This week at family beach home, pretend not to realize a nephew was supposed to graduate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine college and internships NOT coming up when chatting with family who have college-aged children. I bet the family and kid has a canned line of b.s. to feed everyone. Make sure you ask follow-up questions and watch the lies fall apart.

I agree. If you’re spending time with them in a beach house over a period of days, I can’t believe this didn’t come up organically. You all don’t seem very close.

[Anonymous]

Concerned? No, you're just being nosey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow! So, he might need another semester; how is this any of your business? Maybe he lost a year due to a pandemic? Or is he on a college team if he is an athlete and wants to play that year?
I am confused about who is"supposed" to graduate and what is there to ignore? People graduate college on many different schedules, and you are truly evil. Your thoughts betray the darkness of your mind.

I agree with this. this is not HS, OP. People take time off, people take smaller course loads, maybe decide to change majors or add a minor , etc. There are tons of reasons to take more than 4 years to graduate. It's not a big deal OP, I don't know why you are thinking about this so much. Just MYOB.

[Anonymous]

When something is delicate, you can just play it by ear.

We saw some lifelong friends we don't chat with consistently recently (they are not on SM). When we saw them a year ago, they were pregnant but said it was early and they knew risk of miscarriage was high (early 40s with history of infertility). We were prepared for them to say, "Look at pictures of our baby!" but we were also NOT going to mention it if they didn't.

Sadly, they obviously lost that pregnancy.

Your situation is perhaps a bit less touchy so I'd just say, "Oh, what are you up to?" and take it from there. FWIW the pandemic has been hard on college kids and a lot of them have struggled. There's no shame in not graduating within 4 years during this time.

[Anonymous]

OMG, SIL is that you? Small world here on DCUM.

(Kidding. Maybe. But you know, it's totally possible.)
What would you want your family to do if the situation were reversed? Ask nosy questions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I would just ask because you need to give a grad gift if he graduated.

I would ask what’s new with you? And how’s college going.

No reason to avoid a basic question like that. You have no reason to believe anything abnormal happened. And if something did, someone should have tipped you off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, SIL is that you? Small world here on DCUM.

(Kidding. Maybe. But you know, it's totally possible.)
What would you want your family to do if the situation were reversed? Ask nosy questions?

Oh, the situation would NEVER be reversed. OP is an exacting parent raising absolutely perfect children who excel at everything and do everything on the proper timeline!

[Anonymous]

Let’s see, covid interrupted their academic career and they had courses that had in-person lab requirements they couldn’t meet remotely. Or they have an underlying autoimmune condition and are on immune suppressing medication and couldn’t return until vaccinated. Or, they got covid and it turned out to be long covid. Or, because most internships in the chosen field require you to be enrolled and so had to postpone a last course to do an internship first. All those things happened in my DC’s friend group of high performing kids

[Anonymous]

Damn. I just read one page and I'm baffled. In our family, we'd have no issue just outright asking what's up with graduation? I mean, is it wrong to ask?? Seems natural to me. Yikes. I lol at some of you who seem to have extremely formal relationships with your extended family members but no biggie on going on vacation together 🙄

[Anonymous]

"So John, what are you up to this summer?" would typically lead into John's future plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, SIL is that you? Small world here on DCUM.

(Kidding. Maybe. But you know, it's totally possible.)
What would you want your family to do if the situation were reversed? Ask nosy questions?

It's not nosy, it's perfectly normal conversation and it will be the elephant in the room that the oldest of the cousins didn't graduate from college like he was supposed to. Y'all are freakin weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So John, what are you up to this summer?" would typically lead into John's future plans.

Exactly what I would ask of any kid ages 11-25 and base conversation from there. No big deal at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, SIL is that you? Small world here on DCUM.

(Kidding. Maybe. But you know, it's totally possible.)
What would you want your family to do if the situation were reversed? Ask nosy questions?

It's not nosy, it's perfectly normal conversation and it will be the elephant in the room that the oldest of the cousins didn't graduate from college like he was supposed to. Y'all are freakin weird.

What’s weird is Google-stalking a young man and racing to DCUM to speculate and come up with conspiracy theories about him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have a normal conversation with him! Most normal conversations i have with people I don't see very often involve asking them what they are up to and what is going on with their lives. Then see how he answers. If he does not bring it up, I would not bring it up either.

+1 I can't imagine seeing a college-aged nephew and not asking "how's school?" He'll either tell you he's having a hard time and taking longer to graduate, or he switched majors or is double-majoring or something, or he studied abroad and didn't get all the required credits, or that he quietly graduated early and is building a company in his parents' basement.

If you care about the kid talk to the kid. If you care about embarrassing his mom for being proud of her kid on Facebook in the past, I guess you'll probably find some way to do that.

+2 Or he took a semester off for mental health issues, or Covid disrupted his education, or he will be graduating this December, or it's still up in the air. OP IRL you can ask gently and not make anyone uncomfortable, and be a supportive aunt.

Selective universities don't have December graduations. That's a state school thing.

LOL. I have friends who graduated in December from a variety of schools, including some very prestigious schools. Some took an extra semester for a variety of reasons, one graduated early. They don't have formal ceremonies like May graduations, but they exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Damn. I just read one page and I'm baffled. In our family, we'd have no issue just outright asking what's up with graduation? I mean, is it wrong to ask?? Seems natural to me. Yikes. I lol at some of you who seem to have extremely formal relationships with your extended family members but no biggie on going on vacation together 🙄

Nobody is saying that asking “What are you up to this summer, Jim” is weird.

We are saying OP is weird for stalking him online and picking over scenarios and explanations about his life that she is not owed on DCUM.

See the difference?