THE LITTLE GRADUATE

IS TURNING UP TO KINDY FOR A YEAR REALLY CONSIDERED AN ACHIEVEMENT? ONLY IF YOU CAN LEARN TO SHARE.

Folks, this week I was invited to attend our granddaughter’s kindy graduation. Seriously, how long has this been a “thing”?

“Great, just what we need,” I thought, “something else that seemed like a good idea at the time but quickly got out of control”. Like Christmas shopping online or patting a stray dog.

But, what had these children done to deserve a ceremony, apart from turn up to kindy for a year? Do we really need to raise another generation of “everybody wins a prize” kids?

Still, I needed something to complain about in this week’s column, so when Long Suffering Wife told me to be there, or leave town, I made the tiny eye roll I save for such occasions then brightly announced, “Try and keep me away.”

The thing is, it was actually a great event.

Ten seconds into the ceremony, I felt ashamed for wanting to sink my manky, old slipper into it. The kids were so proud to be dressed up in their little black gowns and mortarboard hats as they collected their certificates.

Then they sang three songs, with gusto, one of which was Baa Baa Black Sheep and I noted, in spite of all the howling about political correctness gone mad, the words had not been changed to Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep.

Afterwards, as my granddaughter handed me some cake, it struck me that I’d learned most of life’s really important lessons in kindergarten. NOTE: I checked, someone else has already written a book about it; which will save me a lot of time signing royalty cheques in future I suppose.

Honestly, there are so few rites of passage nowadays I think it’s nice to acknowledge little milestones like this.

Celebrating the fact that, thanks to their dedicated carers, these tiny tots were now ready to tackle the next level of being a human being.

They’d learned to share, play nice, keep their hands to themselves, accept others are different and take naps when they get cranky.

Driving home I pondered how many adults would pass those tests and get to graduate from kindy.