Some thoughts on PROM from a dad who cares about moments and events...
I might as well jot down a couple thoughts on this.
I have a bittersweet feeling toward PROM. Reason being is that I was a youth pastor for 8 years and a parent for the last almost 19. I've watched this night "give and take"...it typically takes more than it gives. It takes money, but that's not the taking that is most costly.
I've watched it take innocence. I've watched it take emotional energy. I've watched it take virginity. I've watched it tear friendships apart. But more than anything, I've watched the peer pressure lead to a mob mentality that either people get swept up in or stand and watch to their everlasting shame. Some years are better than others, but by and large, I've not had the greatest sentiment for this event.
It starts with the mounting competition every year that students have even before the PROM is a thing. Asking people to PROM is right up there with getting engaged and the pressure is palpable to think of something no one has thought of before, or to look for something someone else did online and to stage it yourself.
My daughter was showing me one guy who gave his date 4 Lululemon bags with clothing, Nike shoes, some other bag of shoes, a custom shirt with the word "Prom?" on it that matched, of all things, his bread spread comforter. Not sure why his bedding needed "PROM" embroidered into it, but I have my ideas...who knows. Either way, it's odd. The room was filled with balloons and the gifts were lined along the bed for the picture that would be sent out to the masses via the Instagram platform. It just stokes the fires of expectation and competition. "Did you see what so and so did to ask his girlfriend to the PROM?" The post screams, "Look at what I did!"...there was no less than $700 worth of merchandise that he bought for her and this is before tuxes, dinners, flowers, and the actually expenses of the night itself. It was like it was her birthday or Christmas. I zoomed in on all the stuff stacked on the bed as the couple posed next to it and thought, "This is ludicrous!"
But I think what hacks me off is that so many will see that and feel like whatever they did pales in comparison making their date question their worth...all this stuff sets a high bar for normal people to just ask someone to go to PROM with them...it's not just a simple thing anymore, it's the red carpet at the Emmy's. It's a pseudo-wedding day people are preparing for. Thousands of dollars, tuxes, dresses, flowers, gifts, limousines, friends lines up in a bridal party of sorts, expensive dinners before and expensive desserts after...I know I'm missing some stuff, but it's nothing for parents to drop a few grand on "PROM".
And then you have students who just want to go and dance with their friends or their special someone. They know it's going to cost some money, but anything special costs a little bit more...that's to be expected. They feel this cumulative pressure to impress and outperform their peers...but they don't have the imagination or cash flow to make that happen, so they "just" ask their date to go to the PROM and go the more traditional route with dressing up and flowers and dinner, still pretty costly, but modest in comparison to the things they are seeing friends and fellow classmates pull off. All that to say, it's gotten out of hand and it's creating an ecosystem that is more like 'Hunger Games" than anything else. I watch and listen cringing at the cross-conversation. What is happening to our species? Who is raising the stakes on all these simple and enjoyable things...soccer, dance, grades, cars, phones, clothes, body image...it's a war zone of expectation. It consumes our youth on most days if they're honest.
I haven't even talked about the night itself. A night where adults create a low-lit environment like a adult club, put together a playlist of largely sexualized songs (many of them raunchy rap songs no one knows that facilitate a beat that releases the inner animal), and sit on the sidelines as kids crowd the dance floor and little by little offer their bodies as objects of pleasure to whoever they're with (or around). There have been some years that it's more like an orgy than a dance...leading parents to write letters and meet with school leaders to find out what in tarnations is going on and who is leading who. Everything from grinding to twerking to whatever the latest trendy "having-sex-with-your-clothes-on" move emerges and the inner circle of the dance floor is reserved for the most unreserved. Students literally create a wall so that adults can't see what's going on sometimes and the adults often pretend to not know or see what is going down, it's a night where school rules seem to go out the window and human civility and chivalry are almost completely abandoned. Again, some years seem worse than others, but it's consistently nasty if you catch any talk among the students and what they are witnessing, what they know about the drinking before and after, sometimes during as kids sneak in little flasks of hard liquor and pass it around conspicuously.
I sit at home that night often just praying for students who are really good kids to hold the line. I know the pressure is immense...to party, to dance suggestively, to drink, to hook up, to let yourself go. I pray for this generation to reclaim the definition of "fun". To fight against the new definition of a "good time". Mostly, I sit home waiting for the verdict. I wait for the stories that everyone knows are going to happen and yet this event happens every year on the year anyhow. Parents play pretend as well, make believing that it's no big deal and that kids are just having fun. They have thresholds of what they will allow on this night that they wouldn't allow any other night of the year. This is a night you can stay over at your boyfriends house. This is a night you can go to so and so's house for an afterparty (it's just fun). This is a night where many give their kids condoms or tell them they can come over to their house and drink as long as it's on their property and they can oversee the illegality and manage it so that no one drives or gets hurt. Many know it's going to be an absolute abandonment of morality and they don't actually care. Kids will be kids...we were, so who are we to stand in their way? I have heard so many stories by now that I could write all day, but my fingers are already shaking from typing so fast and feeling so strongly about this subject.
Here's the deal, though. My daughter is going again this year and we have some pretty tight boundaries that probably make us the laughingstock of the community. I don't care. We want her to have fun, but we also don't want her to be taken advantage of or violated in any way, not just physically, but morally and spiritually. This is hard, because every day she heads out and has to learn to be around the world without becoming like the world, but this night is more intense in it's temptations and demonstrations of human hedonism. If she didn't have the strength to stand, I wouldn't let her go. I also wouldn't let her go if she didn't have a friend group that I trusted. She can hold them accountable and vice versa...she can come and go as she likes, she can leave early, she can go out in the hall if things are heating up in the mosh pit if you know what I mean.
But I still don't like that she has to be put in that situation when the school could easily set up the night to be a pretty cool event to celebrate life and fun and each other. Instead of violating each other they could celebrate each other...I'm not sure students know the difference, or the adults for that matter.
My daughter loves special dances to dress up for and to go to for fun. She has a date this year and a group of great friends that I think will have a good time with some nice clean fun. But she will also see many of her friends that she's made over the years and that she really cares about just get caught up in the riptide of this deal and lose all the ground that they have been making spiritually. It's hard to watch and when you try to intervene you're made to feel like Pollyanna or Anne of Green Gables. You don't mess with the masses unless you want to be scorned and made a public spectacle of in the days to come. But maybe that's what we need more of...maybe someone needs to be persecuted because they care about someone's soul enough to know when it's being torn apart under the guise of entertainment or harmless fun. Maybe more persecution would be a good thing. Just thinking out loud.
Heidi and I have gone back and forth on whether to just put together our own thing on PROM night with a group of students, but haven't to this point. Our daughters have had fun, but it's mixed with stories of sadness and sorrow for sure.
I don't now what I'm trying to say...I just needed to put down my thoughts this morning in some form that logs my emotions and ideas going into PROM 2018. I'm not sure how I'll change my tune over the coming years one way or another, but this bit of writing will give me something to look back on as a frame of reference.
I just care about what's happening in the hearts of this generation. I weep for their wounds, many of which are preventable that no one seems to care to prevent anymore. Is there something I should be doing other than writing about these things? I'm probably a part of the problem if I'm not offering up any solutions.
Well, that's my morning rant.
I have a bittersweet feeling toward PROM. Reason being is that I was a youth pastor for 8 years and a parent for the last almost 19. I've watched this night "give and take"...it typically takes more than it gives. It takes money, but that's not the taking that is most costly.
I've watched it take innocence. I've watched it take emotional energy. I've watched it take virginity. I've watched it tear friendships apart. But more than anything, I've watched the peer pressure lead to a mob mentality that either people get swept up in or stand and watch to their everlasting shame. Some years are better than others, but by and large, I've not had the greatest sentiment for this event.
It starts with the mounting competition every year that students have even before the PROM is a thing. Asking people to PROM is right up there with getting engaged and the pressure is palpable to think of something no one has thought of before, or to look for something someone else did online and to stage it yourself.
My daughter was showing me one guy who gave his date 4 Lululemon bags with clothing, Nike shoes, some other bag of shoes, a custom shirt with the word "Prom?" on it that matched, of all things, his bread spread comforter. Not sure why his bedding needed "PROM" embroidered into it, but I have my ideas...who knows. Either way, it's odd. The room was filled with balloons and the gifts were lined along the bed for the picture that would be sent out to the masses via the Instagram platform. It just stokes the fires of expectation and competition. "Did you see what so and so did to ask his girlfriend to the PROM?" The post screams, "Look at what I did!"...there was no less than $700 worth of merchandise that he bought for her and this is before tuxes, dinners, flowers, and the actually expenses of the night itself. It was like it was her birthday or Christmas. I zoomed in on all the stuff stacked on the bed as the couple posed next to it and thought, "This is ludicrous!"
But I think what hacks me off is that so many will see that and feel like whatever they did pales in comparison making their date question their worth...all this stuff sets a high bar for normal people to just ask someone to go to PROM with them...it's not just a simple thing anymore, it's the red carpet at the Emmy's. It's a pseudo-wedding day people are preparing for. Thousands of dollars, tuxes, dresses, flowers, gifts, limousines, friends lines up in a bridal party of sorts, expensive dinners before and expensive desserts after...I know I'm missing some stuff, but it's nothing for parents to drop a few grand on "PROM".
And then you have students who just want to go and dance with their friends or their special someone. They know it's going to cost some money, but anything special costs a little bit more...that's to be expected. They feel this cumulative pressure to impress and outperform their peers...but they don't have the imagination or cash flow to make that happen, so they "just" ask their date to go to the PROM and go the more traditional route with dressing up and flowers and dinner, still pretty costly, but modest in comparison to the things they are seeing friends and fellow classmates pull off. All that to say, it's gotten out of hand and it's creating an ecosystem that is more like 'Hunger Games" than anything else. I watch and listen cringing at the cross-conversation. What is happening to our species? Who is raising the stakes on all these simple and enjoyable things...soccer, dance, grades, cars, phones, clothes, body image...it's a war zone of expectation. It consumes our youth on most days if they're honest.
I haven't even talked about the night itself. A night where adults create a low-lit environment like a adult club, put together a playlist of largely sexualized songs (many of them raunchy rap songs no one knows that facilitate a beat that releases the inner animal), and sit on the sidelines as kids crowd the dance floor and little by little offer their bodies as objects of pleasure to whoever they're with (or around). There have been some years that it's more like an orgy than a dance...leading parents to write letters and meet with school leaders to find out what in tarnations is going on and who is leading who. Everything from grinding to twerking to whatever the latest trendy "having-sex-with-your-clothes-on" move emerges and the inner circle of the dance floor is reserved for the most unreserved. Students literally create a wall so that adults can't see what's going on sometimes and the adults often pretend to not know or see what is going down, it's a night where school rules seem to go out the window and human civility and chivalry are almost completely abandoned. Again, some years seem worse than others, but it's consistently nasty if you catch any talk among the students and what they are witnessing, what they know about the drinking before and after, sometimes during as kids sneak in little flasks of hard liquor and pass it around conspicuously.
I sit at home that night often just praying for students who are really good kids to hold the line. I know the pressure is immense...to party, to dance suggestively, to drink, to hook up, to let yourself go. I pray for this generation to reclaim the definition of "fun". To fight against the new definition of a "good time". Mostly, I sit home waiting for the verdict. I wait for the stories that everyone knows are going to happen and yet this event happens every year on the year anyhow. Parents play pretend as well, make believing that it's no big deal and that kids are just having fun. They have thresholds of what they will allow on this night that they wouldn't allow any other night of the year. This is a night you can stay over at your boyfriends house. This is a night you can go to so and so's house for an afterparty (it's just fun). This is a night where many give their kids condoms or tell them they can come over to their house and drink as long as it's on their property and they can oversee the illegality and manage it so that no one drives or gets hurt. Many know it's going to be an absolute abandonment of morality and they don't actually care. Kids will be kids...we were, so who are we to stand in their way? I have heard so many stories by now that I could write all day, but my fingers are already shaking from typing so fast and feeling so strongly about this subject.
Here's the deal, though. My daughter is going again this year and we have some pretty tight boundaries that probably make us the laughingstock of the community. I don't care. We want her to have fun, but we also don't want her to be taken advantage of or violated in any way, not just physically, but morally and spiritually. This is hard, because every day she heads out and has to learn to be around the world without becoming like the world, but this night is more intense in it's temptations and demonstrations of human hedonism. If she didn't have the strength to stand, I wouldn't let her go. I also wouldn't let her go if she didn't have a friend group that I trusted. She can hold them accountable and vice versa...she can come and go as she likes, she can leave early, she can go out in the hall if things are heating up in the mosh pit if you know what I mean.
But I still don't like that she has to be put in that situation when the school could easily set up the night to be a pretty cool event to celebrate life and fun and each other. Instead of violating each other they could celebrate each other...I'm not sure students know the difference, or the adults for that matter.
My daughter loves special dances to dress up for and to go to for fun. She has a date this year and a group of great friends that I think will have a good time with some nice clean fun. But she will also see many of her friends that she's made over the years and that she really cares about just get caught up in the riptide of this deal and lose all the ground that they have been making spiritually. It's hard to watch and when you try to intervene you're made to feel like Pollyanna or Anne of Green Gables. You don't mess with the masses unless you want to be scorned and made a public spectacle of in the days to come. But maybe that's what we need more of...maybe someone needs to be persecuted because they care about someone's soul enough to know when it's being torn apart under the guise of entertainment or harmless fun. Maybe more persecution would be a good thing. Just thinking out loud.
Heidi and I have gone back and forth on whether to just put together our own thing on PROM night with a group of students, but haven't to this point. Our daughters have had fun, but it's mixed with stories of sadness and sorrow for sure.
I don't now what I'm trying to say...I just needed to put down my thoughts this morning in some form that logs my emotions and ideas going into PROM 2018. I'm not sure how I'll change my tune over the coming years one way or another, but this bit of writing will give me something to look back on as a frame of reference.
I just care about what's happening in the hearts of this generation. I weep for their wounds, many of which are preventable that no one seems to care to prevent anymore. Is there something I should be doing other than writing about these things? I'm probably a part of the problem if I'm not offering up any solutions.
Well, that's my morning rant.
Comments
Post a Comment