🎓 Parents Need to Stop Celebrating High School Graduation! 🚫🎉
I hate high school graduations. Not because I dislike celebrating student achievement. I hate it because our society overdoes it. We bring the entire family tree 🌳, the cowbells 📯, and the horns 🎺. I swear, one day, I saw the roof open, and Beyoncé floated down on a white and gold unicorn 🦄✨. It’s too much!
What are we celebrating? A milestone when most students have not walked a mile 👣 or even an inch 📏.
📖 Let me tell you a story.
So, I’m in a classroom with high school students expressing their frustrations with school. One young man stares at me deadpan in the retina 👀. Listen to what he said to me:
🗣️ “Daddy, I don’t want to go to school/cause the teacher’s a jerk; he must think I’m a fool.”
I’m joking—that line is from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message.” 🎤
No, this is what the young man had to say:
📢 “I do five problems and I get a good grade. They [the teachers] reward me with ten harder problems. I pass that assignment. They give me 20 harder problems—What’s the point?”
I told him, “Don’t you know that life does not get easier? We just get stronger.” You would have thought I cursed him out 😳. His eye roll and sigh were legendary 🎭😂.
🗨️ "I can’t wait to get out of high school."
You know me—being the Anansi trickster-griot 🕷️🎙️ that I am—I pulled back the curtain to let him know what he could expect once the cowbells stop ringing 🔔 and his Mama stops saying, "That’s my baby!" 🥲.
🚨 Most Gen Z students are NOT ready for life!
Most Gen Z students will not be able to earn a decent living 💰 because Fortune 500 companies are firing them left and right – like the Cha Cha Slide 🕺❌💼.
📊 Although high school graduation rates are up, students lack:
❌ Reading skills 📖
❌ Writing skills ✍🏾
❌ Math skills ➗
❌ Critical thinking skills 🧠
❌ Emotional intelligence 💡💔
But before we point fingers, we as adults need to get the stick out of our eyes 👀 or other parts I refuse to mention 😏.
We taught these little emperors that their birthday suits were made out of gold 👑. We should have told them we left them naked to fend for themselves.
✅ We passed them from class to class. 🏫
✅ We did not check to see if they were actually learning. 📚
✅ We refused to provide supplementary education. 🤦🏾♂️
✅ We didn’t take them to free community tutors. 🤷🏾
😱 The Reality Check: They’re Coming Back Home!
If we were Gen Z, would we want to become another cog in the machine 🏭—a wage slave 💼⛓️?
We might as well get rid of our empty nest dreams of traveling the world ✈️ or walking around the house in our underwear 🩲😆. Because our darlings will be living longer in our homes 🏠💡, writing their names on the juice they bought 🧃 while using OUR Wi-Fi and electricity 🔌📶.
They don’t have grit, butter, salt, or sugar 🧈🧂🍚 (if your mama didn’t raise you better) to endure the boredom of the everyday struggle. 😓
🎯 THE SOLUTION: STOP OVERCELEBRATING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION!
When these kids walk across the stage in their designer clothes 👕💰, we just need to give them ONE single-hand clap 👏. They are NOT done. It is time we stop acting like they are.
🛠️ How We Can Fix This:
✅ Intervene EARLY in their education. 📚
✅ Give kids career interest tests 🔍 to help them find their passion 🎯.
✅ Trade School 🛠️ is an option! College is NOT the only way.
✅ Have Gen Z students write a plan 📝, daily affirmations 💭, and a vision board 🎨 that leads them toward their goals.
✅ Make them take inventory of their self-sabotaging habits. 🛑 Negative self-talk & fear hold them back. Teach them to overcome it.
👨🏾🏫 Parents & Educators:
💡 Write daily affirmations that commit to empowering Gen Z and hold them accountable.
📢 If all of us rewrite our narratives, we can remix our minds. 🎶✨
💬 Want Me to Show You How? Hit Me Up!
🎤 Need a DadCypher Edutainment tune-up?
📧 Email me at: DadCypher@gmail.com
📲 Follow me at: @DadCypherEdutainment
DO IT NOW! What are you waiting for? Graduation is around the corner! 🎓⏳
🔥 Hashtags for Reach & Engagement:
I appreciate your perspective, but I see the situation differently. Parents who choose to support their children’s journey into adulthood often have profound reasons behind their decisions. The economy may influence these choices, but it’s important to remember that every family has unique circumstances. It’s crucial to examine our assumptions and strive for objective analysis. From my experience as a young professional, I believe that even seemingly small celebrations can hold great significance. Growing up, receiving participation medals felt like a hollow gesture, yet they aimed to acknowledge efforts. Not all children graduate from high school; I earned my GED while working to support my elderly grandmother. Celebrating achievements like my nephew graduating high school was a momentous occasion for…