ATLANTA -- At the end you always remember the beginning. When my daughter first started preschool, we wondered how she would do spending so much time with other kids. When I took her to school, she stood next to me hugging my leg while she stared at the other kids, who were running around and screaming like their hair was on fire. She clearly wondered what kind of hellscape we were leaving her in. Every time my leg moved, she moved with it. Twenty minutes and a lot of tears later, I was driving away.
Time has flown. This year, my daughter finishes elementary school. Yes, I am about to have a middle-schooler. My kid is excited about the upcoming newness. New school. New friends. New activities to try. New clubs to join.
I’m honestly not too excited. With each new year, we get closer to that inevitable moment in adolescent development when children no longer smile at the thought of their parents; they roll their eyes. I have been girding myself for that moment for some time. It hasn’t quite happened yet. I feel like that moment will definitely occur in middle school.
Anyways, as usual, my daughter’s school hosted an awards ceremony for the students. Most parents are familiar with those. Those end-of-the-year ceremonies where they hand out standard awards like “honor roll” and “perfect attendance” and cute awards like “favorite smile” and “biggest helper.” The school held a virtual ceremony, complete with a PowerPoint presentation with photos of each student. The whole thing screamed “cute.”
Usually, that’s all my daughter gets for school-related celebrations. This year however, we are going to do something additional. This year, my daughter’s mother suggested that we throw a party. A graduation party to celebrate our daughter finishing elementary school and going to middle school.
Let me start by saying that I said yes to the party. I’m not a scrooge. I know that my daughter will love it. Of course she will. What kid doesn’t love a party?
With that said, I must admit that — and please don’t judge me for it — a not-so-small part of me wondered, “Since when did we start celebrating children graduating from elementary school?”
Again, please don’t judge me. Allow this to be a safe space for me. Don’t make me feel like I’m alone in this.
I told myself that I wouldn’t use this phrase because (1) I never wanted to be that guy and (2) I’m not old enough yet to be that guy, but I have to because it’s appropriate. Back in my day … we had two graduations: high school and college. Who are these new children to deserve more graduations? Who decided that? When was that decided? I did not get that memo.
In 2015, Kia released a commercial for their 2016 Kia Sorento in which a dad laments his son’s football league giving out participation trophies despite his son’s team beating every other team. The dad tore the participation label off of it and wrote “champs” on it. I laughed because I would be that dad. The winners get trophies. Everyone else doesn’t. They can have a pizza party or something.
I feel like a graduation party for finishing elementary school is kind of like a participation trophy. I mean, c’mon, how hard is it to finish elementary school? I couldn’t find a statistic on the percentage of children that start primary school and finish it, but I feel like If your kid shows up every day and turns in their homework, graduation is pretty much guaranteed. And if your kid is smart — and I think that most parents believe that their kids are smart — then surely finishing elementary school is an expectation and not necessarily an achievement worthy of celebration, right?
I acknowledge that there are those who will disagree with me. There are many who believe that there is a value in celebrating every achievement, no matter how easy or difficult it was to obtain it. People, and children especially, appreciate and value acknowledgement. With every celebration we speak life, confidence, and a sense of gratitude into our children.
I could buy that. That makes some sense. But there’s more than one way to encourage a child, or build their confidence, or teach them gratitude. There’s nothing that says you have to celebrate everything your child does to do those things. As the old folks used to say back in my day … ”I’m not gonna applaud a fish for swimming ….”
But then it hit me. Something I didn’t think about until recently. Something that makes me think that, perhaps, I need to be more grateful about this whole graduation party thing.
We’re going to have a party this weekend celebrating the fact that our daughter has finished elementary school. The families of 19 children in Uvalde, Texas will not have that privilege. I would venture to guess that, just two weeks ago, some of those families might have also seen finishing elementary school as an expectation, and not necessarily an achievement worthy of celebration.
But as we have seen, everything can change in a moment. And the change can be through no fault of your own. As soon as you think you are in control of your life, something can come along to remind you that — try as you might — you are not in control.
What happened at Robb Elementary School can happen anywhere, on any given morning. So perhaps I need to change my expectations to match the reality. Back in my day children didn’t conduct active shooter drills at school. Now, they do.
My daughter made it. She survived primary school. These days, not every child does. Maybe these new children deserve graduation parties for that.
Eric Foster, a community member of the editorial board, is a columnist for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. Foster is a lawyer in private practice. The views expressed are his own.
To reach Eric Foster: ericfosterpd@gmail.com
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