High school prank gone right!
Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma has a 26‑year tradition in which seniors surround freshmen’s cars on the first day and encourage them to kiss their mom or guardian goodbye. The practice, started in 2001, involves over 200 seniors each year and serves as a warm, humorous welcome for new students while emphasizing respect for parents. CBS Sunday Morning covered the event, interviewing students, staff and school president Sister Mary Hannah, who highlighted the tradition’s focus on honoring parents. Parents, especially mothers, find the moment emotional, with many expressing tears and gratitude at the symbolic goodbye.
about 1 month ago
The “Kiss Your Mom Goodbye” tradition at Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma turns the typical freshman‑senior prank into a welcoming rite of passage, requiring incoming freshmen to kiss a parent or guardian before seniors let them into school 1
The custom began in 2001 when seniors sought a more memorable way to greet new students. Each first‑day morning, seniors gather around the freshmen’s drop‑off cars, hold signs, and chant until the freshman kisses a parent or guardian goodbye 1. The seniors remain beside the vehicle, preventing the freshman from leaving until the kiss is given 1.
Sister Mary Hannah, the school president, links the practice to the Fourth Commandment—“honor thy mother and father”—and describes it as a “top ten list” moment that blends humor with respect 1.
Freshmen experience a mix of nervousness and amusement, while seniors cheer and wave posters that read “Kiss Yo Mama!” creating a supportive atmosphere 1. Parents report strong emotional responses; one mother said she cried all day after dropping her child off, and another noted the moment highlighted how quickly their children grow 1.
Over 200 seniors took part in this year’s event, reinforcing the tradition’s popularity and its role in easing first‑day jitters for new students 1.*
“Examine Catholic schools’ parent‑honoring traditions and their theological roots.”
Catholic schools’ parent-honoring traditions—such as welcoming parents at the beginning of the school year, publicly thanking them, inviting family participation, or encouraging students to express affection and gratitude—are best understood as practical expressions of the Fourth Commandment. Their theological foundation is not merely sentiment or school spirit: it is the Catholic conviction that family relationships, properly ordered, participate in God’s providential care and form the first setting in which a child learns love, gratitude, authority, responsibility, and faith.
The biblical command is direct:
“Honor your father and your mother.”
Catholic tradition interprets “honor” broadly. It includes not only obedience but also respect, gratitude, practical assistance, and concern for parents’ well-being. The Baltimore Catechism explains that honoring parents means doing what is necessary for their spiritual and temporal welfare, showing proper respect, and fulfilling one’s duties toward them.
The commandment therefore supports several kinds of school customs:
The commandment does not reduce family life to formal obedience. It calls children to recognize that they have received life, care, formation, and material support from their parents. Catholic schools can make this recognition visible through rituals that interrupt the individualism often associated with adolescence and remind students that personal growth is received through relationships.
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church places this duty within a wider framework: the Fourth Commandment requires honor and respect not only toward parents but also toward those whom God has entrusted with legitimate authority for human good. Thus, parent-honoring traditions can also teach students a rightly ordered understanding of authority: authority is not domination, but a responsibility exercised for the good of those entrusted to it.
Catholic theology gives parents a position that a school cannot replace. Parents are not merely customers, donors, or spectators in the educational process. They are the primary educators of their children.
Pope John Paul II explicitly stated that, even when children attend a Catholic school, “the parents remain the first persons responsible for the education of their children.” He warned against treating school as a substitute for parental responsibility and described parents as full members of the educational community.
This principle explains why Catholic schools often honor parents publicly. Such practices communicate that:
John Paul II connected parents’ role with their duty to choose suitable means and institutions for their children’s Catholic education, while also emphasizing their right and responsibility to cooperate closely with teachers. The school, therefore, should not simply praise parents symbolically; it should build structures of genuine collaboration.
A parent-honoring tradition is theologically successful when it reflects this partnership. An event in which students thank their parents, for example, is more than a ceremonial performance if it also encourages parents, teachers, and students to renew their commitment to the child’s human and Christian formation.
Gratitude is central to Catholic moral formation because it recognizes that human beings are receivers before they are achievers. Children depend upon others before they can act independently. Catholic education can use parent-honoring traditions to teach that dependence is not shameful; it is part of the created order.
Thomas Aquinas argues that children owe special honor to their parents because they receive their origin from them and are nourished and cared for by them in childhood. He also maintains that children have a duty to assist their parents in old age, showing patience and refusing to despise them when their strength declines.
This establishes a reciprocal pattern:
The relationship is not identical in both directions. Aquinas distinguishes the parents’ duty of care from the children’s duty of honor. Parents are especially responsible for promoting the good of their children, while children are especially bound to acknowledge their parents as the source through whom they received life and early formation.
A school tradition that invites children to honor parents can therefore be understood as a small exercise in the virtue of piety—the moral disposition to give due honor and gratitude to those to whom one owes life and formation. In Catholic moral theology, this gratitude is not merely emotional. It becomes concrete through respect, patience, service, and fidelity.
Catholic schools traditionally use ceremonies, symbols, and repeated practices to form habits. A parent-honoring custom may be simple—a welcome at the school entrance, a student’s public acknowledgment of a parent, or a tradition in which older students briefly return attention to their families—but its educational value lies in repetition and embodiment.
The child does not learn honor only through a definition. The child learns it by:
Pope Francis described education as a process rooted in proximity, compassion, tenderness, humility, acceptance, and service. He emphasized that the family occupies a central and irreplaceable position and that family life requires dialogue. These themes provide an important criterion for evaluating school traditions. A parent-honoring custom should foster genuine closeness and conversation, not merely produce a brief public display.
Francis also described the school as a community involving students, teachers, parents, administrators, and staff. He said that educational institutions improve when people “walk together” and contribute cooperatively to the school’s mission. Parent-honoring traditions thus have an ecclesial dimension: they express the school as a community rather than a service-provider.
A school tradition in which older students surround younger students’ cars and encourage them to say goodbye affectionately to a parent or guardian can be interpreted as a playful form of this moral logic. It draws attention to a moment of transition: the child is entering a new stage of independence, but independence does not erase dependence, gratitude, or family bonds.
Such a custom may communicate several ideas:
Its theological meaning, however, depends upon how it is conducted. A tradition becomes consistent with Catholic education when participation is respectful, voluntary, and sensitive to family circumstances. “Parents” may include a biological mother or father, adoptive parents, grandparents, guardians, foster parents, or another person who has faithfully provided care. The central principle is not a narrow family stereotype but gratitude toward those who have undertaken genuine parental responsibility.
A school should also avoid turning affection into humiliation or coercion. The Fourth Commandment requires honor, but Catholic tradition does not justify forcing a child into an embarrassing public act. Respect for the family must be joined to respect for the child’s dignity and personal circumstances.
Catholic teaching does not require children to obey parents in every conceivable matter. The Baltimore Catechism specifies that children must honor, love, and obey their parents “in all that is not sin.” Aquinas likewise explains that obedience to parents is subordinate to obedience to God; when a parental command contradicts divine law, the child cannot treat the parental command as morally binding.
This qualification is essential. Parent-honoring traditions should not be interpreted as teaching:
Honor remains due, but honor does not mean approving injustice or concealing harm. In cases involving abuse or danger, the child’s protection and truthful reporting take precedence over preserving appearances. A Catholic school’s obligation to honor family life includes helping safeguard children and supporting families in truth.
Nor does the Fourth Commandment authorize parents to control every aspect of an adult child’s life. The commandment establishes duties of respect and gratitude, while the child’s vocation and ultimate allegiance belong to God. Aquinas stresses that God is the true Father and Creator; loyalty to God therefore stands above every merely human relationship.
Catholic schools also connect parent-honoring practices with respect for teachers and other legitimate authorities. The Compendium states that the Fourth Commandment includes those whom God has invested with authority for the good of others.
This does not place teachers on exactly the same level as parents. Teachers exercise delegated authority within the school, whereas parents possess the primary responsibility for their children. Nevertheless, parents and teachers cooperate in forming the child. John Paul II described the unified influence of home, parish, and school as necessary for leading young people toward Christian maturity and service of the common good.
A healthy school tradition therefore honors parents while also encouraging parents to respect teachers and support the school’s mission. It should not become an occasion for competition between family and school. Instead, it should make visible a covenant-like cooperation in which:
Catholic schools do not honor parents only because families deserve private appreciation. They do so because strong families contribute to the Church and to society. John Paul II described Catholic education, the safeguarding of the Christian family, and the humanization of society as interconnected pastoral aims.
He also insisted that Catholic schools should integrate human culture with the Gospel and prepare students to become a constructive Christian presence in society. Parent-honoring traditions support this mission by forming citizens who recognize obligation, gratitude, interdependence, and the common good.
Pope Francis similarly called schools to cultivate encounter between generations, inclusion, responsibility, and concern for peace. He warned that bullying and hostility within a school prepare students for conflict rather than peace. A tradition that honors parents should therefore be part of a broader culture of respect—one that also protects vulnerable students, welcomes families in difficult circumstances, and rejects mockery or exclusion.
Catholic schools’ parent-honoring traditions arise from a coherent theological vision:
At their best, these traditions teach students that maturity is not self-invention detached from the past. It is the grateful reception of life and formation, followed by the responsible exercise of freedom in service of God, family, Church, and neighbor.