I wept through my third kindergarten graduation. One would think this becomes old hat, and the realization of your kids getting older shifts from shock to some sort of logical acceptance, but it doesn’t. Every time I see one of mine celebrating their first year of formal education, the tears start flowing.
And do you want to know a secret? Usually it’s not just triggered just by seeing my kid.
This time it was a noticing all these kids – the ones who, in 11 more years, we’ll find ourselves watching walk across another podium in a similarly stuffy gymnasium holding back more tears. This will be after years of school projects, sporting competitions, school assemblies, dates, parties, and dances. These kids in this gym are going to be a part of my little girl’s growing up; these kids are the faces and names of our future stories. (What, no one else gets weepy thinking forward, not just back?) These are the tears I shed to remind myself to be present to even the most annoying group text argument about ridiculous things, because these kids are the reason we all want the best. I catch a sense of the interconnectedness to the other adults in the room when I realize that though we approach it differently, we all have a fierce love for our child on that stage. And all of these children are going to navigate these childhood and teenage years together. Parents, we’re in this together, can we please remember that?
And sometimes it’s watching the adults in charge of these events that makes me glad I opted out of mascara that morning. This most recent graduation I watched all the aides and non-classroom teachers as they lovingly kept hats on heads and herded the well-rehearsed children to their next place. These adults were hugging, kneeling down to the children’s level to talk, and smiling in their own excitement and joy on behalf of the children. They weren’t assisting from a sense of duty, but from a deeper desire to help each kid feel proud when they walked across the stage. One of my parenting goals is to put adults in the life of my kids, other people who want good things for them, who care for them, and who will echo the teachings we’re trying for at home. When I see adults care for my kids, providing this sense of community and support, I feel like we’re moving in the right direction.
Then there’s the real kicker: the teachers. Oh, those teachers. They do this every year – EVERY. YEAR. – and really have it down to a science. The Very Hungry Kindergartener (adorable), the New York, New York tuned song (“…I want to BE a part of it, first grade, first grade!”) and then the slide show and the diplomas – all of it – isn’t new to the teachers. For a many of us, it’s not new to the parents (or it won’t be next time). But you know what? Somehow, and I claim voodoo magic, they make it seem like it was all our kids that made it happen. The different voices in the songs and faces in the pictures each year takes a new shape each time even while material gets recycled. With each class the one-hour program gets a new breath of life and these teachers somehow make us feel in our bones that it has everything to do with our kids. I think it’s because they practice on our children. They make each of our children feel like they’re the favorite. I’m guessing teachers – again, with voodoo magic – have some sort of skill to actually have 87400 favorites at the same time. And then they get a new class of them just 2.5 short months later, and do it all again.
Of course, graduation provokes all those normal parenting thoughts: How did this part escape us so quickly? Are we doing this right? Is she going in the right direction? Do others like him? Did she learn what she needs to know? But, for me, these underlying concerns don’t cause me to erupt with tears. Because those are just the micro thoughts within the macro: in this job we’re given of raising tiny humans, we are both everything and nothing. We have the power to make it a good or terrible 18+ years, and yet these little individuals are each very much their own person, with the power to also make it good or terrible. Every decision we make has the power to shape them. And every decision we make will not turn them into who they become. Someday, they’ll accept (and repeat) or reject our offerings, for better or worse.
Sitting in a stuffy auditorium, we feel a little of the sadness. A little of the pride. A little of the relief. But for me, I mostly feel a lot of gratitude. Who am I that these beautiful people were entrusted to my care? How did I get to be included in this?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I counter we need more awareness with healthy proportions of fear. The challenge is to 