Lori Duff Writes

My son, who was born almost three weeks early and a scant six and a half pounds, is graduating from college in May.  His plan is to go on and get his master’s degree, a plan I am in favor of.  Being a Big Boy, he has done all his applications and whatnot with no input from me save my credit card for the various fees and whatnot.  The other day, he told me that we needed to get the FAFSA[1], the federal financial aid form, done, and told me which schools to release it to.

So I did what I’ve been doing since 2019 when he was applying to colleges, which is go to fafsa.gov, and I started the application process.  I got to the screen which asked what year he would be in for the 2024-2025 school year, and I checked “master’s degree program.”  When it asked if he would have an undergraduate degree by then, with a hint of a tear in my eye, I checked, “yes.”

Thence came a pop-up window that changed my life.

I didn’t have the wherewithal at the time to take a screenshot or memorize the words in the pop-up window, so I can’t quote them, but I can tell you the message that was received.  It was this: “Ma’am.  Your son is a grown-ass man who will have a college degree in a matter of weeks.  You need to quit doing this kind of thing for him.  Kindly log off and go get a glass of wine and tell him to do this himself.”

Okay then.

In the end, it’s good news, because his yearly income is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000.00 and his assets vary when you take the measure of how much gas is in his car, which is titled in my name.  He will qualify for whatever financial aid is available. 

This is all logical and fits in the natural and normal progression of things.  The reasoning part of my brain is thrilled, because this is one step closer to getting him completely off my payroll.  Any minute now, he’ll be a completely functioning adult paying his own car insurance and rent, and my job will simply be to pay for dinner when he comes to visit[2] and whine about not yet having grandchildren.

All of me, however, is not completely rational.  The irrational, emotional part, misses the little boy with blonde hair who thought you could fix anything and everything—including a clogged potty—by replacing the batteries and who believed deep in his heart that when he turned eleven an owl would fly into our house and deliver his Hogwarts letter.    

Time marches on, however.  That little boy has been declared by the federal government to be a grown-ass man who has a mustache and a mullet[3] and must be treated as such.  After all, he will be a grad student soon. 

I couldn’t be prouder.

[1] Not sure what this acronym stands for.  It may be something like “Federal Aid For Students Application” or it may be something like “Financial Aid Feels Somewhat Arbitrary”.  Both make sense.

[2] I’ve done the math, and when I get both my kids to this point, I’m going to be stinking rich, relatively speaking.

[3] Clearly, I have failed as a mother in some way.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more like it, visit Lori on Twitter or on Facebook or read her award winning books.  You can order her novella, “Broken Things”, by clicking here.  The audiobook can be found on Audible or iTunes.  Look for her novel “Devil’s Defense” coming in November 2024 from She Writes Press.

Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, “If You Did What I Asked in the First Place” was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.