Prom Has Gotten Ugly

May 22nd, 2007 by Erica

Ahh. The good old days. I went to prom in 1995. I had an after Prom party. Actually, I had THE after Prom party. You know the kind of party that is at the climax of any John Hughes film. Anyway, it was the first time I drank, the first time I smoked a cigarette, the first time..Well lets just say it was a night of firsts. Of course my parents found out it and my summer before college, known as the ” last summer” was ruined; it was still worth it.

On Friday, a teacher that I work with told me about her 16 year old daughter who was going to GBN’s Prom. Her daughter was going to an after party in Lake Geneva that would be chaperoned by 4 sets of parents. The only reason why she was telling me this is because the 4 sets of parents were making all the other peoples ( party-goers) parents sign a Rider! Can you believe it? A 7 page rider. In a nutshell, it stated that if there is a death, injury or harm to your child, you are giving up any right to sue us for wrongful death, involuntary manslaughter etc etc.

We all know that there is a lot of drinking and smoking and all other things going on at Prom. But to readily assume that there will be a death is , well kind of morbid. Even more morbid is to state that in no way are the parents at the party liable. What if one of the parents is like Stifler’s mom? What if a Dad gets wasted, chokes and kills someone for no reason? Is he not at fault because of this rider? My friend the teacher signed the rider. Not because she agreed with it at all, but because she wanted to make her daughter happy. Because she knew that not signing it would have ostracized her daughter from her friends. Maybe, because she knew that a rider couldn’t keep anyone from being at fault.