Mom on the Run: Products for daughter’s senior year bring visions of more expenses

It's the second day of school and I'm standing at the kitchen counter flipping through the catalog my daughter has just handed me. Splashed with neon colors and pictures of beaming kids in caps and gowns, it has "Class of 2010" emblazoned along the bottom. Ah.

Inside, page one: invitations. Some traditional white card stock, some trimmed with ribbons of color. "Premium Graduate Namecards." Senior Photo Stickers. Class Envelope Seals. Good heavens.

I turn the page and am immediately impressed by the headline: "You can have it all." Great message for my high school senior. Sure, she can have it all, but that means her father and I have to provide it all! Hmph.

The next page is even better: "Get ready to PARTY." Beautiful. Is that the goal? Partying? Silly me. I thought it was academics. On that page, front and center is the "Graduate Portfolio," a three-panel album to display photos, graduation invitation, tassel. There's even a special personalized Graduation Pen, engraved with "your casual name," for "collecting your friends' signatures at your open house." Right, our open house. Morbidly curious, I look for a price on the pen, but there's nothing. Must be on the separate order form buried somewhere in this glossy package. Sigh.

I knew this year was going to be expensive. I've heard it from friend after friend, everyone who has had a kid graduate from high school. "Just wait," they said. Cap and gown. Invitations. Senior portraits. Senior trip. Advertisement in the yearbook. Opportunity after opportunity to spend money—just before the greatest spending opportunity of all: college.

I put the catalog down. I can't face it right now. This is going to take serious thought—not only about this merchandise, but also about our whole approach to this event. I mean, I don't want to be cheap, and I want my daughter to have a wonderful high school graduation, but … do I really need to spend hundreds of dollars on invitations? Will my kid's "experience" be diminished if she doesn't have a Graduate Portfolio with Senior Photo Stickers? And if high school graduation is this commercial, what are the expectations for hoped-for future graduations?

I'm trying to remember my own senior year expenditures. I had a cap and gown. I had a class ring, and a yearbook, and I distinctly recall constructing the invitations, slipping my name card into the slits in the announcement. Did we include senior portraits? We didn't have a party—it wasn't a big thing then, in the mid '80s, like it is now—and my special pen was a boxed Cross, a graduation gift from a neighbor. It was not engraved.

I pick the catalog back up, resigned. If I'm making decisions, I need to be informed. I flip past the invitations and portfolios, get to—ah!—the still more optional items. Look at that: Memory Album Sticker Sheets, little stickers that say "ROAD TRIP" and "SWEET!" The Premium Memories album itself is a three-ring binder with scrapbook-type pages, special themed divider pages for band, sports, friends (they cost extra, of course). The next page has necklaces, bracelets, a rhinestone-studded senior dog tag, and a "pride pin."

That's it. Disgusted, I flip the catalog closed, and walk away from it this time. So far this year I have bought back-to-school clothes, new shoes, and hundreds of dollars of school supplies; paid school activity and parking fees; loaded up the cafeteria account with money; paid senior portrait sitting fees; ordered two yearbooks, each with a name embossed on the cover; written a check for PTA membership dues; bought a PE uniform; and paid class dues. Now, the second day of school, I'm supposed to order graduation invitations, a cap and gown, and a memory album, complete with little stickers and custom nameplates.

Augh. I picture dollar bills climbing out of my wallet, growing wings, and flying away. Senior year. Wonderful.

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. She can be reached at , or follow her on Twitter @MessengerMOTR.