Prom and the World We Live In

Today my oldest daughter went to Prom. After a fun day date, she came home, cleaned up and then we went to have her hair and makeup done. Veronica is a smart, shy, no-nonsense girl, so seeing her all dressed up and prettied up was fun. She looked absolutely beautiful.

While we were waiting for her date to arrive, her dad noticed an article on the front page of MSN called "Questionable Prom Trends." This is just what parents want to see as their little girl heads out for the evening.

The trends listed ranged from irritating things like asking a girl to prom via text messaging and excessive makeup to questionable things like expensive jewelry and prom sites to a few things that are disturbing and infuriating.

The first disturbing trend is one that has been picking up speed for some time--the showing of skin. The current trend is skin, skin and more skin. Girls are dressing sluttier and sluttier. One fashion that's popular in some areas is a beautiful, embellished skirt with...

a bikini top. Really? But why not? Look at fashion magazines and shows like "Dancing With the Stars?" They're nearly pornographic. If girls are dressing like prostitutes and porn stars, is it any wonder that the next two questionable prom trends are happening?

Parents are paying for a hotel room for their kids after the dance. This is so their kids won't drive drunk (on what planet are high school kids allowed to legally drink?) And what do those parents think is going to go on in a hotel room after the dance? How very responsible of those parents. They must really love their kids.

And lastly, girls are wearing colored bracelets. These aren't fashion statements. These are to let their dates know what level of sexual activity a girl is willing to participate in. What the crap? Are we serious? These are high school kids and they're figuring out codes to tell each other what base they're willing to go to? (Did that line just date me? Do people even talk about bases anymore?)

This last week, I was thrilled to read a ranting post by Clover Lane about what we're doing to our daughters. We're forcing them to grow up too soon and society is telling them that to be of real worth, they need to be thin and trampy. She was talking mostly about our younger girls, the ones they've come up with a new marketing term for--tween. I have a girl that age and agreed with everything she said.

But she doesn't have a dating age daughter going to her first prom, and the trends we read made me sick to my stomach. Unfortunately, you can't lock them up in their rooms forever and it's pretty clear that we have much to worry about and much to teach our kids.

We have to put our foot down. We have to parent. We have to set rules and those rules shouldn't be "drink and have sex only in the parent-paid-for hotel room." The rules should be "no drinking and be home by your curfew with your virtue intact. PERIOD!" The solution to these disgusting trends is for parents to be parents!

Veronica looked beautiful. She was pretty, modest, and sweet. Her date was a gentleman who told her she looked pretty but wouldn't have dreamed of checking out the color of her bracelet so he'd know how the evening would end. He'll take good care of her, she'll act like a lady and he'll treat her with respect because she deserves it and he's a gentleman.