My youngest daughter is graduating from high school today and into full adulthood by all American standards. The entire event will cost me a bit over a cool $1,000 USD, and that's considered extremely modest by most comparisons. Some families are spending as much as what my wife and I spent on a wedding, close to $30,000 to celebrate the academic accomplishment of their child. Speaking of which, today's average wedding now costs close to or over $100,000, which begs the question, why bother? Wouldn't it be smarter to use that money instead for a down payment on house? Mathematically, yes, but that's not now celebrations and family work. It's not like everyone just stops and takes what they would have spent on the celebration and instead dumps it into a communal saving jar. No, we all roll along, fill our seats and functions in what's expected of us in these events and pay up. When the hell did normal life get so damn expensive for the sake of happening?
There was a time, at least in the U.S. when the high school graduation was "the" celebration that mattered. Granted, there was the first communion and similar in some religious circles, but the passage to adulthood in high school was the one that mattered in Americana. After that, one became an adult, got married and within a year or two had kids. The husband either went to the farm, to the local factory or to the military, depending on what was going on at the time. A few lucky characters went to college, but they were a notable minority because that was before higher education was made widespread and far more affordable in the 1960s.
Today, the high school graduation is only the first big step, aside from the homecoming dance, in a series of celebrations that happen, all with significant cost and to-do. After the graduation comes another one with college, and then a marriage will fit in there somewhere after school is done. Then comes the first child bash, a big one in some cultures because after the first year it can also be the naming of the child, and birthdays galore. Every year is also chock full of Easter celebrations, Memorial Day BBQs, 4th of July parties, last of summer vacations and more weddings, Halloween, the big family Thanksgiving and finally, Christmas and New Year's. Let's not forget the kid's 16th birthday as well after that, and then an endless series of retirement parties for coworkers and networking contacts until it's time for one's own retirement bash. By this point, with age, then comes the eventual memorials and passing events as well, as people begin to die in their 50s and forward. It's not as dramatic as half a century ago, but the frequency picks up. And each event can be thousands of dollars involved, with a whole distinct business around how one should prepare, attend, look and behave.
Every one of these days above gets bombarded with marketing, and businesses and companies are hot to trot on creating new days as well. Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays and Giving Tuesdays all mean money flow. There's now a lot of fuss over a Bitcoin Pizza day too. Don't ask me to cough up a Bitcoin for that.
At the root of all these celebrations is a business season that lives on consumerism and squeezing out as much as possible from emotional obligation. Hell, even a simple gift card to give someone for an event is well over $8 USD for basically a fancy stock piece of paper folded over with some wordy print on it. I bet with a good printer, typesetting and AI one could make a better card on their own today on their home computer.
And in the midst of all the rush, we forgot about what the celebration was for in the first place - to create a memory about a special time in someone's life and sharing it with them. I made a point of not taking photos today or trying to film anything during my daughter's graduation. Instead, I just wanted to experience and live it for what the moment was. We have photos, and other took them for us which we received pretty quick via text, so wasn't missing out on anything digital. But I did, for once, just take in the passing of my youngest child to the beginning of her real life for a day.
