Dd ruined graduation

[DrudgeyPants]

I didn’t put this in aibu because I’m feeling too miserable to get a bashing, but perhaps I am bu.

Dd’s graduation yesterday. It was 3 hours away so we stayed in a nice hotel for a treat. On the morning dd received a job rejection, and that was it. She descended into a foul mood.

The day was an abject failure. After the ceremony dd snapped that she was off to return her gown. “But the photos….” we said weakly and dd replied sarcastically that there would be no photos.

Everyone else was being jolly but not us. We stood around for a bit, me feeling like an idiot trussed up in a new dress. Dh and I were hissing at each other not to lose it as we were both feeling a bit teary. We were supposed to be going out for a nice meal, but dd said she wasn’t bothered so we drove home. And that was it.

Today dh has gone into work; I had taken another day off but I’m just doing the washing and cleaning. Dd has gone out.

I wasn’t building this graduation up (I have been to others!) but for dd to spoil it so thoroughly for both her and us mugs has left me feeling very down.

Funnily enough I got a job rejection on my graduation day but I knew my parents had made the effort to come up and take me for dinner (I also knew if I was grumpy I'd get a dry slap) so I put a smile on my face and got on with it.

Too many modern parents on here thinking too much about their children's feelings as if a bit of perspective is going to scar them for life!

I doubt she would have been as critical of a son.
I don’t believe for one second faking happiness leads to happiness.

I have a dozen reasons all relating to research on gender expectations and roles for young women vs young men. Never heard the “Smile, love” ? Women are literally not left in peace if they are not adopting a pleasant expression at all times in public. That never happens to men.

It was DD's day, not the OP's - that's the point. And DD had her day spoiled by the job rejection. It's a shame there's not a bit more sympathy for DD!

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice - you’re barking up the wrong tree here. That’s all I’ll say.

Sadly she'll have to learn that lots of things go wrong in life. With time hopefully she will learn how to deal with disappointment. It's a hard lesson to learn but an essential one. In fact the sooner she learns it the better it will be because she will learn about having a plan B and a plan C and how not to waste emotion on thi gs you can't change. It's one of life's valuable lessons.

It didn’t need a change of plan. It just needed not being rude.

No-one can go through life without things going wrong or failing - unless they simply don't push themselves at all. Even then, other people and the unpredictable will disappoint us.

At this rate she won't even be able to have a relationship, and the getting dumped will come pretty early on in the picture!

I don't think you need to feel bad about spelling this out to her. It's for her own good, as she does sound quite immature in this respect.

I understand the day was a massive disappointment for you as well - and one you didn't deserve - but I think focusing on how this behaviour will affect her is going to get her attention better. Sometimes - especially at that age - its easy to dismiss parental disappointment as parents "making it all about them!"

Sure it's her day, but it's one for which her parents have gone to considerable effort to share with her.

DD should show some bloody respect for that and not flounce off in a huff.

God, she's 21 presumably, supposedly an adult. I wonder how many people here who think she should still be babied about this are in favour of 16 year olds getting the vote?

parents thinking too much about their children's feelings

Yes, god forbid. Let's go back to slapping children and showing them that it's better to pretending they're fine rather than upsetting mum and dad.

Some of you need to give your heads a wobble.

She’s a young woman, who got really disappointing and upsetting news on an already extremely emotionally charged day. She didn’t react in the optimal way. That doesn’t make her this insufferable brat that a lot of you are determined for her to be. It doesn’t make her unloveable like some of you are suggesting. It makes her human.

I don’t think you’re BU at all OP. We had our DD’s grad last week and similarly she got a job rejection email the night before, this was after 4 rounds of interviews. She would never have been so rude to us. She said she was disappointed but wouldn’t let it ruin her (& our) day. She declined the professional photos but happily posed for informal ones by us and we had a lovely meal out afterwards. I’m sorry that your DD ruined it for you, there was really no need and I appreciate why you would be upset.
Is she often so disrespectful?

How do we know for certain it was the job rejection that put her in a terrible mood? Maybe it was something else.

Sounds like a brat

She hasn’t. She said nothing to Dd at the time. What she has done is made a post about her own feelings. Can nobody separate out the two? Of course her post is about her and her feelings, because that’s what she wanted to vent about. On the day she allowed DD to have the (shit) time she seemed to want.

Of course she's not unloveable, but she does seem to struggle with processing disappointment, which is a fairly key skill in life and relationships.

It would be normal to have a wobble about the rejection, but most people would be able to sort the wood from the trees and realise that the academic award was something to celebrate. That ability to keep perspective and not let one brick out of place collapse the house is quite important.

Sometimes you have to rise to an occasion. It was an occasion - one that her parents had supported her in and the university had rewarded her for. The sadness about the rejection was natural and normal; it was the allowing that to seep into everything else that shows a worrying ability to process. By that age most people can manage to pull themselves together to get through an occasion with thought for those around them.

You’re completely ignoring the fact that graduations are full of many emotions, and unsettle a lot of people. Add in the rejection and it’s absolutely natural to not “rise to the occasion”.

Odd that I’ve found doing that does make me feel better then. It’s a fairly common phenomenon.
I am completely sure that a moody rude son would have been just as disappointing. And remember she has at no point actually told her Dd to cheer up or behave politely at all.

Nobody. Told her. To. Smile.
Stop making this something it isn’t. A student was moody and rude. The student’s parent is disappointed this spoiled a lovely celebration.

I think I’d had a string of job rejections by the time I got to my graduation. I’d loved school, loved where I’d gone for my degree, but struggled with the course. Made a few good friends.
I was 20 when I graduated, so hardly grown-up, I didn’t get the grade that was predicted, either. I didn’t feel like going.
But I went. I went as a thank-you to my parents who sacrificed a lot to get me there, and were so proud. Something went wrong with the photos, they were really dark so in the end we made do with a snapshot taken by a cathedral, and for that framed.
I would never in my wildest dreams have treated my parents like that, and I’m very emotional and no angel.
It would take me a year of working to
fund a post-grad which eventually led to a job. And when you turn up to one of those, any dramatics and you are out the door.
No, life isn’t easy for young people now.
But there is no need for behaviour like this. It is entitled and rude.
I hope in time OP’s daughter will come to recognise she behaved very badly.

I’ve never said she’s a brat, or unlovable.
Maybe you should consider that the OP is human too.

This. I’d have been fuming if my DC had behaved like this at a special event especially if we had gone to the effort/expense of being there for him/her. Extremely rude and childish behaviour, ruining their own graduation and the day for everyone else. A graduation is a special day for parents, so it may technically be the graduates day but other people also have skin in the game. And you don’t behave like that when people have turned up for you and made an effort. Not on.

I've had plenty of graduations.

Its not that unsettling - especially if you are getting a good degree or an academic award,

Lots of people have lost their parents and would have loved to have them there to share in it. Lots of people just scrape a pass and then, I'll grant, there's a bit of disappointment.

But a good degree, with family who have made an effort (OP had bought a new dress) is not sufficiently "unsettling" to warrant throwing the toys out of the pram.

Multiple people have called her daughter a brat, said that she “won’t be able to have a relationship” and other such horrid things.

Why is it that OP’s humanity must be considered, but that of her daughter shouldn’t? What if she stumbled across this thread and found her mother supporting hundreds of strangers in a character assassination, while having no right of reply?

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice are you a bot?

Believe me, if my sons pulled this petulance / moodiness on a big day, I would be equally disappointed - and tell them that this is not how adults behave.

Literally nothing I said referred to brains or beauty or 'appearances'. The grad photo is more like a rite of passage, like a school prom photo. Most get it to mark that, loads of people have miserable school prom nights but still get the photo.

Not sure why you keep harping on about sexism when there is nothing pointing to that.

I have also stated that we need to show empathy on the job disappointment but equally that circumstances sometimes usurp one person's disappointment and they need to buck up