We sit tensely, waiting. We can hear our watches ticking.
Then Oldest Daughter dashes in. She has just had her hair, nails and makeup done. Her dress awaits. It's the night of Senior Prom. The Photo Shoot begins in mere minutes.
This was not a ritual my generation took seriously, but hers goes about it with a steely determination and a discipline that demonstrates the preeminent importance of the formal occasion.
As I type this, Middle Daughter and One True Wife are hustling back and forth like ladies in waiting, helping her get ready.
The Prom Photo Shoot also stands in stark contrast to my own personal history. This is a ritual of adoration in which the kids and their dates are formally posed -- usually on a spiral staircase or in the entryway of an especially spectacular home -- in the formal getups, and we parents snap photos and video away as if they were visiting diplomats and we were the press corps.
At first I rather loathed all this. It seemed part and parcel of the excessive pampering and mandatory specialness we lavish on and expect of our kids. Now, though, that Oldest Daughter is mere months away from flying the nest, I begin, dimly, to apprehend that she knows how fleeting and transitory -- and how shallow -- this moment is, and that's part of what makes it so enjoyable.
I recalled for One True Wife that I actually took a Jewish girl to senior prom. I didn't even know her especially well. We just fell into a mutual crush as high school came to an end. I ran into her in a theater lobby about a year ago and she seemed positively mortified to see me. I told her I'd see her in the lobby at intermission, but I didn't see her. I went back to my seat and spotted my prom date of more than 25 years ago, glued to her seat, staring straight ahead, apparently mortified at the prospect of having to make conversation with me.
Here's hoping no child of mine will have such a bad prom experience as I seem to have provided.
And here's hoping the next generation takes these things lightly.
--T.A.
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