One day you’re bopping next to them while watching Play School in your lounge room and approximately three minutes later, they’re wearing a tuxedo and leading you around a debutante ballroom floor.
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In the first scenario, my firstborn was much shorter than me. In the second, much taller.
In the first, he didn’t care how silly I danced (in fact, the more silly, the more fun it was). In the second — during the brief 30-minute lesson debutante parents got to learn a dance — he pleaded with me to take it seriously.
I was, of course, trying to, but my two left feet made me giggle with embarrassment every time they faltered, which must have given him the illusion I was not.
And that no doubt exaggerated the nerves he had ahead of the event.
I already knew my brain doesn’t absorb things like card game rules and flat-pack instructions and, after this experience, I’ve added dance moves to my cache of learning challenges.
With three boys, I potentially have to face the fate of dancing on a deb floor twice more if my younger two are asked to partner a friend for this old-fashioned school tradition.
As with many things in a teenager’s world these days, there seems to be more pressure.
Sure, it was a big deal when I did my deb.
I had my hair and make-up professionally done, pictures taken by a professional photographer and chose a dress that probably cost one of my parent’s entire weekly pay packets.
But I didn’t get a spray tan, a salon mani and pedi, or lash extensions.
I didn’t have to find time to make trending transitioning TikToks, or other social media posts.
I didn’t have to worry about where to stash my phone during the event for those things either, because we simply didn’t have them.
Besides the 18 hours of after-school dance practice the debutantes and their partners had, my son’s commitment was obviously not as demanding as his partner’s.
He didn’t need hair, make-up, nails and tans — none of the girls “needed” those things either, of course, but it’s a rite of passage event that most of them want to go all out for.
Boys get it much easier, even though the girls are mostly not only happy to put in the effort, but excited to.
I’m not sure how other parents feel about it all.
But for me, as a time-poor, full-time-working, single mum of three teen boys, I was grateful all I had to do was pick my son up from said lessons and get him to two suit fittings.
On the day of the deb, he left it until less than an hour before we had to meet his partner’s family for photos before getting into his suit and doing something with his hair.
Here’s where we ran into some problems I didn’t anticipate, as I’d started getting ready long before he.
I’d gone my own (cheapskate) form of ‘all out’, doing my own hair, make-up and fake tan at home — things I usually do for fancy events — but this time I also thought I’d put on some fake acrylic nails.
I’m not a nail girl.
I don’t want to spend time or money on them.
Even if I quickly give them a single coat with a quick-dry nail polish I feel like I’ve wasted time, then feel like I’m wasting even more of that precious commodity when I have to remove it a few days later after it starts chipping.
But, for my son’s deb, I took the time.
I loved the look, but I hated the feel.
To match my two left dancing feet, my hands felt clumsy with the foreign extensions — stopping just short of stabbing my own eyeballs each time I brushed my face-framing curls to the side.
I’m grateful my glasses double as safety goggles in such situations.
Of course, debs are not about the parents.
But when the parent puts fake nails on and can’t help the right-handed teen do up their tight buttons on the right-hand sleeve of their shirt when they’re fumbling with their left hand because of it, it’s a bit of a face-palming moment.
(I resisted face-palming so as to avoid scarring my forehead accidentally).
We had to wait until we met up with his father later so he could help.
Off the kids went to the school stadium and the next time we saw them was on stage, looking grown and confident, bringing little tears inspired by pride to their parents’ eyes as they were presented and paraded.
We watched them dance fluidly and flawlessly and then it was our turn to join them.
I may not have always led with the correct foot — which only people from the closest tables would have noticed if they were watching feet instead of faces — but at least I didn’t head in any wrong directions or trip my son or myself over.
It’s a far cry from Play School, but my gratitude goes to school for allowing us to play.
After all the build-up, debutante balls, as oddly outdated rituals I find them to be, are still a truckload of old-fashioned fun.
Senior journalist