I read this recently:
Jack Reacher Won’t Ask Girls to Dance
And since I homeschool, and since my son is 13, this has a certain immediate relevance.
I’ve had a front-row seat to the social breakdown hitting our young people. You can see it in a lot of places, but one of the clearest examples came from a mom in our church who’s helped run a homeschool prom for several years. She told me something recently that I’ve been stewing on.
When she first got involved, it was normal for boys to ask girls to dance—especially during the “snowball” dances, where the DJ tells you to rotate partners every thirty seconds. That’s the whole point: go find someone new, talk, move, risk a little awkwardness.
But this year? The boys wouldn’t do it. They stood around, clumped up with friends, goofed off, and refused to initiate. Some danced with each other, ironically of course. Meanwhile, the girls were standing around the edge of the dance floor—waiting. Eventually, they gave up and started dragging each other onto the floor. Some even went over and tried to coax the guys to come out. It didn’t work. There were 2 girls for every guy.
I do not think this is a “social breakdown.” It is just some confused teens — who have never done this before — and who come to the conclusion that they would rather just sit it out instead of going through some difficult process of trial and error.
From my perspective, the main issues are this:
Teens pick up cues from their environment, even when things are not explicitly explained to them, or they don’t watch Andrew Tate or any other such commentator. They pick up that men in general are not interacting much with women these days. You can blame MeToo in the workplace, or the recent difficulties in gyms. But, I think a lot of this is downstream from marriage. Although I think that young men should aim for the Top 30% of wifey girls, and form a family, the reality is that 70% of the women are not in the Top 30%, and they do not make good wives. On average, marriage is a losing proposition. From this, there is not a lot of reason to “date” with the expectation of forming a monogamous “relationship,” which itself does not appear in Courtship, but is a kind of degenerate marriage-lite, or Concubinage as it was known in the days of Augustine. This leaves basically hookups, or “friends with benefits,” which most men are actually not that interested in, sensing that it is basically immoral and degenerate.
The reality is, homeschool girls age 18 or less are about as Wifey as you can find these days. Probably 90%+ fit in our “Top 30%” category.
Male youths are low on testosterone. The teen of today has roughly the testosterone of a fifty year old. As someone in their fifties myself, I can say that, it is not enough raw animal desire to want to deal with all the troubles of women today. The Big Head overpowers the Little Head with ease. It’s been said that this commonly happens around a man’s early thirties. But, maybe these boys are there now?
Women and girls are too picky. Just as young men pick up cues from their environment, so young women tend to become too picky, focusing on the Top 10% and rejecting 90%, a pattern now made habit from dating apps. Men today go to events like “speed dating” and find that 90% of the male participants get nothing pleasant out of it. The result is that they do not go to any more such events, and also tell their friends not to go. This sense that “most men are not good enough” probably pervades the girls of a dance as well.
Dancing is stupid. The era of popular music/freeform dancing alone began in the 1960s and has now exhausted itself. In the 1990s, dancing was pretty degenerate and a lot of young people didn’t like it much, including me. Nevertheless, dance clubs and raves or parties were very popular then, and the music, although generally bad, was something you could dance to. Remember the Spice Girls or Ace of Base? Since then, the music has only gotten worse, and more and more people don’t like it. Dance clubs are closing everywhere. This is also something that young people pick up on. “Dancing,” as we have known it since the 1960s, is dead.
The point here is, parents should not expect, or encourage, young people to do these things, because they are basically dead and stupid. This ranges from today’s dance music, through the whole process of “relationships” and “dating” that parents did when younger. You have to invent new things.
But also, Generation X parents who are accustomed to being abandoned by parents when they were young, and making do on their own, should not expect teens to somehow invent things for themselves. What they will invent is — hanging out next to the dumpster behind the Dairy Queen, as Generation X did. Today, the contemporary equivalent seems to be chatting with each other while playing video games. In other words, parents are going to have to do the work.
Dancing is a nice idea, that we — that is, European White People, participants in Western Civilization — have done for many centuries. In the past, this has taken on very elaborate and ambitious forms.
The “high school prom” is basically a public school version of the “debutante ball.”
To do this properly, we need a few things, organized by parents:
Pretty, respectable music, that matches pretty, respectable clothing such as the dresses and suits/uniforms seen here. No popular music. This music does not have to be a historical style — Strauss’ waltzes — but that is maybe the best place to start. Also, no slutwear.
Specific dances that are practiced beforehand. Yes, dance classes. A teen should show up for the event already knowing exactly the dances that are expected. These dances have specific repeatable steps. No improvisation.
A specific process of pairing dance partners. Everybody gets a partner.
Basically, girls and boys should practice all these things, formally in classes, beforehand. The dance event itself is just a repetition of what was practiced earlier, with the only main difference being nicer clothes. The girls and boys should already know each other from taking dance classes together, and have experience dancing with multiple partners.
Then, everyone shows up at the event knowing exactly what to do, and having practiced it beforehand.
This “debutante ball” format is fine, but you can also do “square dance” formats, or other more casual or “country” or “vernacular” forms as well. But, I think that girls love to dress up, so a “debutante ball” format would be widely appreciated. In the interest of reducing cost and complexity, girls can simply wear a pretty dress, and boys a suit.
There are some things today that have some of these elements, but not all. For example, country “line dancing” has an element of specific steps, and a bit of organized social interaction, perhaps getting in a line. And the music is … good enough. But, it is still basically dancing alone, with no specified framework of pairing with other partners, or even touching them.
In time, you can invent new dance forms, and new music to go with it. But, that takes time, so for now we are probably stuck with existing historical formats. These historical social dance formats, although somewhat archaic, are nevertheless new to us, and present an interesting learning process I am sure. Probably we can enjoy their historical nature specifically, such as: “let’s cosplay Andrei and Natascha, or Elizabeth and Darcy, or Laura and Almanzo.”
Social dancing should be pretty easy to learn and perform. In the mid-twentieth century, people raised on dancing invented some complicated new dances. It is too much to expect this of teens in general. Only a few will want to master these difficult styles.
And so that is how you do it. This is necessary today, but also, more fun. But, parents will have to take the lead here, and organize everything beforehand, just as they have always done. Do you think that, in the past, teens organized a debutante ball on their own? They did not. Look at Andrei and Natascha above. Do you think they just improvised that dance on the spot? They practiced beforehand.
Cornerstone 