I wrote yesterday about the challenges of organizing and negotiating around family dynamics during graduation time. While this is definitely a consideration, for many of us, we first have to wade through the miles of paperwork, forms, and write those checks in order to get our child graduated an on to the next adventure.
I confessed yesterday that I have two of my three children who are graduating and moving on this spring. I cannot count the times I have wondered how much easier it would be to manage one graduation, one college application, one financial aid process, etc. instead of two. Even though my girls are trying to take on as much of this as possible, there are still acres of papers, tax forms, health forms, and signatures for me to manage!
For those of you who are going through it, I know that you can relate and for those of you who have it in your future, let this just be a little cautionary tale of preparation—it is not just a matter of walking down the aisle and gathering that diploma. The paperwork probably started a year ago as we started arranging for tests and gathering college information. I naively though that once my two girls decided which colleges they wanted to attend the paperwork would taper off—but we still have all sorts of forms to fill out, and copies of documents to provide. I honestly did not know that the college would want copies of immunization records and health forms! It is like enrolling them in school all over again.
My girls are a bit frazzled—in addition to wrapping up projects and tests and papers—they have had to fill out those forms and sign papers and manage packets of information. It is daunting. So daunting, in fact, that it took us two weeks just to find time when both girls were free and available to have their joint and individual photos taken for the announcements. Some of the “fun” of graduation is getting shoved aside just so we can manage all the paperwork.