PROM!

Rose, Gusta and Samantha spun vintage records while coiffing their hair, plumping their lashes and slipping into elegant couture on Saturday night as we parents crashed the scene, teared up, hugged one another, and took pictures. Hadley, Tessa and Gabe joined the fray and Rose’s little subterranean lair became a hub of more primping, improvised dancing, and tearful sentimentality.

I didn’t go to prom. Not because I wasn’t asked, thank you very much. But because my school – an all-girls’ high school – didn’t have a prom. We had a spring dance. At our spring dance, there were generally about 30 girls and two or three boys (who were either gay or dating one of the cool girls on the softball team). At our prom-like imitation it wasn’t slim pickin’s for a dance partner, it was no pickin’s.

So I watched with fascination as Rose and her buddies bubbled and primped for the all-American tradition that is “Prom.” As parents, we snuck a little cash into our children’s palms, we told them not to drink (or do drugs), then we told them if this did happen (God forbid and we forbid), NOT TO DRIVE OR GET IN ANYONE’S CAR!!!! Then we bade farewell to our not-children-anymore, put a tissue to our eyes, and walked away, releasing our brood into the spotlight of early adulthood.