for whom it has meaning. Graduations should be for terminal degrees.

Getting a diploma from high school and joining the workforce is fine. Getting a bachelors and eschewing grad school in favor of a paycheck is totally understandable. Nobody's judging. It's just that graduating means something different when you're done than when you're en route to more school.

There absolutely should be a graduation ceremony for every level of education. The only students allowed to attend should be those students who are entering the workforce. Less time waiting to walk up the aisle, less traffic in the parking lot... and fewer shapeless nylon gowns gathering dust in our closets. Everybody wins!

It doesn't make sense to force parents to sit in the bleachers while their kids are forced to wait an hour just to walk on stage and shake hands with some administrator before getting a folder (often empty, by the way) and sitting back down. It deprives the final graduation ceremony of meaning.

The worst offenders, of course, are the preschool graduations. "Congratulations, you've made it to kindergarten! It took a lot of work, and you almost didn't make it, but we knew that you would buckle down and really earn that diploma! What a momentous accomplishment!"

Those things are utterly wasteful. And adorable.