Posted on 11/17/2007 4:53:59 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
Last month, a boy asked my 16-year-old daughter to his school's homecoming dance. She agreed to go, bought a new dress and made a hairdresser appointment.
The boy never bought tickets to the dance. Neither did his friends. They decided that attending homecoming wouldn't be cool, and instead planned to just dress up that night, go out for dinner and then hang out with their dates at someone's house.
My daughter was disappointed, as were her girlfriends. They would have loved to have been taken to the dance, to show off their dresses, to see and be seen.
At 6 p.m. on the night of the boycotted dance, about a dozen of these girls and their dates gathered in one boy's backyard so a mob of parents could photograph them. I found it dispiriting. My heart went out to those girls -- all dressed up with no place to go. Couldn't we, as parents, have demanded that the boys take our daughters to the dance? Why did we stand there, clicking our digital cameras, saying nothing?
I live in suburban Detroit, but this phenomenon is playing out elsewhere in the country, too -- a telling example of the indifference with which young people today view dating, chivalry and romance.
Studies, of course, show more young people skipping romantic relationships in favor of "hooking up." As teens socialize in packs, forgo one-on-one dating and trade sex nonchalantly, it is no stretch to find that boys are asking girls to homecoming and not bothering to take them there. But with so many young people ignoring once-sacrosanct dating rites, how can we respond?
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
As I said before, sexual development and preparedness for life responsibilities are two completely different things. Just because you can make a baby doesn’t mean you are prepared to raise it, and that goes for women as well as men. Look at how many grandmothers are raising their grandchildren by their daughters!
As far as reunions go, I have found that if you treat these people with respect, and are always nice to them, they usually come around by the next reunion. I am modestly successful and that makes it a little easier for all of us. I’ve got the young ladies who rejected me in high school totally regretting that they never dated me. That is the best type of revenge anyone can hope for. There are a few people who will never change, but not many.
A nice, neatly groomed and dressed, well-behaved bunch of courteous, intelligent young men and women.
They aren't ALL gone to the dogs . . . .
The public schools are so bad in Atlanta that everybody who can even arguably afford it sends their kids to private school if they don't home-school -- and all the private schools are expensive, the denominational schools are about 30% cheaper, but the old established private schools are within 1,000 or so of each other. So they've got you over a barrel . . . .
Daughter is third generation in our family to graduate from there. She was class of '06, I was class of '73, and my mom was class of '43.
Suburban Atlanta, GA.
glad to hear that!!
After Iran, we take Detroit ...
I tend to sneak around semi-incognito in places where parents usually don't go . . . daughter and I spent some time when we were investigating schools just hanging out in the student centers, wandering through the libraries and sitting on benches outside classrooms. Amazing how you can get a feel for a place doing your best "fly on the wall" imitation . . . .
Probably you will get a quieter and more stable community in a small college like this one than in a large state university.
It’s true. Sometimes called ‘friends with benefits’.
Miss Zaslow needs a father. Currently, she doesn’t have one.
This loser shou;d be hanging his head, rather than announcing his loserness to the world.
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