Agreed.

Doug: Thanks for visiting. It's been a while and I hope you and your family have been well.

On your points, I don't, of course, know what your son's ceremony was like. My daughter's ceremony...as can be gleaned from our Flickr ( http://u.jc.vc/wxats ) stream ...was pretty close to the one described by Daniel Zwerdling in the NPR piece. In fact, the picture on the NPR site looks pretty close to some of the pictures of my daughter on Flickr -- gown, mortar board, and tassel.

Looking back at my daughter's graduation, I think that a party would have been fine. Sitting in a big circle with families with each kid in turn telling a story about the prior year or their hopes / fears regarding the coming year could have been a lovely closure for that chapter in my daughter, Malena's life. Heck, even a little performance / play / sing along would have been lovely too.

Instead, Malena's ceremony was accompanied by the graduation anthem...names were called...the kids walked across a long stage...the tassel moved from one side to the other. It made me slightly uneasy.

As such, I resonated with the NPR piece a bit more that I might.

In any event, I am not planning to ignore other transitions in my kids' lives...I'm just hoping to not mislead my kids too much as they formulate their own "perspective" on these events in their lives. As I look back, I wonder if all the fanfare at Malena's "graduation" was a bit misleading. I'll probably never know, but I can certainly tell you that I wonder.

Thoughts?

Janet: I presume you mean "what a difference a year makes". I absolutely agree with you. I felt a bit uneasy then...the robes seemed a little much, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And then, this last year was a year in the Waldorf system...what an eye opener. I am sure I will continue to offer recognition / rewards to my kids that in retrospect will make me cringe, but I will try to keep Botstein's (and the narrator's) comments in mind. Thanks for visiting! -- Jerry

Thanks bud!

The files do go by really fast. But with quick fingers, poppap's technique gets 'em. Thanks a bunch poppap!

Excellent Post. Thanks for putting all of this out there. I am happy to see that playing by the rules and working hard for the client is not ignored.

Thanks for pointing out the post. I too never would have come across it and he does make excellent points. And I can't tell you how many times I have caught lawyers doctoring the redlines. It is deplorable.