Yearbooks

What's the consensus for yearbooks in the elementary years? Do you purchase them for your kids or not?

When I was growing up yearbooks used to be a thing reserved for high school only. But when I was in 7th grade my middle school produced a yearbook for the first time. That middle school went from grades 4-8; so that first year was also the first time for 4th graders to get a yearbook.

When Kayla started school I balked at getting her a yearbook in Kindergarten. I think I might have said something like, "It's Kindergarten for crying out loud! Why do they need to have a yearbook from their Kindergarten year?"

Then I caved when she was in 1st grade. Caved because I felt guilty. The whole school-memento thing. Just like I buy school pictures every year even though the picture package seems to get smaller but more expensive.

But then I balked again about the premise of yearbooks in elementary school and is it really a big deal to not have one? So I didn't order one in 2nd or 3rd grade.

Except there was a moment in 3rd grade when I felt that guilt again. Kayla was pretending to do something when we were driving some where one day and I asked her about it. She happily explained, "I signing a yearbook!"

Oh crap. The kids are passing around and signing their yearbooks?! Was my kid the only one who didn't have a yearbook?! Did I leave her out of something everyone else was doing?

So now we're back to yearbook time again and now I have 2 kids in school. I still don't particularly feel that it's that important to have a yearbook from the elementary school years, but now there is the cost factor as well. $30. Times 2. $60 on yearbooks? How do parents do it when you have even more than 2 children?

Yes I still have my yearbooks from 7-12th grade, but do I ever really look at them anymore? My high school ones for sure mean more to me than my middle school yearbooks, but they're all just sitting in a box together.

Do I really want to end up having 12 yearbooks for each kid sitting in a box?

I'm leaning towards not ordering the yearbooks while they're in elementary school (save for the 1st grade one Kayla has), but how common is it to not get the yearbook?

It feels like with digital cameras now I'm recording plenty of their childhood and elementary years. And I have their school pictures. Odds are most kids don't make it in the yearbook aside from the school picture; so is there really a reason to get one?

What do other parents do about elementary yearbooks?