The Book of New Family Traditions (27 page)

Rituals for New Drivers

Car accidents are the leading cause of death for teenagers, but studies show that “parental involvement” can reduce the risks. Special rituals can help you celebrate the milestone of a first driver’s license while preparing your kids for a huge new responsibility. In our culture of speed and mobility, earning a driver’s license is a major rite of passage and deserves to be recognized as such.

Prayer for a New Driver

In the Vogt family, a new driver is celebrated with a brief ceremony in which the teen is given not only a personal car key but a house key as well. The ceremony is part of a special dinner, with treat foods. Most of the family’s rituals include a religious element, and this one is no exception. Susan Vogt’s simple prayer goes: “God bless our child as he gains independence at this new stage in life, and bless this car, and keep our son safe in his travels.”

Fitting Gifts

Whether you celebrate with a little family party or dinner out, there are a number of things that would make meaningful gifts for a new driver, such as a special key ring. In addition, you might give a fancy set of tools and safety gear, things like flares.

A New-Driver Contract

However you celebrate, one vital aspect of the ceremony is the solemn signing of a pact between the parents and the new driver. The elements should be discussed and understood in advance, but you may want to read it aloud and have the new driver verbally agree to each statement, like taking a vow. The glove compartment might be a good place to keep the contract, as a reminder.

Usually, such contracts include an agreement to observe all motor vehicle laws. Sometimes they spell out the consequences of breaking such laws. In the Chesto family, each kid was allowed one speeding ticket and one fender-bender, but anything beyond that resulted in reduced driving privileges.

Other ideas for the contract: regulation of how many passengers are allowed, how far the teenager is allowed to drive, and rules for driving after dark.

Here is a contract written by one of Kathy Chesto’s daughters, when she was a teenager. It could easily be modified:

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I believe that driving a car is a serious responsibility, to myself, to passengers in the car, to those in other vehicles, to pedestrians, and to the environment.

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I believe that traffic laws have been made for our protection, and I will obey them.

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I believe that others have as much right to the road as I do, and I will attempt to always be courteous.

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I believe that a car is a means of transportation, not a symbol of power, and I will use it wisely and share in the responsibility of being a driver in this family.

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I believe that a car is an expense that should be shared justly by all who use it.

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I believe that the less parents know, the more they worry, and I will try my best to call when I am late and keep them informed.

Graduations

All graduations are rites of passage. And though I remember laughing at lavish graduation ceremonies for five-year-olds, I did give a pizza party when my son finished nursery school. For each child, I made a “medal,” which consisted of a gold construction-paper star, to which I glued a blue ribbon. “Crossroads Graduate” was written in the star’s center, and each child had one of these draped around his or her neck.

A high school graduation is another thing entirely. Indeed, it’s one of the only ceremonial occasions (outside of weddings) for which we still dress up. Wearing caps and gowns as they walk alone past a roomful of classmates and family, teenagers find themselves physically enacting the crossing of a major threshold toward independence and adulthood. For many, it’s a powerful emotional experience.

But I think families can do a lot to enhance that experience, helping their graduates to celebrate their past and eagerly anticipate the future, to acknowledge in some ceremonial way that though a separation is coming, the love and devotion of the family will follow them wherever life’s journey takes them.

High School Graduation Letters

Three months before her daughter graduated from high school, Betty Ruddy sent a note to the girl’s relatives and close family friends asking them to write a letter in honor of her graduation. Some wrote the girl advice for the future, and others shared favorite memories of her childhood. One aunt sent a poem; another made up a mock “report card” charting the girl’s triumphs and character traits. Betty gathered all these papers into a beautiful box and presented it to the girl as one of her graduation gifts. “She was in tears before she unfolded the third letter,” says Betty.

Dutch Tradition: Garland for the Graduate

Janneke Van der Ree grew up in Holland and loves the Dutch tradition called “slingers,” which are garlands, long strings of ribbon on which hang colorful triangular flags. These garlands are often used for birthdays and other milestones like baby showers, and the simple, store-bought ones are often made of plastic or paper. Janneke, who is an excellent seamstress and quilter, decided to make a special slinger for her daughter’s high school graduation. She made the triangle-shaped, three sided flags out of fabric, attached to a long string of bias tape. For her girl, Janneke printed some special photographs on paper and attached them to the fabric, and she made some individual flags out of old dresses, linens, and other mementos, even Girl Scout badges. Her daughter loved the brightly colored, highly personal garland, which is a portable memento she can keep hanging in her room at home or take off to college.

Great Graduation Gifts to Start in Kindergarten

Novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz writes a letter every year to her children on their birthdays and keeps them sealed and hidden away. Another mother I know asked each of her children’s teachers to write a letter about her child at year’s end, and she saves all those letters from kindergarten on. High school graduation is a logical time to gather together such material that documents a complete childhood, along with a collage of school photos from every year, and present them to your amazed child.

Let me add a confession here: I heard about the year-end letter idea when my son was in first grade, but in the chaos of a busy life (and an unwillingness to stalk teachers who didn’t follow through), I only managed to secure letters from three or four of his grade-school teachers. Never mind: Each letter is wonderfully specific and heartfelt, and I can’t wait to give them to Max when he graduates from high school in 2013. As we quilters like to say to one another, “Done is better than perfect.”

Framed Needlepoint: The Tassel Is Worth the Hassle

Kunni Biener made a needlework sampler for each of her children before graduation. It included the name of the child, the school, and the date, all in school colors, and the inscription: “The Tassel Is Worth the Hassle.” She put a tiny mortarboard on the sampler with a small button on top of it, which was a place for the grad to hang said tassel.

College Acceptance Celebration

Martha Hess, a mother of six in Utah, had a special ritual to celebrate her children’s college acceptance. She got sweatshirts from that college for the whole family, prepared a big family dinner, then took a group photo of the whole clan in their matching sweatshirts. When the time came to depart for college in the fall, a framed copy of that photo was packed in that kid’s luggage.

Bonfire of Childhood

As part of a party involving a group of close friends, you might build a fire (in a safe place) and have all the graduates write on slips of paper those aspects of their childhoods they are ready to let go.

Knowledge Threshold

Think of a special threshold you can create that is symbolic of where your teenager is headed next. If your son is headed off to mechanic’s school, you might get big sheets of cardboard and paint car logos or a car engine on the front. Tape the cardboard over the entrance to a door and give the graduate a knife, telling him he has to “cross the threshold ” to his future. If your child is heading to college, create a threshold using sheets or cardboard that is a listing of great works of literature or other subjects that child is likely to seek out.

Gifts of Values

One of the greatest gifts we give our children over the years is the values we teach and share. Find a way to symbolically present your graduating teen with a reminder of the gifts of character they carry inside, such as giving them a slim, blank book in which you write one value on each page. When Kathleen Chesto’s children went off to college, she gave each one a basket of essentials for dorm life, things like shampoo and a dustpan. As she gave them the gifts, she voiced a parental wish with each one: “I give you this soap. Never be afraid to get your hands dirty in the service of others.”

Pitch-Perfect Gift for Milestone Rituals: Voice Quilt

Note to readers: I’m not a shill for any company, but I wanted to include this idea and this product because of multiple rewarding experiences with it.

Whether you’re celebrating a high school or college graduation, a milestone birthday, baby shower, or major anniversary, a terrific gift that can also become part of the event is something called a VoiceQuilt. The way these work is that a bunch of family and friends are directed to call a toll-free number and leave a voice mail message for the person being celebrated. All the messages are assembled into a sort of audio playlist (like those on an iPod) by whomever is leading the tribute, and that person can add a beginning and ending message. For example: “Hello, sweetheart, this is your mother, and I’ve put together a special tribute on this big occasion and called on some of your nearest and dearest to give you advice on life as you leave for college. . . .”

The finished VoiceQuilt can just be burned onto a CD, but typically, people order a handsome wooden gift box for the recipient. The box looks a bit like a music box, and when the lid is lifted, the messages began to play. There’s space inside the box for small tokens or gifts, and there’s a paper naming all the speakers. These also work wonderfully for retirements: When the minister of my church retired, they got over seventy people to record messages, and the children’s choir sang several of the minister’s favorite hymns as their message.

When my husband had a major birthday, I gave him a VoiceQuilt, and he said it was probably the best gift he ever received. He was so moved to hear everything from his two-year-old granddaughter singing him silly songs to his elderly aunt sending her love to his cousin Larry saying that in their childhood arguments about “who was the best cowboy,” my husband was actually right. Not all his extended family members could come to the actual party, but we played all the messages and sat together laughing (and crying) alongside the birthday boy: It was memorable.

You’ll find the details at
VoiceQuilt.com
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Special Twenty-First Birthday Ritual for a Loved One Far from Home

Much as parents want to be there to celebrate their kids when they hit that major milestone of adulthood, turning twenty-one, often their child is off at college or perhaps working a job far from home.

Alma Fisher of Lake Bluff, Illinois, came up with a brilliant plan to celebrate her son Scott’s twenty-first birthday when he was away at college, but it involved a lot of forethought. About a year before the big day, Alma was already busy searching for perfect cards because she was going to buy one for every single year of Scott’s life. She wanted each card to reflect something that had happened to him in a particular year. One example: On Scott’s fifth birthday, a friend of his slammed the door of the tree house on Scott’s fingers, and at the time, he felt his parents underplayed the injury because they didn’t want the other kid to feel bad. So the card for that year showed a little boy with a suitcase walking out the front door of his house.

Also important was the way the cards were delivered: They started arriving at Scott’s fraternity twenty-one days before his birthday. Enclosed with the first card was a photo of Scott as an infant and a letter from his mother recounting the story of his birth. There was also $1 in the envelope. Next day, Scott got another card and another letter, a photograph from his second year of life and $2. So it went, day after day. By the day of his birthday, Scott Fisher had collected $231 in cash, the story of his life in words and pictures, and a demonstration of motherly love he will never forget.

Later, Scott told his mother, “I can’t begin to tell you how much this meant.” He saved everything she sent, and he’s planning to follow the same ritual someday for his own children.