A Gift For Your Grad

Give them the gift of what you’ve learned

Graduation season is nearly here. As parents, high school and college graduation is a time for relief; that both you and your kid(s) made it. They are both milestones, turning points where we see our kids beginning adulthood and careers with their own paychecks and hopefully some good health insurance.

It’s a huge step and one worth celebrating.

The question is, how do you celebrate the culmination of all your work as a parent? What can you give your kids to commemorate the sweat, blood, and tears you put into raising them?

I did the traditional party and gifts for my kids at both high school and college graduations, of course. But as I was planning the food and decorations, I couldn’t help but feel it was kind of shallow. I was marking the end of their childhood, the beginning of their adulthood with hors d’oeuvres and cake.

Kind of lame.

It took forever for them to grow up, and yet somehow it snuck up on me at the same time. Here they were about to go out into the world and suddenly all I could think of was all the things I hadn’t taught them.

So, I wrote them a graduation letter. With advice they might someday need but had no interest in at the moment. All the advice I wished I’d been given. I wrote different letters for high school and college graduations. Three out of three kids gave it a 10/10 as far as gifts go.

For their high school graduation, I started with the usual mushy mom stuff and then gave some generalized life advice. Their college letter (for the 2 who have finished college) was focused on advice to new nurses.

The following is the letter to my high school graduates:

Dear Child of Mine,

Congratulations! You did it, you made it! The end of high school means the beginning of a life that you, and only you, choose. And you, and only you, are responsible for those outcomes. This is where the most possibilities exist for you — both good and bad. You’ve been through so much — let it make you stronger and kinder.

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