<p>Some of the stories of how girls are being asked to homecoming/prom are over the top, in my opinion. I mean some of the scenarios are really cute and clever, but it seems that the girls now expect nothing less. Good grief, if the boys have to do this for high school, what will the girls expect for a marriage proposal? I am trying to temper my daughters expectations.</p>
<p>Anyone else seeing this trend?</p>
<p>I’m going to assume that the opinions on this will be all over the board, mostly depending on whether your particular daughter got the big, well-planned ask or not. First I will say that I think all of it is crazy and over the top but it can be very sweet. When my daughter was asked to the prom, the boy gave her flowers, her friends took a picture and her heart melted. The boy was barely even a friend, but the effort was appreciated. For homecoming this year, on the night before the very last day to buy tickets, the boy pulled the school-required crumpled permission slip out of his back pocket and gave it to her to get our signature. She’s glad to be going, but the whole thing with waiting to be asked/or asking someone (no way) has traumatized her. </p>
<p>Honestly, I think the girls all want a great picture to post and for them it’s part of the experience. No saying that it is right, just saying it is. And when you’re a girl who doesn’t get asked/or gets asked late, seeing the excitment of the other girls only adds to the anxiety.</p>
<p>My oldest is a boy, so I went through him trying to think of creative ways to ask, and now my daughter wanting to be asked creatively. Both situations are stressful…and hey, how about putting this amount of thought into the college apps and your school work? </p>
<p>Bottom line, totally out of control, but as they say, that horse has left the barn. At least at our high school. Sometimes, I think I would like to be young again…but not for things like this.</p>
<p>Yes, for several years now. I feel for the boys.</p>
<p>Some not too crazy ideas I have seen: bake a cake with the question on top written in icing, a scavenger hunt, the question spelled out in Solo cups in a fence. A more over the top one, I don’t know how the kid managed this: class given a quiz and on the quiz is the prom proposal as a bonus question. This was from a girl to a boy. </p>
<p>Having said that, who remembers the video wedding proposal from a few years ago? The one with the “dancing Jews”? I will have to post a link. Over the top, but so romantic and full of regular people it brought tears to my eyes. </p>
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<p>Call me curmudgeon, but I think the entire prom thing is over-inflated, not just the big ask.</p>
<p>One more thing. My son dated his girlfriend all of senior year and he still had to do the big ask for Prom. I couldn’t believe that one, but this girl expected it and he didn’t dissapoint. </p>
<p>And I agree, prom is over-inflated to the point where it scares some people away. Between the cost, the arrangements, the plans for the weekend after all of it. Just crazy. And yet it continues, and gets worse, year after year.</p>
<p>@tired already, that is ridiculous!!! Seriously if they are already dating, why the big ask? Talk about spoiled and entitled</p>
<p>Most of S’s close friends in HS didn’t go to prom, probably in large part because they didn’t want to get involved in all of the fuss. Not because they were social rejects. 
I think that a surprising number of girls asked younger boys. One of his friends went with an older girl as a sophomore. He chose not to go junior or senior year. Which leads me to wonder, how do boys who don’t want to go avoid being asked? Do girls who are the object of a “big ask” feel that they can decline?</p>
<p>The flip side is S16’s bunch of friends. For the last two years I’ve had to remind at least a half dozen boys that it is really, really bad form to wait until the Monday before Homecoming or Prom to ask a girl to go with. And then there’s the big winner: a boy in one of S’s classes just asked a girl to go out with him (in the “going steady” sense, for those of us with high mileage on us)-- but he’s still taking a different girl to the Homecoming dance this weekend.</p>
<p>I do think the prom scene is better than it was in my day because kids feel free to go in groups and not just in couples. The band kids or the choir kids will go en masse and not worry about pairing up. Parents will get together and conspire to create a fun, safe, and not too expensive evening in these instances of group prom dates. </p>
<p>I don’t know quite how it all gets put together. Older son attended several proms and asked/was asked to be a date, but he was part of one of these larger friendship groupings, too, so not everyone had a date. Parents stepped in once the group was formed. </p>
<p>“Good grief, if the boys have to do this for high school, what will the girls expect for a marriage proposal? I am trying to temper my daughters expectations”</p>
<p>Remember, it takes two to tango. If boys thought that over the top proposals were really over the top, the tradition would die. Girls would still marry or go to dances given no other choice 
</p>
<p>I hate this trend.</p>
<p>Softball girl was asked by the young gentleman tossing a softball at her in the hallway with Homecoming? written on it. He also brought her fav smoothie. Cute, quick and easy. </p>
<p>Son saw a boy ask a girl to homecoming last week with the question written on pieces of paper inside helium balloons. She had to pop them to get all the pieced of paper. This was after school. My son, as a spectator, got quite the kick out of it. I think most kids ask via texting though.</p>
<p>Son went to homecoming last year with a female friend. He has no plans to ever go to homecoming again though! Wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed.</p>
<p>My S did the big ask senior year (prior to that he simply took a girl from his coed friend group to all dances - they were cool like that, made sure everyone who wanted a date had one). His senior year prom request was to a girl he actually liked romantically. It was a scavenger hunt that ended with flowers with invite at her house but it went on all day, through school and neighborhood. She said yes and they dated until they went to separate colleges.</p>
<p>D hasn’t been asked to any dance by a guy yet, in any fashion.</p>
<p>It is what it is. </p>
<p>Adding…not much money was ever spent, however. He had a tux because he was in symphonic band (then was given one by a family member later). His group went to senior prom dinner and to the dance in one of the family’s minivan. Corsage and dinner was about it for expenses.</p>
<p>The idea of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for prom (dress? limo? catered after party? pre-dinner? makeup? hair?) horrifies me.</p>
<p>My own (Quaker, urban) high school didn’t have any formal dances. Just 3 or so a year with a DJ, at the school, we all went without dates, dressed casually, danced and had fun. Our grad party wasn’t formal either though as a class we paid for it and had it away from school. Usually in a loft or nightclub-on-an-off-night with a keg )</p>
<p>My kids did prom in what I think was the golden age of civilized procedures–when groups and low-key attending was fine, and the Big Ask had not been invented yet. </p>
<p>I feel they were very lucky.</p>
<p>BAsically, yuck. Sounds like it’s all about the PR. I guess that is what social media hath wrought.</p>
<p>Question–with all the public hoopla, what happens if she doesn’t want to go with the guy? (Same, of course, with those big, planned, public proposals, for that matter.)</p>
<p>A few of S’s friends have been turned down (again, these are boys who wait until last minute so it’s a wonder there aren’t more who get a “no”). Mostly though they don’t even ask unless they’re nearly sure they’ll get a “yes”. If I’d known how fragile teenaged boy egos were when I was a teenaged girl, my life would have been entirely different.
The closest S has come to a “big ask” is asking with flowers. It’s about a $15 investment. which, in the grand scheme of prom and Homecoming costs, is not that much. I think his budget for homecoming was about $100 last year, and that was with borrowed formal wear.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of anyone being turned down - I think most of these situations are vetted out ahead of time by friends - at least that’s what my kids have done. My boys have done the cute, quick easy/inexpensive thing too- I think they kind of enjoy it, believe it or not!</p>
<p>I think the Big Ask is ridiculous…but I also think being asked via a text message is awful.</p>
<p>“I also think being asked via a text message is awful”</p>
<p>A marriage proposal - yes. A prom date? It is just a date. Or because a potential rejection could happen via text?</p>