My youngest kid recently graduated from senior high school, and as the commencement rites ended and we walked away from the school, which was also the same one I spent 11 years in many decades ago, both the child and her parents must have come to the realization that having reached the next stage of our lives, it is going to change significantly.
She will be leaving the school that she went to for 12 years and moving up to a completely different world as she follows her manong’s footsteps to a university in Japan, where she has dedicated a lot of effort over the past two years to also gain admission. It’s a big adventure in totally unfamiliar territory, and as excited and worried her parents are for the next stage of her life, she must be doubly so.
She has the advantage of having a manong already there to show her the ropes, someone to run to in case she needs a helping hand, but there is still so much change to deal with when it comes to studying and living abroad. Aside from the culture shock and learning a language, there is also a totally different educational system to get used to, aside from the opportunity to be a working student. It’s going to be an awesome experience, but it can be quite a scary one as well. Hopefully everything she has been through, everything she’s learned from school and from her family, has prepared her for that new adventure that starts in a couple of months.
As for the parents, we have now seen all our kids through high school. Our daily routine will no longer be the same. For me, driver duties have ended, and there is no more need to drop off a kid at school every day. Thankfully, homework and tutoring duties ended some time ago, before the kids entered high school. But with this graduation, we will have attended our last honor’s assembly, PE dance, and other school activities, which means that singing the Alma Mater song will become even more rare.
When both kids are away, our nest will be empty and that is something we will have to get used to. Will their rooms become bodegas, or will each parent have their own man-cave? Meal preparation will have to be adjusted, and dinner table conversations will have to shift online. Watching movies or series at home will be tougher because when there are less people to share with, there’d be more junk food to contend with. When the nest isn’t empty, having young ones to share the unhealthy stuff and guilty pleasures with is part of the fun, and at the same time it lessens the exposure of our aging bodies from those and while it is hard to stop snacking, it doesn’t take that long before we find out that our aging bodies don’t like too much of that anymore
Having a kid graduate from high school is a totally different experience when all your kids are finally done, because everything suddenly changes. It is a significant adjustment for parents when there are no more kids left in the house, and it feels like you have become a different person, acutely aware that a new stage of life has begun. All parents know that it is inevitable for the kids to spread their wings and fly, but nothing really prepares you for all your charges having graduated and start living their own lives.
Perhaps that is why it is not recommended for parents to make their kids their sole purpose and identity. Because the goal of parenting is letting them go, and once that happens, those who have poured their everything into being a parent might end up finding themselves utterly lost. While I am hoping that I am not among those people, only time will tell.
It doesn’t matter if you are the student or the parent. Everyone has to graduate. Those who don’t are considered failures. While the students have their ceremonies, togas, awards, and diplomas. The parents, who are just as deserving most of the time, get no such honors. But in the end, it is an achievement that everyone should be proud of. And after the celebrations are done, we have to move on. If not, then everything we worked for will be for naught.
Congratulations are always deserved and in order, for the graduates and their guardians.
However, the thing about graduation ceremonies is that it is not the end. It is just the victorious beginning of a new chapter of life, where new challenges await. We can only hope that everything we learned is enough to see us through the part that is yet to come.*
