Prom and Implications

Above: Prom Goers. Iron Canyon. Park City, UT. 31 May 2025.

Granddaughter Mynduveroan (green dress) and friends. Kids were joined by their parents at the home of Mynduveroan parents, B1b and FeeBee. Mwah (sic) and TIMDT were also in attendance at the amiable pre-prom event.

TIMDT and Mwah (sic) went to dinner at Hearth and Hill Restaurant, in Redstone, after the pre-prom event. We noted bevies of prom goers pre prom dining at Hearth and Hill restaurant and other, nearby, Redstone restaurants. A few of the diners were groups of only girls, no boy dates. We didn't see any all-boy groups. There were several double and triple date boy/girl groups dining. This latter seemed to be a conventional group of prom goers if convention is defined by how it was sixty years ago when I was a prom goer.

The next day, I asked Mynduveroan's college student brother, grandson Drums, about the girls without boy dates prom goers. He said it was a regular thing. He added that boys without girl dates at the prom would be considered losers. It just never happened. All girls groups were OK and common though. I asked Drums, who took a date to the prom last year, why more boys didn't ask girls to go to the prom with them. "Grandpa," he replied. "Today is not like it was when you were growing up. You didn't have social media. A boy's life can be ruined by a viral post where he is dissed by his date. A lot of boys just don't want to take the risk of asking a girl to the prom. Boys, for the most part, don't do the same as girls do in passing around social media gossip."

Somewhere in the above statement by Drums are significant societal implications. I assume that behavior patterns at Park City High School mirror trends around the country. It seems that girls dominate in the social climate at school. Girls have no problem going to the prom, boy date or not. Is the apparent self-confidence displayed by all girl group prom attendees related to the fact that 60% of college students today are female? What is the impact of social media in suppressing the type of boy/girl interaction we geezers experienced when we were in high school?

Could the putative social media risk for boys dating correlate to the fact that rate of family formation and birthrates are at their lowest in history? I recently watched a Jordan Peterson twenty second Tik Tok wherein Peterson said 25% of American women would never give birth to a child. He posited a lonely old age for those childless women. What's going on here?

In any case, prom night for the pictured kids was reportedly very successful. Drums chauffeured his sister and her friends to Loma Restaurant in downtown Park City. Mynduveroan is a hostess at Loma and the kids got a 30% discount on their dinner. Did the boys pay for the dinner? I forgot to ask. After dinner, Drums ferried the kids to Park City High School to the prom. After the prom the youngsters went to one of the parent homes for a post prom do. In the case of Mynduveroan and her friends, it looked to me like a good time was had by all in a conventional girl/boy date prom set-up not unlike my own experience sixty years ago. Also, parental involvement pre and post prom was a nice touch. The six kids I saw were all (look you in the eye, respect for elders) well parented kids.

Many questions linger, however about boy/girl social disparities in high school and college and what the long-term impact of those disparities are on family formation, birth rates etc.