Ready or not, here it comes

Opinion: June 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

There’s a scene in “The Homecoming” when Elizabeth, the youngest of John and Olivia Walton’s brood, keeps pushing on her head as though to squeeze herself into a box that’s probably too small for her little body.

When her brother asks what she’s doing, she tells him she’s trying to keep from growing up.

No, it doesn’t work.

No matter how hard you hold them down, pull them back or order them to “Stop it!” they go on, year after year, turning the pages of their lives, oblivious to whether you’re keeping pace.

And before you’re ready, they reach the day they’re supposed to put on cap and gown, walk across a stage, shake some hands and be declared ready for the next big thing.

And you’re left wondering what happened to that first day of kindergarten, when your daughter wouldn’t let go of your hand.

And that day you relented to let your son play seventh-grade football.

The day you let your middle schoolers walk to school by themselves — that whole quarter of a mile around the corner.

The day you let them drive themselves to high school and fretted all day about whether they’d be safe.

Those all happened just yesterday, didn’t they?

When I brought up the idea of a graduation party, my son wasn’t so enthused.

“That’s for you,” he said. “We don’t need to celebrate something we were supposed to do.”

Or words to that effect.

He’s right — but only partly.

We parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and other adults do need a bit of closure.

No more soccer games

Graduation means an end to endless fundraisers. No more soccer games bundled in sleeping bags, football games in the rain, baseball until 11 o’clock on a school night. No more concession stands, open houses, school assemblies, texts from coaches and e-mails to teachers. No more phone calls from the trainer, visits to the attendance office and crumpled notes dug from the bottoms of backpacks.

It means free time on evenings and weekends, and that’s a momentous lifestyle change I need to come to terms with.

But graduation also means completion of one stage in order to move on to the next.

And that’s an accomplishment, even if it was expected even before the day they picked out their first school supplies.

Only about two-thirds of American public high school students get a diploma in the four years that’s still the typical high school career, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education.

So today’s graduation is a milestone, a rite of passage, an achievement worth making a fuss over. It would seem inconsiderate, even disrespectful, to treat it as no big deal.

And it would be unthinkable to resist the chance to offer words of motherly advice.

Be nice.

The things you do live after you, so send out ripples that have a positive impact. The golden rule doesn’t say it’s OK to act ugly because someone else already did or just might. Life’s an amazing journey, full of promise and opportunity. It won’t always take you where you think you want to go, but the detours can prove more exciting than your personal roadmap.

Linda P. Campbell is a columnist and editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.