Senior Trips

I just came back from meeting my freshly-graduated-from-high-school daughter during her lunch break. I'm her back-up plan. Usually her friends stop by the department store where she works and they go out during her break, but if they're not available, then I get an invitation.

This week, we've had lunch almost every day.

All of her friends (not really, but she thinks so) are in Hawaii on their senior trip. Everyone but her, she tells me sadly, looking very, very sorry for herself.

She's nearly right. Most of her friends are in Hawaii, on Mom's and Dad's Visa, whooping it up with hundreds of other kids. No parents, no responsibilities, no expectations, no rules.

I just don't get it.

I'm baffled that so many parents think these wild senior trips are a right of passage. (And let's be honest...these are wild trips. Last year, two girls in our community were date-raped on their senior trip.) These trips have become viewed as parental obligation to a graduating senior. Frankly, even the state of California assumes that kids can get through high school. I recognize that it is a transition point in a child's life (even a family's life), but when did high school graduation turn into such an astonishing accomplishment?

What my daughter feels sad about is that she's being excluded. She's working, while her friends are text messaging and calling from Oahu to keep her up-to-date with their fun.

Ouch.

But what I'm sorry about is that more parents don't say no.