It's spring. Spring means warmer weather and longer days. If you're school-aged, it means finals. And if you're in high school, it also means it's prom season.
Yes, prom season...it's a thing.
Prom. The iconic high school formal dance that for seniors wraps up their high school career. Kids get to dress up and play adult for the evening. It's a time to celebrate the end of the year. Pictures are taken to memorialize the event.
Prom is so important for some people that movies have been made, books have been written, blogs are dedicated to it. There are entire sections of department stores devoted in the months of March and April to displaying hundreds of sparkly, puffy dresses for girls to wear for one night.
And now, as if prom wasn't already dramatic enough, there is a thing called a "promposal."
If you're over 30, you might not even be aware that promposals exist. I was vaguely aware of them from a few social media posts I'd seen. It's no longer enough for there to be angst and stress about whether or not someone will ask someone to prom. Now there's a whole ceremony involved.
And some promposals are a huge deal: jewelry is purchased, signs are made, flowers are bought, and friends are enlisted to help create a whole event to simply ask someone to prom. In Los Angeles, there are promposals that rival engagement proposals.
But it's basically a whole production to simply ask a girl or a boy to a high school dance.
If you read this blog regularly, it will come as no surprise that I don't get it. Whaaaaat? A promposal? Another prom-related thing that requires stress and money? Yes.
I guess it's cute. But high school seems stressful enough without adding a whole additional level of stress. And even if you are dating someone and you know you're going to the prom with them, a promposal is expected. In fact, it's probably supposed to be even more romantic and extravagant.
And in truth, apparently promposals only happen if you already know that the person you're promposing to will agree to go. Which makes sense, because who wants to go through all that time and money—and exposure to the humiliation of a public rejection—if you don't know the girl is going to happily say yes and you can post the cute promposal pictures on social media.
But if you already know the person will agree to go, then why go through the whole promposal??
I don't know. I don't get it.
Full disclosure, I did not go to any of my high school proms. I wasn't particularly social. I did get asked my senior year but I was doing a theater production on the night of prom, so I declined. There were other kids involved in the show who did go to prom. They raced out of the theater, hastily dressed in whatever glittery gown they'd purchased and met their prom dates for the end of the dance. I didn't want to do that. I'm sure there are many psychological factors that were involved in my prom going-or-not going decision. But when I look back on it, I don't have regrets about not going...but maybe it's because I don't know what I missed.
So I'm willing to admit that perhaps I'm just not sentimental enough.
And to be clear, I'm not anti-promposal. I'm not so bothered that I actively discourage it in any way. I just don't get it. I'm chalking it up to be old. I don't really get the whole baby gender reveal parties that seem to be the new thing either.
I don't know. Life seems complicated enough without adding additional expectations to things that already have a lot going on with them.
But for the newer generations, I guess it's not an additional expectation. It's just how things are done, just like I had a baby shower without thinking about it because that's what was done. I'm assuming there haven't always been baby showers. At some point someone decided that it would be the fashionable way to celebrate having a baby.
I have already been informed by my daughter that (when the time comes) she will be doing a gender reveal party that involves the cake color, and I've been instructed that I need to be supportive and participate fully.
Okay. I can do that.
And last week, when my daughter told me about her promposal, I was very excited for her, because it had made her very happy. I watched the video and ooh'd and ahh'd. And I will do it again next year for her senior year.
(But we'll all know that inside my head, I'll be puzzled by it.)
Here are some questions I asked my mom about this:
Did you go to your high school prom?
No...and I was sad about it. I did go to parties with my girlfriends during the school year, but I didn't seem to be "date material" in high school. It's as if I was reborn when I went to college because, for the first time, boys started asking me out all the time!
Are there any new cultural ways to celebrate that didn't exist when you were young?
You've covered everything I can thing of. I'd never heard of either the promposal or the gender reveal party before I heard about them from you. The latter intrigues me. I wonder if that's in addition to the baby shower and whether people bring gifts and, if so, if the gifts are gender neutral since, well, the "gender reveal" hasn't taken place yet.
All I recall from high school was that the girls had sweet sixteen parties. Even I had one of those!
As you get older, do you find the new fads jarring? Or do you enjoy how things evolve?
A few years ago, I went through a period of feeling negative about all the new fads and how things were evolving, especially in the digital age with texting, etc. But then I heard in my attitude the same one I'd heard when I was young and thought that older people were so out of touch and judgmental, so I changed my attitude completely. Now I don't mind that things are evolving. After all, impermanence is a universal law!
This means that I've given in to the digital age. First email started replacing phone calls; now texting has to some extent. I'm sure this isn't true in all families because kids know their parents will get upset, but this Mother's Day, I wasn't surprised or bothered that, instead of a card or a phone call, for the first time, I got a "Happy Mother's Day" text from you and then from your brother. I'm sure some moms would be put off by that, but life is too short for it to matter to me. I know you and Jamal love me and would help me if I needed it...and that's enough for me.
[Mara here: Just noting that Mother's Day cards didn't happen this year for either you or Linda, Brad's mom, because Brad was overwhelmed with work and he usually does Mother's Day card buying and I do the Father's Day card buying. So that's why there was no card...but I didn't get cards either. I did get Mother's Day bacon so all is good.]
I know people who make guests (grandkids, especially) leave their digital devices at the door when they come to visit, but I don't. The other day, a friend took a phone call while we were chatting in my living room. When her cell phone rang, she said, "I'm going to take this" and got up and left the room for 15 minutes.
I admit that I thought it was rude at the time and I started spinning stories about how much better things were when people didn't do that kind of thing when you were visiting with them. But when my friend returned to the living room, she told me that it was the daughter of a close friend of hers and that the friend was dying and the daughter needed help dealing with it. Once again I learned that it's better not to judge or jump to conclusions. All it did on that occasion was raise my stress level and I certainly don't need that.
Change, change, change. Everyday, I work on making peace with it.
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