The high school prom will cost over $1100 on average this year!

Ralphy1

Ralphy1

Well-known Member
Yet, this is down over 6% over last year according to one survey. Lower income families tend to spend more for some unfathonable reason. The whole prom thing has gotten way out of hand to me. How about you?
 

This is a ridiculous waste of money! I went to three proms in my high school years. Each time I either borrowed a dress from an older girl or made my own dress. My date used his own car or his parent's car. The boy paid for the flowers and rental of his tux. The girl paid for her dress. Some girls went to a hairdresser but this was not really necessary. All easily done for less than $200.
 

Well, I doubt that you went in a limo, or maybe you did...:playful:
 
No limo... I think my dress was $20.. Shoes maybe $5.... Prom bid was $12.. and my date drove his car.. He bought my flowers.. I bought his boutonniere. He paid for the dinner after prom.. I made the fried chicken for the picnic at the Indiana sand dunes the next day. AND that was how Prom was in 1966
 
Ladies, kids would probably laugh at your prom "extravagances" today...
 
This is detrimental because these kids will leave high school with a sense of entitlement. Fashion already gets too much attention going well beyond groomed or practical. Even sadder because for many of these kids it will be the highlight of their lives. And lets face it, high schools are producing a lot of crap now a days so what exactly are they celebrating.

Move the frack on, it's only high school.
 
Homecoming dances are getting to be as big as proms these days. Formal dresses, tuxedos, limos. Back in my day (said with a cranky old curmudgeon voice), the homecoming dance was a sock-hop held in the gym. You wore whatever it was you wore to the game. Since it was usually colder than sin, that would have been cords and sweaters, and of course, the obligatory huge white mum with sparkles and the school letters worked out in purple pipe cleaners. You hoped you had on matching socks with no holes. Since we lost all four homecoming games during my high school days, they weren't exactly victory dances but we somehow managed to carry on and dance anyway.
 
My 16 yo foster daughter goes to prom tomorrow night. Her dress was donated by the local Soroptomist`s Club. She got to go to the store and pick it out from the sale rack. I had the perfect shoes that I bought for my grandson`s wedding and didn`t end up wearing. She loves them and they fit perfectly,although she can`t walk in them that well :) No limo for her. I paid for the ticket-$35.00. We will go to the flower shopin the morning and get a corsage. Not bad,really. She is going with another foster girl in town. Going stag,I think they used to call it....
 
Mrs. Robinson said:
My 16 yo foster daughter goes to prom tomorrow night. Her dress was donated by the local Soroptomist`s Club. She got to go to the store and pick it out from the sale rack. I had the perfect shoes that I bought for my grandson`s wedding and didn`t end up wearing. She loves them and they fit perfectly,although she can`t walk in them that well :) No limo for her. I paid for the ticket-$35.00. We will go to the flower shopin the morning and get a corsage. Not bad,really. She is going with another foster girl in town. Going stag,I think they used to call it....
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Good for you. She'll remember it.
 
I wore my cousin's dress -- she had worn it the year earlier. It was lovely, the quintessential early 60s prom dress, sweetheart neckline, long, poofy skirt. I even wore long, over the elbow white gloves. My date drove us to the prom in his '54 Ford. How did the prom thing get to be SOOO expensive, anyway? It's ridiculous -- my parents would never have sprung for a fortune for the prom, and rightly so.
 
This entitlement of children is reaching dizzying heights and it doesn't bode well for our future society in my never humble opinion...
 
Ralphy1 said:
This entitlement of children is reaching dizzying heights and it doesn't bode well for our future society in my never humble opinion...
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I agree. It's stuff like this (along with all the ridiculous BS surrounding weddings) that reconfirms to me that I made the right decision for me when I decided not to have kids.
 
It's not just kid's entitlement that is at fault here, it's also the tyranny of the consumer culture and media influence that we live under. What about all the very expensive coming of age rituals of other cultures (bar mitzvahs), which have always existed. People have children regardless of how much it's going to cost them. Yes agree, ridiculous BS around weddings and parties -- all propagated by business interests and marketing and again status and social climbing. This has always existed all over the world - people love to display their wealth, and whatever else they have - bodies, looks, clothes, cars, houses - everything. The wealthy love to try to outdo each other in lavish parties. All show and competition - human nature.
 
Cookie said:
It's not just kid's entitlement that is at fault here, it's also the tyranny of the consumer culture and media influence that we live under. What about all the very expensive coming of age rituals of other cultures (bar mitzvahs), which have always existed. People have children regardless of how much it's going to cost them. Yes agree, ridiculous BS around weddings and parties -- all propagated by business interests and marketing and again status and social climbing. This has always existed all over the world - people love to display their wealth, and whatever else they have - bodies, looks, clothes, cars, houses - everything. The wealthy love to try to outdo each other in lavish parties. All show and competition - human nature.
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Can't agree more with the consumer culture and media influence. And I understand the desire for coming of age rituals but many of those rituals were from a different era including one where one devoted more time to these things. Many of these kids want to go to multiple parties on one day. Not just stop by but party all day long especially when it comes to high school rituals because these events happen around the same time.

It is about the commercialism though. One of the things they seem to be pushing now a days especially is "the experience". Big ticket or expensive stuff stores have done it for decades, every time you got a survey it was about the process rather than the item. Then for teenagers especially it's about branding or the brand/name so if they don't wear a certain line or style of clothing they are toast. Yes they want to out do their peers with the brand.
 
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