Report Cards

My oldest daughter is in the Honor Society at school. She told me last week that she was required to turn in a copy of her last year's report card or she would receive demerits. Well...this was a problem, because I didn't keep it. No one told us we would need to turn it in the following year, so I had thrown it away this summer in an attempt to conquer the clutter. I wasn't worried though, I just told her to get a copy from the guidance counselor. Well, when she attempted to do that she was informed that the Honor Society sponsors had told him he couldn't give out copies of report cards to Honor Society members, because they were trying to teach the kids responsibility. So, I emailed her sponsor and I'm waiting on a reply...but in the meantime I started feeling guilty. Am I being irresponsible by not keeping my kids' report cards? Am I a terrible mom? I look at them and discuss them with my kids when they come in...but, should I be preserving them for posterity's sake? This was really bothering me. I mean, my mom has every report card I ever received. I think she even has my dad's!

But then I started doing the math...okay, I have 8 kids...if I kept every report card for every kid from kindergarten to twelfth grade, that would be 416 report cards!!! No wonder I started tossing them! But, you may say..."You don't have to keep all of them, just keep the final ones," however, my trusty calculator helped me figure out that even if I just keep the final report card of the year for each of my kids from kindergarten to 12th grade, I would still have to find a place for 104 report cards! We barely have room for all of us and the junk that we use everyday, much less items that we'll probably never look at again!

Okay, so I'm feeling better about my decision. I'm thinking it would have been irresponsible to keep them all. And as for my daughter, if she hasn't shown responsibility by maintaining over a 4.0 grade point average while carrying a load of 4 honors courses at a college preparatory high school, and participating in student government, drama, golf, and track...as well as helping take care of her 7 younger siblings....then I don't know what responsible is!