A Mother's Day Ritual: Making Fun of Mother's Day

While Mother's Day is grossly commercialized, it's still nice to express appreciation and connect with parents. I realized a few days ago that we actually have developed a nice counter-cultural Mother's Day ritual. My son calls and we make fun of the consumerist orgy of bubble bath, jewelry, cheesy cards, and general guilt-inducing marketing strategies around this manufactured holiday. And we also note how it sets moms up for feeling dissed if their kids don't buy into it and how children can lose a lot of points on this holiday. Mother's Day is a silly as Earth Day if you're inattentive to your mother, or Mother Earth, the other 364 days.
Then my son says nice things about my mothering and makes me feel great! I realized last week that if we didn't have this conversation about how silly it all is, followed by nice, supportive appreciation, I would feel very blue and neglected.
To those of you with living moms and who are moms, Happy Mother's Day. It's a nice time to honor your surrogate moms, too.

A True Gift Story: Buying Something for Someone Whose Taste I Know Really Well - ME!

Gift giving is a very sensitive issue in couple and family life. It's bad news if you forget your wife or mother's birthday. The stories don't dwell on women forgetting their husbands' birthdays, but that probably happens, too. My husband thinks gift rituals are a big hassle. He is happy for me to buy what I want for myself, and is basically hugely relieved if I leave him out of it entirely and just show him what I bought, if indeed I bothered. Usually it's something I'm wanting but can't justify, like a digital camera. This works for us.
However, I didn't think it was good role modeling for our kids. It's important for children, who are naturally very self-focused, to have the opportunity to buy or make gifts for their parents and celebrate parents' birthdays as family events. Likewise, with Hanukkah. It's fun, and important, to give presents as well as receive them.
One year, a few weeks before Hanukkah, I walked through Lord and Taylor and noticed a dress on sale which I loved, but didn't need. I tried it on, debated a bit, and then it clicked. This was my Hanukkah gift from my kids and husband. I went and paid for it and asked the clerk if it could be gift wrapped. This isn't very common with dresses, apparently. She commented that I must know the person whom I was buying it for really well. "Yes, I do know her really well! It's me!", I couldn't resist telling her. She got a kick out of this, since apparently my spouse is not the only shopping-challenged husband in the world.
Now comes the fun part. My kids took huge pride in the beautifully wrapped gift which sat waiting for me to open on Hanukkah, from them and Daddy. They noticed whenever I wore the dress, now dubbed my Hanukkah dress, and I took great pleasure every time I wore it, too. It was no longer just any old dress, it was a gift from my family. Many years later I had a hard time getting rid of it, long past when it was in style, since just looking at it made me happy.
Moral of the story, at least to me: the ritual of gift-giving has a certain magical power to it. Even though I was the one who purchased the gift and watched it being wrapped, something transformative happened when it sat in a gift box in the dining room and my kids took ownership of it as their gift to me. When I opened it, it had BECOME a gift. One that suited me especially well!

No-Name vs. Designer: the Parents' Dilemma

When my son developed a desire for brand-name clothing, Tommy Hilfiger was very big at his city school. My husband mocked people who wore large brand-names on their shirts, often musing, "The company should pay HIM to advertise their product on his chest." So our kids had a steady diet of this sentiment. 

On the other hand, middle school peers are really mean, and woe to the kid who wears dopey clothes. As a parent, this was a complete clash of values. I did not want my child to be stigmatized because of my anti-consumerism hoity toity ideas. But on the other hand I didn't want to completely surrender to the Gods of Materialism.
One way to address the problem worked well. When he needed new clothes we would head to Marshalls, which carried a mix of no-name clothes and designer duds. Having established that he needed a whatever, we would compare the cost of a decent quality non-name brand with the designer version, which was usually about 30% more. If Zach opted for the designer version, he paid the difference. Looking back this seems a little mean, since he didn't have a lot of money, but then again - he didn't have a lot of expenses. If I were doing it again, I would give a clothing allowance which could be spent on the brandname differential or pocketed. That would make the choice even clearer.
In any event, for awhile he went with the Tommy Hilfigers and the Timberlands et al. Thankfully he finished the branded-clothes phase a couple years later and discovered the wonder of thrift stores: better clothes for less money.
This son, by the way, is now a financial educator. Brag! Brag!

Image from www.youregood.com.au

Material Gifts vs. Do-Good Gifts: The Debate

Gift-giving is a big part of life in a family or community. It is certainly a way to acknowledge relationships and celebrate special occasions; unfortunately it's also a way to spend a lot of money on things the recipients don't want, need, or like - ultimately a waste.
One occasion which calls for gift giving is a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, marking the age of Jewish responsibility at 13. It is a Jewish custom to give charity for happy occasions, so I adopted a custom from my friend Sharon. I split our gift budget in two, giving a material gift along with a signed blank check and instructions for the kid to donate the check to his or her favorite cause. This was a great idea, but it had some flaws. 1. More than a few of the kids lost the checks. 2. We've gotten on some weird mailing lists as a result of these kids' picks! 3. And then there was the kid who made the check out TO HERSELF. Best cause she could think of, apparently. I was attached to the idea that not giving a material gift was rude. However as I watched my kids' piles of gifts sit around collecting dust for the next decade, I rethought the whole process. Kids really don't care that much about the presents after the first few. And they are less greedy and more idealistic than adults give them credit for. Now we give a grove of trees in each kid's honor through Trees for the Future. They receive an inscribed certificate, newsletter, bumper sticker, and literature about the project and where the 450 trees will be planted. We've done this four times. Two kids thanked us politely. The other two were each totally psyched about this gift; one discussed it with me quite often during the year following his bar mitzvah, which really amazed me. We just gave a young lady her certificate the other day, and below (included with their permission) is an email from Sophia's father:

What incredible nachus [pride] I got tonight when I saw Sophia, literally, jump for joy when she opened your gift. "I hope I can go visit them one day," and "Oh, boy, I'm going to get this newsletter" and "Abba [Daddy], look, look" -- "the people from the area plant them."

So there are a lot of kids out there who appreciate gifts to causes they know are important. They're still going to receive lots of material gifts, so don't worry about their being deprived when you instead make a contribution. They are happy to help make a difference.
Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Pick a cause you think the kid will relate to. I recall receiving a contribution to the Cemetery Committee at my synagogue; that did not do it for me.
2. An inscribed certificate is much more exciting than a notification. For one thing, it can be framed and displayed, so while the main gift is a donation, there is a material reflection of the good in the world happening on the kid's behalf.
   
3. Giftwrap the certificate; an aesthetic presentation conveys that it's special.
4. Give your gift in the days leading up to the event. The family will have time to be more attentive to what the exact cause is, and it sets a nice tone.

Okay, so what if this gift is a bomb, and the recipient and/or the family think you're weird? Well, what is the likelihood they would have liked a material gift you'd chosen anwway? Not that great. At least 450 trees have been planted, providing livelihood for villagers. Not so bad an outcome. There are worst things than being thought a do-gooder. What's the worse thing that could happen? They'll make a donation in your honor when you celebrate a happy occasion!

A Deluxe Scrabble Set: A Luxury which is Worth It!

One question we frugal affluent types are always asking is "What is worth spending extra money on?" For each person the answer is different, but the question and decision making is the same. No point in wasting money, even if you could afford the hit.
Our Scrabble game goes back 34 years. We always enjoyed playing as a couple, and introduced it to our kids when they were old enough - it made for good family time. We also played lots with my in-laws when they visited. At some point I decided to splurge on a deluxe Scrabble set - it comes with a grid, so the letters stay in place when you move the board, and swivels. It has some other jazz thrown in which is not worth paying more for, but the grid and swivel features are great. This was totally worth the extra few dollars - I think they're around $35. While it did not improve my Scrabble game, it does lower the hassle factors when you're playing.

I put the old set on the shelf, since this was before Freecycle. (Now I can't wait to get online to give duplicates away.) It was missing two tiles, and my son's set in DC is missing one tile. I just spent $2.15 to order the three missing tiles from an Ebay vendor who, believe it or not, sells individual scrabble tiles. Wonders never cease!

Great Gifts with Really Bad Unintended Consequences

Yesterday I posted "ten gift ideas for kids least likely to end up in landfill" and I promised today I would post my list of some of the worst gifts I've observed. Of course all these gifts were well-intended; the generous gifters just never saw what happened after the gift was received, but as the mom, I got to manage the consequences. And in most cases they were NOT much fun.
Here are gifts to avoid - unless you dislike the recipients, perhaps.
1. Any young children’s toy with lots of pieces and no container. These quickly drive parents nuts. The pieces get all over the house, and you wind up going out and buying plastic bins just to store the damn pieces, which you quickly grow to loathe.
2. Gift certificates: they might seem perfect but turn out to be pain in the neck.

• They require a parent to schlep the kid to the store - which is rarely convenient. Some are electronic, which is a better bet, but still tricky and often requires parental assistance and supervision.
• Gift cards are easily lost - they're little. I can't tell you how many times we had to go through a big stack of cards to fish out the accidentally discarded certificate.
• Worst is that store gift cards are a big ripoff, since they gradually lose their face value and eventually expire altogether (though some consumer laws are being passed to address this).
• And if you actually make it to the store with the card, the chosen gift never costs just the amount of the gift certificate, so you must either add to it, or hold on to a gift certificate with $2.13 balance which hangs around for years, cluttering up your life!

3. Arts and crafts kits - they also seem like they would be fun and promote creativity, but they're a big bomb. Children are naturally creative, so they do better with interesting art materials. In each of my children’s Big Cleanouts we handed off lots of unopened creative kits; they required way too much focused attention and too many steps to actually be fun. Skip the pre-packaged cutsey "Make Earrings and a Necklace" or "Build a Volcano" and just give scissors, paper, glue sticks. clay, and/or glitter.

4. Single shares of stock - by far the all time best-intended and most irritating gifts my kids received. They were given by an dear elderly gentleman who wanted to teach them about investing, a worthy goal indeed. (Though each did this in school with the Stock Market Game in about 5th grade.) He gave each kid three single shares: 1 of Disney, 1 of CocaCola, and 1 of Johnson and Johnson. I remember very clearly because each one generated quarterly statements, annual reports, tax statements, and miniscule dividend checks. And when they wanted to sell them, we discovered the transaction costs exceeded the worth of each stock. We finally donated them to charities, which in itself generated paperwork. Great intention, terrible consequences!

5. Likewise, US Savings Bonds are not child-friendly, at least for children old enough to understand numbers. It is hard to explain to a kid that a $50 savings bond is worth $25, and will only be worth $50 in another 20 years. Talk about coal in your stocking…. My son thought it was bizarre that it was legal to give something that was marked $100 and was only worth $50. Just give the $50. Fifty bucks will mean a lot more to a ten-year-old than the matured $100 bond will mean to him or her when he or she is pushing 25 years old!

Of course even if you avoid these particular scenarios, it's still hard to find a gift that will please. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you're off. Sometimes you're trying to please the parent, not the child, anyway. That's why I am gradually shifting to contributions instead of gifts. Most American children have way too much stuff to need more. Check out kiva.org where you can "give" gift cards which allow the recipient to make a microloan to a thirdworld breadwinner. Now that is a cool gift.

Ten Kid Gifts Least Likely to Become Landfill!

It’s that time of year again, when we shop for appropriate, meaningful gifts for the kids on our holiday lists. Having raised two children and sent annual gifts to six nieces and nephews (that’s over 240 birthday and Hanukkah gifts, from birth to college) I have been on both ends of these gift-giving transactions. Unfortunately there is very little correlation between what catalogues assure you a child will adore and what a kid actually likes. Most of the money and effort spent on buying, wrapping, and shipping an item will be wasted. What follows are some ideas culled over the years, noticing popular gifts in our house. Here are my ten favorite gift ideas:
1. Give a matching item every year, so it adds up to a beautiful set the child will have as an adult. My friend Louise’s grandmother had very modest resources, but each Christmas and birthday she gave Louise a piece of matching china. By the time Louise reached young adulthood, she had a beautiful matched set of tea cups, saucers, and dessert plates. I know this because Louise used them when she entertained, many years later, and took much pleasure in telling us the story of her beautiful dessert set. The point here is that while a child will initially think this is an unexciting present, watching a set grow from year to year becomes very meaningful, and the result is ultimately cherished. Instead of a lot of junky toys which are eventually discarded, these gifts become an heirloom.

2. Buy gifts from the UNICEF catalog. This way part of your outlay goes to support children around the world. Many of their gifts reflect multicultural understanding, so they are educational as well. Be sure to explain what UNICEF does, along with the gift.
3. Buy real tools or utensils, not play ones. Children love real things. When I baked with my children, our favorite utensil was a huge 13” spill-proof stainless steel bowl which cost $4. A gift of such a bowl along with a few simple kitchen utensils will be a big hit. Kids love having their own anything. Likewise, you could buy a few tools at a hardware store and make a kid very, very happy. My son even loved looking at a home repair book which featured pictures and diagrams of tools. His favorite was needle-nose pliers. You gotta’ love a tool named Needle Nose!
4. Buy a picture book and create your own read-aloud by recording or videoing yourself reading it. You can embellish and personalize the text by adding your own funny touches and renaming the central character the name of the gift recipient. (When the child learns to read he or she will be in for a surprise when learning the character’s true name.) This could be done as a digital file and played on whatever kids listen to these days. Be sure to give a signal when to turn the page. Or have someone video you, and hold each page up when you read, too. This would be a great gift for far-away kids with whom you would like to maintain a relationship.
5. Purchase tickets for an event to attend together with the child. Take lots of pictures when you go, and make a little album of your adventure. When my daughter was a theatre-crazy teenager we combined her November birthday with Hanukkah and sprang for Broadway tickets. She picked which play we attended. It cost more than I would have spent on a gift, but looking back, it was great bonding and more memorable than a material item. Plus I got to see The Producers, too. If your goal is to nurture a relationship with a young person, this is a great way to spend structured time together.
6. Subscribe to a magazine for the child. It promotes literacy, benefits a worthwhile sponsoring organization, and it’s exciting to receive a magazine in the mail each month. My children were the recipients of World Wildlife Fund’s preschool magazine Your Big Backyard and later graduated to their school-age publication Ranger Rick. We saved every issue and often used them for references later.
7. Adopt an animal in the child’s name. Children study endangered species and identify strongly with animals. Your contribution funds the upkeep of a designated animal. The Adopt-A-Bison program sends you a picture of “your” bison, along with a certificate which you can give framed. This gives the child something material, but the main part of the gift is a donation in the child’s honor. Some children will appreciate this more than others, and some parents will appreciate this more than others. In any event, you know your gift is doing something useful. If you start early enough you can have the certificate shipped to yourself and present it in a frame, so it feels less abstract.
8. Help the child start a collection. You might save stamps for them, which you give along with a stamp album and reference book about stamp collecting. Or maybe just bundle a few related items like cool flashlights. It doesn’t take much for a collection to get started. Pretty soon the kid will know about every flashlight ever invented. This takes some imagination, but if you can involve the child in a shared activity, you will both enjoy it. Next thing you know, you’ll be on the outlook for flashlights, too! (You can substitute anything for “flashlights” – that was just a random suggestion...) It would be great for people who have done this to share your recommendations.
9. Promote imaginative play and give a treasure chest of hats, accessories, scarves, funky clothes, and jewelry. The trick here is that nothing needs to be new. Present it in an attractive, sturdy container. Boys like dressing up just as much as girls, by the way. You could clean out your own closet, or create a large collection for a very small amount at a thrift shop. A self-standing laundry bag would be a perfect container for this purpose.
10. Give a very small item (it could be some money, or just a card, even) wrapped in a GIGUNDA sheet of bubble paper. Bubble paper is endlessly entertaining. Kids think of amazing things do to with it. We recently entertained two very active little boys for over an hour simply by bringing out a 4’ x 4’ bubble paper remnant. They stomped on it, making very loud noises (both the boys and the popping bubbles), rolled in it, made a tent out of it, made it into capes, and generally had a blast. Especially with younger children, the bubble paper will make a much bigger impression than the gift.

One of my aunts sent me fancy monogrammed stationery each birthday. I basically used one each year to write her a thank you. But it did make me appreciate fine stationery, and I was proud to use them for shower gifts as a young bride!

Birthday Checks & Thank You Notes....

My children are now grown and live elsewhere, so their thank you writing habits are either ingrained, or they're not, but recently I was reminded me of one of my standard mommying practices, once they were old enough to write.
Their grandparents would typically send them checks for both birthdays and Hanukkah. Since children don't have to pay bills, the arrival of checks (or cash, for that matter) is totally abstract. The clear message was to save it, not spend it, and that is not very sexy to kids. Actually adults have trouble with this concept as well. If they weren't wanting anything huge or significant, they pretty much ignored the checks and needed a lot of supervision/encouragement/attention to write the obligatory thank you notes.
I hit on the following solution. I would pin the check up on the bulletin board and refuse to deposit it into his/her account until the thank you note was written. Sometimes it would take a few months! Generally by then the grandparents would have called, worried that the check was never cashed. Sooner or later the child would agree to write the note; the reward was getting it off their to-do list and getting their mom off their back. (They have since learned that checks pay bills and are very grateful for any that come their way....)
I think it is crucial for children to learn to write thank you notes. And they should be good, thoughtful thank you notes. When I coached my children on thank you notes, what I emphasized is that the gift is a reflection of a relationship, so try to address both the gift and the relationships. For example, "It was really great you sent me a check for my birthday. I feel so lucky you are there for me for all the special moments in my life" or something like that. Personally I still melt when I get a really good thank you. In fact I save the very special ones, and I once showed my collection to my daughter. Since then she's written terrific notes - I'm sure they're ones other people save!
Given my observation of the abstract nature of check giving, I'm not sure it's the best gift to give children, especially affluent children. 

Rethinking Birthday Gift Conventions

My birthday is tomorrow. When it comes to birthday gifts, my husband and I were way ahead of the voluntary simplicity crowd. The first few years we were together (we've been married for 33 years), my husband dutifully went out and bought birthday gifts for me, but it was painfully obvious the whole enterprise was a very stressful chore for him. I don't know that this is gender-determined, but there certainly is a correlation. Gifts are about maintaining relationships and that definitely correlates with girl work. 

 He was infuriatingly indifferent to receiving gifts himself, so the golden rule ("How would you feel if I didn't get YOU a gift?") had very little sway. After a few years I called a truce. No more required gift giving. Not to say birthdays were not recognized, just not by gifts. I think it was a relief for my husband - he felt judged, and found the whole process a downer; I in turn felt like I was attaching a lot of baggage on this gift thing and that it could all be redefined by my letting go of the Hallmark ideology. Hallmark, Madison Avenue, and jewelers put out lists of what you're supposed to buy - there's a whole crazy list for wedding anniversaries, for example - and some of us absorb this like it's from Sinai.

Instead of shopping for gifts, we encourage each other to choose things we want for ourselves, and designate them a gift. We go out for dinner at the birthday celebrant's pick of restaurant.

And we give donations in honor of the occasion. I realized I just wanted my birthday noted; I didn't necessarily care about the book or trinket. So a festive meal out and a donation are just right. We each pick where we want our donation to go - our personal first choice causes are not usually the same as our shared contributions. The amount equals the birthday. We do this with our children, too - though they get something material as well. (We're not looking to be Scrooge here!) It was exciting when they got to their first double digit contributions, the big 10. I wrote about one of my favorite gifts from my son awhile back, "new" used hubcabs.

My late father had a different way of celebrating his birthdays as he aged - he sent each grandchild a block of stock for their college fund! We thought that the birthday guy giving the presents was a mighty nice touch.

And as I wrote about a few days ago, my two friends and I who go out for birthday lunches have adopted this contribution custom, too. For me, though, the best gift is a spontaneous one, unrelated to an occasion that calls for presents. We are getting older and I am happy to note that more and more of the birthday parties we go to (mostly 60th birthdays!) call for presence, not presents.

Gift giving is great fun for some people - I enjoy it. But if the gift giver does not enjoy it, it seems like a bizarre ritual. More of a tax than a pleasure. And what about receiving? The vast majority of gifts are not what the recipient likes, wants or uses. This works for us - but I am interested to hear how other families handle this aspect of their lives. It's very loaded. You don't want to be a husband who forgets his wife's birthday! Or a child who forgets his/her mom's. (Facebook birthday reminders is definitely going to save a lot of folks from the dog house!)

Organic College Cuisine vs. Bed Bath and Beyond

The first day of college is a wonderful ritual. Unlike my day when my folks shipped my trunk and put me on a plane, now parents join their kids.
A friend who is writing a piece on environmentalism pointed out how local food is now the sexy area of activism, while paying attention to material objects' origins and fates is less so. This was readily apparent at my daughter's very socially-conscious school Kumbaya U. The dining hall options are eco-awesome! Each table posts their many sourcing options which include vegetarian, vegan, "Farm to Fork" local food, organic, Monterey Aquarium approved sea food, in addition to normal college fare. (But with plastic plates, silverware, and glasses. Go figure. Maybe that was just because of the extra number of visitors there yesterday?)
Contrast that with the scene in the dorms: next to the recycling receptacles were mounting piles of packaging (not readily recyclable on-site), all the boxes and plastics from the essentials provided by Bed Bath and Beyond. We did not fail to stop at BB&B ourselves, since they sell every imaginable item under the Chinese sun. They cleverly provide shipping to your college's closest store, from any location in the country. For a few weeks dorm stuff is this big box store's special feature. As my daughter astutely pointed out, they play on new college students' anxieties about what they will need to be happy away from home. The thing that caught my eye yesterday was a CEO-sized swivel cushioned office chair. Apparently for some the standard issue desk chair is now insufficient for academic success.
Of course come May, a huge percentage of this stuff winds up in the dumpster, since there's no simple way to bring it home, nowhere to store it, and lots of it is not really necessary anyway. What is being marketed is not quite disposable, but not long-term use either. Very clever of BB&B.
Check out Dump and Run and individual colleges' adaptations of this program, groups which promote salvaging and reusing all the discards at the end of the academic year.

Happy Birthday from HubCap Heaven

You can't blog about the meaning of money without getting into the meaning of gifts. Sociologists, etiquette mavens, psychologists, and advice columnists all weigh in on the significance of gift exchanges, not to mention Hallmark. Gifts symbolize all kinds of things which cannot be measured, so people interpret them endlessly, searching for clues.
I didn't grow up in a family which made a big deal of gifts, just celebrating Hanukkah, birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day, all quite modestly. Mostly the gifts were practical. Lots of pajamas. My husband found gift-buying an ordeal, and of course in our culture gifts are hyped to the point that picking the perfect one for your wife can be stressful and intimidating. And the impression one gets from the media is that unless it's Tiffany's, don't bother. Eventually, to my husband's relief, I called a gift-giving truce. Instead we indulge each other on vacation encouraging one another to purchase things we actually like, instead of guessing what the other might like, and rarely does.

However, I didn't think ignoring gift-giving was a good idea with our children, when they came along. At its best, gift-giving can be gratifying, and since children are completely focused on what gifts are coming to them, it's important to focus them on giving gifts as well. The problem is with little kids, the gifts need to be purchased with an adult, usually the non-birthday-celebrating parent. So when it was my birthday, this task fell to my husband, none too excited about it, but willing to do the deed.

When our son was about 7 years old, I came up with the perfect present for myself. My well-driven Nissan Stanza wagon was missing 3 hubcaps; they had mysteriously disappeared, one at a time, over the years, and I never got around to replacing them. I noticed a great store called HubCap Heaven a few miles from our house, and couldn't imagine a store better suited to a 7- year-old boy. So I told them that what I wanted for my birthday was to have them equip my car with proper hubcaps, an errand wholly unappealing to me. Almost anything seemed more important than hubcap replacing.

Off they went, and in an hour or so they returned. My son proudly showed me the 3 shiny new old hubcaps, and believe it or not, I was thrilled!

At that point in my life, having someone else do something for me - the gift of their time and expertise - was wonderful. Being taken care of, especially their accomplishing something I didn't want to deal with myself, felt like a huge luxury. Much better than the usual bath gel, gift certificate, or earrings, for sure! The car is long gone, but the HubCaps memory lingers on.

The $300 Prom Challenge!

I've decided to repost this, since it's prom season again, and I wrote this when I had many fewer readers. Enjoy!

It's prom season, and plenty of parents have their credit cards at the ready, financing this perfect teen Night To Remember. Some high schoolers take on extra jobs to help foot these gigundu bills. Our daughter attended a private, affluent suburban high school (which I generally loved), so I braced myself. While her friends were generally more distinguished for their idealism than their materialism, when the occasions arose, the money was there. For Junior Prom, I looked the other way and encouraged her to spend what seemed appropriate in such a context. I didn't want ruin the fun or embarrass her with my soapbox preaching about waste and excess. She found a great dress on-line, in the low 3-figures, needing alteration ($50). There were the shoes, the requisite Up-Do , also $50, the boutonnière, the ticket ($75, chivalrously picked up by her date), and the one that really got to me, and mortified my daughter, too: the Hummer Limo. She skipped the manicure and day-at-the-spa, but quite a few of her friends added that to the day's prep. They all looked great and had a lot of fun. About a million pictures were taken by adoring baby boomer parents.
Senior year the story was different. She had decided to take a gap year and was focused on earning money to cover her living expenses, so we made her a deal. We figured out a prom budget of $300 based on Liz Pulliam's article citing the American average of $296. We told her if she came in lower than $300, she could pocket the difference. I figured I'd rather spend it on her than on all the trimmings, and she quite agreed.
Here's how it all worked. She went to a conventional department store to see what the dresses were like. Awhile later she called from Daffy's, a designer discount fashion store, to ask if she should buy a terrific black long dress that looked great on her and cost $35. The answer from her mom was "Yes! What are you, crazy?" Score. She wore junior year shoes, bought a brooch on Ebay, tried (unsuccessfully...) to lobby against limos and do a trolley bus, which would have been cheaper, and covered her ticket. I read up on boutinniere-making, which is simple as could be. The yellow roses were in bloom, and I made her date's boutonnière. I will never see yellow roses in early summer without happily thinking of her senior prom.
The biggest challenge was the hair. Having performed in scads of musicals, Nomi knew how to use a curling iron and copious hair spray to do fancy hairstyles. I volunteered for the job, though I hadn't done hair since her pigtail days. It takes a very long time, and I unfortunately wielded the curling iron against skin a few times, but eventually I got the hang of it. She was very patient. It did cross my mind that I might have been better off springing for a professional to do it, but slowly beautiful ringlets, and a radiant daughter, emerged. It was actually quite a creative thrill, and something very special to share. That night when the cameras snapped and friends complimented her on her hair, she winked at me, and said "My mom did it!" Priceless.
The bottom line? She socked $115 away for her gap year, aced the financial challenge, and looked like a million bucks!