I recently finished Thirteen and a Day : The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America by Mark Oppenheimer.

The author of the book attends and reports on bar-mitzvah customs of every type across America, from an Alaskan Chabad celebration to New York City Reform to Arkansas Jewish Renewal. For me, someone who just celebrated their "triple bar-mitzvah" at 39 years old, I didn't actually learn much new about how bar-mitzvahs are celebrated even though I've only been to maybe one or two in the last 25 years. What was interesting though is the reportage on the diverse ways that people practice Judaism and that regardless of their level of observance, the bar-mitzvah is one of the few ceremonies that ties us all together as Jews and keeps our traditions alive.

One custom which seems to be popular in my Conservative congregation is for the parents of the bar/bat-mitzvah to give a short speech with their child on the bimah in order to tell everyone how proud they are of their now not-so-little son/daughter. Personally I'd prefer not to do this when my daughters have their bat-mitzvahs in 2013 and 2016, but that's just me. It honestly makes me uncomfortable to see grown people set up to cry and it seems almost a glorification of self - I won't get into the pamphlets with the Glamour Shot of the bat-mitzvah girl that I recently saw distributed to the congregation. It's nice that the parents want to show their love for their child in public, but to me it's more of an emotional spectacle that belongs on Oprah or a reality TV show.