Dear Dr. Debbie,
My stepdaughter has 5th grade graduation this week which is being held at the school as a ticketed event – only 3 guests per family. So according to a text conversation between my husband and his ex, the 3 tickets are for her, her new husband, and the fifth grader’s father (my husband) and I’m left without a ticket.
It’s hard enough to navigate my role as an important adult in my stepdaughter’s life without this school-endorsed exclusion. Is this common?
Chopped (off the guest list) Liver
Dear C.L.
Yes, you are important in the life of your stepdaughter. And, sadly, most elementary schools have limited space and limited ability to move a graduation ceremony elsewhere, so a family composition of more than 3 important adults per student poses a problem.
Find a Ticket
Regardless of your status in the eyes of Mom, you could certainly try to snag a fourth ticket. Each school has its own policies and procedures regarding the capacity of the cafeteria to hold family members at a graduation ceremony, so check first with the office. (Or have your husband do it if he has had more interaction with the school than you.) They may have asked other families to turn in tickets they won’t be using. A perfect scenario would be for you to take the ticket of a working parent who can’t take off work to be there. You’d include this child in your plans for the day – with photos, flowers, handshakes, hugs, as if you were part of the child’s family. Ideally, you have made some parent friends out of your stepdaughter’s friends’ parents. If not, this should be a summer goal for you as the teen years approach!
Spare tickets may also be found through a class email list, or a school-wide or a community social media site if you can’t find any by reaching out to your stepdaughter’s friends’ parents directly. Very likely, there’s more than one family that has only one or two parents able to attend, with no stepparents to consider and grandparents too far away.
Or on the other hand, maybe the school cafeteria wouldn’t even be able to hold 3 adults per graduate and they really don’t expect every child to have 3 guests come.
The Celebration Continues
How has your family of exes and steps handled past celebrations? The gracious thing to do if you’re the fourth invitation on a guest list of three is to make your own special event out of this milestone. If everyone is amicable enough, a post-graduation gathering could be planned for a park, restaurant, or backyard with everyone included, perhaps even the families of another couple of classmates. Surely other families would have liked to have been able to invite grandparents and other local relatives to the graduation but were also constrained by the three-ticket allotment. (And don’t forget to schedule this so as to include the parents who couldn’t take off of work to come to the graduation!)
This event could set a precedent for inclusion of both parts of your stepdaughter’s family in all the future special moments she is sure to have.
If the two parts of your stepdaughter’s family don’t generally blend well, then obviously you and your husband will be hosting a celebratory meal soon after the graduation without the ex and her husband. If this celebration is done at your home, whether or not you were able to witness the ceremonious moment at the school, there could be a replay of announcing the graduate’s name and her special honors. Applause! Applause! Take precious photos of her holding whatever certificate(s) she may have received (or make her one yourself!). If Daddy was able to take a picture and or some video of the ceremony, this could be shown along with a montage of other photos and videos of the honoree’s time in elementary school. I’m sure this loving attention will be much more memorable to her than the buzz of bewilderment a fifth grader experiences at an elementary school graduation ceremony.
As you move forward in your stepmother role, you can look ahead to future milestone celebrations to include the families of your stepdaughter’s friends. That’s a great way to be involved in her life as a very important adult. This is not a competition between you and her mom to spend more money or even more time than the other, but a complement between your abilities to fill a childhood with many happy moments.
Life Continues
It can be a delicate dance to share parenthood between two households. Your husband might take some advice from Judith Rabinor’s book Befriending Your Ex about transitioning from marriage through divorce to friendship. Not everyone can manage this smoothly, but of course it’s best for everyone if you can.
And JoAnne Pedro-Carroll’s book Putting Children First: Proven Strategies for Helping Children Thrive Through Divorce gives tips for building resilience in children as well as for having excellent parenting skills. Anyone who cares for a child can improve their skills. Above all, says Pedro-Carroll, “repeatedly telling and showing children how much they are loved and reinforcing those words with physical affection make an enormous difference for children.”
Letting your stepdaughter know that you truly care about her is what is important in your role as a stepparent, not whether you were in the cafeteria when her name was called.
Dr. Debbie
Write your question to Dr. Debbie! Please include age(s) of your child(ren) and other details about the situation or concern.
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum, located at 25 Silopanna Road in Annapolis.
The museum is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm including most holidays. Summer hours are 10 am to 5 pm, beginning June 15. Online reservations are available or call: 410-990-1993. Each Thursday there is a guided nature walk at 10:30 am. Art and Story Time with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet are on Monday mornings at 10:30 am. Join Mr. Alex on Saturday, June 14 from 12-1 pm for Savoring Science: Fermentation Fun to make some pickles!
