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.

I get this. My brother is someone who has no emotional resilience and can darken a whole room with his moods. He too ruined his own graduation. I didn’t attend but my parents did. They supported him the whole day, big smiles really boosting him up. But after it was all over it ended with my parents phoning me asking if I wanted a takeaway as they were going to pick one up on their way home. This made my brother mad, in his mind all my parents cared about on his graduation was me. Totally not true and unfair, but I accept there are some mental health issues here.

I do think she owes you an apology. It's bad enough when little children say or do something hurtful to their parents, as an adult she was being very disrespectful and hopefully she can learn from that that it's very rarely all about you in life, we are supported and should support others. Graduating is her achievement but you went to a lot of effort and I'm sure have supported her along the way which wasn't acknowledged. Hope you can make up soon x

She spent years working towards something and she achieved it. That's good, as a parent I would be proud.
But she probably see her degree as a stepping stone to a job, particularly if she is now in debt, and she got a big kick in her face with that rejection.
Maybe she felt like a failure.
The important thing is her degree, not the graduation ceremony.

But she behaved badly. She will be forgiven but she needs to acknowledge it .

She didn’t get “A big kick in the face” though, did she? She got a job rejection: a disappointment; a set back; an unwanted surprise. But a kick in the face it is not.
It’s an opportunity to reflect on: does her CV need a change; does she put things into perspective; can she bounce back; can she use her words to explain her big feelings to her parents.

Presumably if she hadn't received the letter regarding the job she would have been fine and dandy with the day. She will receive plenty more knock backs and needs to learn how to deal with them.

During every graduation ceremony I have been to, and there have been quite a few, there has been a speech by someone who thanks parents and carers. Many parents make huge sacrifices so their children can go to university, provide support both emotional and financial. Most parents are immensely proud of their children and love sharing in celebrations of their achievements and hard work. The OP's daughter may regret her hasty response on the day, and an apology to her parents probably wouldn't go amiss.

Graduations are very boring.
It’s disappointing OP but there will be other times to celebrate your daughter and her achievements. When she gets a good job you could have that special dinner.

Presumably she got her first rejection, not just some rejection.
If she was hoping to bag a job at the same time she finished her degree, she might have felt her dream was shattered.
Currently society puts a lot of pressure on the young to never make mistakes, which creates anxiety, particularly if they put all their eggs in one basket focusing on study and academic results.
Last year our son narrowly missed a scholarship with a very expensive and prestigious school, and quite unexpectedly that caused him to break down psychologically very dramatically. He still has not recovered and, after all these months supporting him I came to realize that since a few years he had narrowed down his world and interests so much, focusing only on studying.
He fervently hoped that having all 9s and 8s would pay back, when it didn't he felt that there had to be something wrong with himself then.
Lack of experience and high expectations can cause very deep disappointment, even break a person self-identity.

@BigDayForTheWomen

nah, I think OP and her husband should have that special dinner this Friday night, a romantic meal out at a lovely restaurant just the two of them.

Nice if they could make it work, but perhaps they were so downcast that it would have been too sad. Though wine would have helped!

Yes sometimes you truly do wonder where the compassion is, & oftentimes if those condemning, were in the shoes of the o commenter, they would wish for, & expect some empathetic compassion 💚🌼💚

@BigDayForTheWomen

yep, wine, cocktails etc - they’d have been fine. So they should do it this Friday night. Don’t make it contingent on their daughter getting a job or whatever, just seizing the moment and treating themselves as a couple!

I can appreciate that must be very difficult for your son, and your whole family.

Having gone (mostly) through that experience, do you think there are things you would have done differently from a much younger age that would have meant he would be in a better place to cope with that rejection. (It isn’t clear how old your son is and whether you mean a teenager or a young adult)

Giving 16 year olds the vote is a complete waste of time. I don’t know any adults who support it.

I fully support it, but what does this have to do with OP’s thread?

They might sulk at the polling station?

That's a very good question, which I sought an answer to quite incessantly over the last year.
My son is a teenager, he was applying to a sixth form.
As I see it now, my son would have benefited from:
More social interaction with peers and relatives, and more rough and adventurous playing, and more contact sports.
More team sports activities, and in general more sports, particularly in groups.
Ideally more interactions with alternative, better role models than us, as parents.
Activities such as scoutism or similar, which boost self reliance and resilience.
Having siblings, and having more friends and close family.

Mind you that if I had been asked a few years ago how my son was doing, I would have said well enough, in his own way.
Since very young he wrote stories and comics, had a sharp sense of humour, composed music and songs, made videogames and was a bafta finalist with one of them.
He said he did not like sports, but did swimming for years and is quite proficient.
He could be timid but was quite communicative once he knew someone a bit.

And of course he had very high grades, great behaviour and was very punctual with attendance and homework, without any input from us.

He was lonely in school, I suspected, and I hoped that will change with time, because that's what happened to me at his age. But I had way more opportunities to make friends and go out with them, and many cousins I spent summers with.

When it all came down crashing he became extremely silent and forever absorbed in his own thoughts and worries. He suffered from panic attacks, and explosions of rage, and very paranoid thoughts.

I see this as the result of isolation mainly, to an extent of bullying, which we found out about quite recently, and of a quite unhealthy perfectionism which I might well have inspired.

In the end, I have no useful advice to offer to others, I think, because it is all quite specific to our situation.
We are foreigners and we chose to live in the UK mainly for professional reasons. We made friends of course, but in London people come and go, and we have no relatives here. So we never gave him a social network and other significant adults most kids naturally have, and we did not put sufficient effort into offsetting that by making new friends and involving him in social and group activities.
We have been very loving to him, and very present and available. But kids need other kids, and family, and it was quite dumb of us to underestimate that.

@NorthSouthLondon No debt at all if you don’t get a job! You do realise payments start with earning - around £27,000 in this case.

You are very education and results focussed. Most dc come through rejection. It’s part of life. It’s easier when they are not pushed too hard to succeed without any fun. The DD in this thread seems self centred. Most dc want time with parents and friends and a photo.

What an awful comment to make to anyone. You have no idea if someone's partner died before they could have kids, they have had infertility struggles, if they had a child born sleeping, if they are trapped in a relationship with an abuser who would love to upduff them...

The idea that anyone is more worthy of motherhood than anyone else based on a few Mumsnet comments? Moronic in any case.

I would love to know how the DD views her mother and their relationship.

I have a feeling that this DD probably would benefit from the Stately Home thread

The very fact that the Op chooses to start a thread about her daughter on Chat, essentially inviting posters to bitch about her own child… well, really says it all.

This thread has got really quite weird. I’ve read through the OP’s posts and she sounds pretty normal. When / if my children graduate, I’ll want a photo and to go out for dinner afterwards. They are not outrageous expectations.

The trouble is, graduation marks an end to her current era and the start of an unknown, new one.
The job, had she been offered it, would have given her some sense of direction and future. Because she was rejected, she now feels like a loose end is flapping into her future and she seems like she is struggling to deal with the unknown. It can be a very disconcerting feeling and she perhaps doesn't have the mental tools to deal with it.
I suspect it isn't about this particular job, but having no idea where her life is currently going.
She has reacted to it by being a brat, but it isn't that unusual.

They’re not are they

BUT the fact that the DD behaved like this would indicate there is a sizeable back story regarding the Op and the relationship between the pair of them.

There will be many a poster on the Stately Homes that will have stories about how their graduation day went down re their mother