Reflecting On My Daughter's Senior Prom
A Dad's Honest Thoughts (Things That Matter #5)
It’s prom season. Many of my friends and acquaintances on Facebook are posting pics of their sons and daughters all gussied up, heading to prom. I don’t really post photos of my kids online anymore, but I did want to take some time, as a father, to reflect on the fact that, yesterday, my daughter went to her senior prom. It’s insane because I’m 90% sure she was just in elementary school asking me how to spell “caterpillar” and do basic addition and subtraction, all things I still struggle with. Now, well yesterday, there she was putting on a gown and doing up her hair like it was a normal Saturday. It was not. None of this is/was normal.
We went to a public garden for photos. Pretty little spot. Lush greenery. Right next to a zoo with giraffes peeking over the fence and situated between 3 busy roads, but you’d never know it. It was the kinda place that makes you drink in the beauty but also remember to hate mosquitoes with every fiber of your being. I took photos of her and her date. He brought a corsage, like a gentleman. She gave him a handmade lei, in true local style. It was sweet but also slightly awkward, as it should be.
She smiled through the pictures and nerves. Someone seemed to blink in every photo. They were both quintessential teens; playing it cool as they were incredibly unsure of themselves. After photos, he drove her to the dance. But I picked her up from bowling later that night, because you know, what’s prom without arcade games cosmic gutter balls?!
Of course, when she got in the car, the first thing I did was ask how it went. She said she had fun, but in a classic prom night twist, there were some things she didn’t love. First, she said she didn’t know most of the songs because, in her words, “They were all secular.” Friends, this is the same kid who thinks Oceans by Hillsong is a banger. She’s a loyal K-Love listener. The MOST loyal. She’s had like a 450-day streak or something like that of listening to K-Love. So when everyone else was shouting lyrics about booty, drugs, and betrayal, she was standing there wondering when TobyMac was gonna drop. How can a dad just not love that??!!
And since this is a “Christian” school, why wouldn’t she expect that? Seriously! This is “Hawai’i Baptist Academy,” the same school that brings in people from the mainland a couple times per year, you know, potential donors, and attempts to show off how “Christian” the school is, usually putting my daughter and son up front and center to help with that. But not on prom night? No? All bets are off on prom night? Do the donors know about prom night music, HBA?
She said a lot of the music was “inappropriate.” But here’s the part that gets me. The school chaperones were grown adults, her teachers, in fact. And these adults/teachers stopped the dancing twice last night to yell at a kid for doing backflips. But not once did they stop the music. Not once. Like, “Backflips? Dangerous. Cardi B? Safe.” Go figure!
Meanwhile my daughter, this beautiful, sweet, morally grounded kid, was quietly standing there like, “I’d rather not be here for this audio sinfest.” And at that moment I thought, “Okay. I’ve messed up a lot as a dad. But…maybe I’ve done a few things right.” She can tell the difference between clean and garbage. Praise God! She can identify art from trash. Amen! She can distinguish between a prom and a pregame for bad decisions. Yes, Lord!
But then came the second thing she didn’t like. Apparently, a group of “cool kids” made a ring on the dance floor and pushed the nerdy kids inside the circle to dance. One of the ring leaders: a local youth pastor’s son, of course. Ugh! But these cool kids were not aiming to celebrate the nerds. They did this to laugh at them.
Paging all HBA teachers: Where were you? Why weren’t you doing anything? I swear, if I had been there in my dad jeans and orthopedic New Balances, I’d have been the adult that stepped in. Or at least yelled something passive-aggressive. She said the nerdy kids didn’t fully realize they were being mocked but thought they were being invited into the inner circle. But she realized what was happening. And that made her mad. Really mad.
She couldn’t stop it. But she knew it was wrong. And she wanted me to know she knew it was wrong. And right then I thought, again, “Okay. Yeah, I’ve definitely done a few things right.” She has a spine and a moral compass. Hallelujah! But…guess what? She still doesn’t understand why these adults who’ve been so formative in her “Christian” education over the last 4-6 years, who’ve been sticklers about the school rules, just refused to step in and tell the DJ, “We paid you. Play appropriate songs or you won’t get paid.” The guy was given a list of songs okayed by a committee beforehand. He didn’t play them. So, I ask: what does that say about those adults? Those teachers? That school? What message does it send to the students? I’ll tell you exactly the message it sends: “Hey Teachers and Admin, any preaching about Jesus, Bible, morality, etc., you’ve done the last 4-6 years just sounds meaningless and hypocritical.” Anyway…
My daughter didn’t stay out past the curfew we’d set a couple nights before. She actually called me early. Said she was ready to go. I was proud. God is good! And, honestly, I was happy. Because I remember what my senior prom was like. True story: Mine ended with my youth pastor making out with my date after I dropped her off. You read that right. My married youth pastor met up with my high school prom date after I dropped her off. I was living in an actual country song.
But my daughter? She’s rewriting the family history. She didn’t get swept up in the mess. She showed up, had fun, saw through the nonsense, and came home. She was responsible. She was mature. She was more adult than some of the adults chaperoning the prom. And while I was driving her back, I had this overwhelming feeling like I was driving backward through time while also like I was taking her one step closer to the rest of her life. I don’t know how else to describe it. That’s it.
This was her last prom. One more “last” in a year of numerous lasts. And while she’s out here getting ready to graduate and daily becoming her own person, I’m just trying to make sense of it all. Life is crazy. Parenting is for sure crazy. But it’s also full of good stuff like this. It’s something else to watch your kid become the kind of human you’d actually want to know. The kind who knows that dignity matters, that morality matters, that kindness matters, that sometimes the best part of a night out is calling it a night and going home early so you aren’t even tempted with terrible decisions.
Yesterday, I didn’t get a corsage. I didn’t slow dance. (Oh, how I loved the days of Daddy-Daughter Dances though!) But I did get a front-row seat on the way home from the bowling alley to the kind of daughter who makes me feel like I wasn’t totally winging this whole dad thing, a front row seat to a young woman I admire and am beyond fortunate to know, a young woman who’ll spend her summer, once again, being a counselor at church camp, a young woman who has given her heart to Jesus. And, honestly, there’s not much more a flawed man like me could ask for.