I have nothing against our friends across the pond, and have long-since accepted the Americanisation of language, fashion and food trends. But when it comes to the children, surely things have gone too far?
Leaving secondary school used to be a fairly subdued affair. A half-day at school playing board games you’d brought in from home, then a daring parade through town wearing a school shirt scribbled on by all your friends. If you were really feeling rebellious, there might even be a can of Silly String in your bag. I don’t recall any fuss about the transition from primary to secondary school (or in my case, from primary to middle to secondary).
Now it seems it’s any excuse for a party. Secondary school ‘graduation’ proms have for a fair few years necessitated a second mortgage to cover the limo, the dresses, the up-dos and the after-party-party, but now the trend has crept down to primary school leavers. Eleven-year-olds across the country are being primped and preened for an event that should demand nothing more than a school disco with warm lemonade and a bowl of Pringles.
This unnecessary commercialisation is seeping through our lives with alarming haste, putting pressure on parents to fork out money they can’t afford, and making ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ an impossible act. There are even photos circulating on social media networks of four-year-old nursery ‘graduates’, complete with gowns and cardboard mortar boards. I despair. What’s next? A prom to mark the graduate from womb to crib?
Stretch limos and cocktail frocks are for hen dos and fortieth birthdays. Let children be children: give them the budget discos of our own youth, complete with cheese and pineapple hedgehogs, and Philadelphia smeared onto Ritz crackers. Chances are, they’ll have just as much fun.