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School Proms - are they out of hand?

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Grandmama Thu 29-Jun-17 19:14:58

GD1 is 16 and has finished GCSEs and it's the school prom this Friday. It is costing a fortune. The Prom ticket is £30. Two dresses are needed - the Prom dress (which I have shortened to save the cost of an alteration shop) and the dress for the after-Prom party plus shoes. There is the cost of two make-up sessions with a beautician. GD and some friends have had a practice make-up session with the beautician and she will do their make-up before the Prom. This will involve DD taking an afternoon off work because GD cannot get to the beautician's village on public transport. GD is today buying a clutch bag and possibly a necklace. Some of the girls are talking about a spray tan.
DD and SIL are not at all happy about the scale of the expense but there is so much peer pressure. For parents on a low income this must be really difficult. It's DD's first big 'do' so DD and SIL are grinning and bearing it because they don't want her to look back in future years and feel that she was the odd one out with her friends. What do other grans think?

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JackyB Mon 03-Jul-17 11:59:11

In Germany, there has always been a dance for the school leavers (my husband left school in 1968 and has photos of his)

There is the formal graduation ceremony with boring speeches by councillors, head teachers, school governors and the like, and a couple of acts performed by the best musicians or dancers in the year, and at the end, the whole year gets up on stage and sings a song about friends, solidarity or the like.

A few days later they have a full dinner dance, for which they dress up. At our school (where all my 3 sons went and where my DH taught for 30 years) the only jump was when they moved from the school hall to a local hall, and because of health and safety were no longer allowed to bring the food themselves but were obliged to use professional caterers.

The entertainment is largely provided by the youngsters themselves - the school band, power point presentations of madness on school outings or baby pictures of the children, impressions of teachers, sketches and pseudo-prizgivings. And the obligatory male ballet (best if there is a proper ballet dancer, belly dancer or ballroom dancer among the girls in the year).

All the effort and expense go into the fun part of the proceedings. The girls do spend time and money on their dresses, but, unless things have radically changed in the last few years, there is nothing like the fuss made that is being described here.

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