Friday, March 13, 2009

The Chaperone’s Dilemma

Say the word “chaperone” and what do you see?  A Church Lady in a high-necked blouse, lips pursed?  A little finger-wagging?  A lot of joy-killing?  “Chaperone” comes from the French word “to cover”—someone whose mere presence smothers the fires of exuberance.  Who loves a chaperone?  I’ll tell you who – NO ONE.

When my daughter’s public high school asked for parents to chaperone a recent formal dance, I thought: Why not?  I’m friendly with my daughter’s pals, and, surprisingly, they didn’t complain. But here’s what I learned: Once you put on the chaperone hat, you’re nobody’s pal, not even your own.

The dance was held at one of those rented halls that look like the palace of Versailles mated with a Super 8 motel.  The teens I’d driven to the event were pumped – the chandeliers and sweeping staircases were “epic!” compared to a paper-streamered gymnasium – and they ducked away from me fast in a cartoon cloud of glitter and perfume. As a chaperone, my duties turned out to be both vague and unsettling.  I was to “Watch,” and to “Stop Any Grinding.” Now: I grind fair trade coffee beans.  I grind gourmet peppercorns. But I wasn’t sure what I was looking for out on that dance floor, already packed and heaving a mere quarter hour into the evening.

I took up a post as far from my daughter as I could manage (sometimes, I have a clue), crossed my arms, tried to look severe … and pictured the word “Hypocrite” emblazoned on my chest. After all, if you put me in a room with the Talking Heads on the box, my friends know to scootch back the furniture and hide the glassware.  I am usually the ecstatic YES on the dance floor, not the tight-lipped No.

And yet, I’d promised to do a job, and it didn’t take long to identify a very busy foursome, whose shiny formal wear was, if anything, aiding and abetting their enthusiastic dirty dancing.  Grinding, I learned, looks a lot like two people trying to wriggle into a single chair that isn’t actually there.  I cleared my throat, approached the offenders grimly, and remembered afresh how unattractive moral reformers usually are. Carrie Nation, with her battle-axe face to match her weapon, or Anthony Comstock, the smugly mutton-chopped Victorian moralizer who tossed all things bodily into one dust-bin of naughtiness, so that racy French postcards and birth control information were trashed as one and the same – obscenities. Usually, I recoil against all things Comstockian, and yet there I was, sputtering at the grinding dancers, “Hey, now – that’s a little too close!” while making vague up and down chopping motions with my invisible Carrie Nation axe, as if I were one of those correcting nuns insisting they “Leave room for the holy spirit!” The dancers looked at me blankly, and then with a bit of pity, I think, before they got busy again.

What could I do but resume my post, ears burning, and feeling totally woven into adulthood, amongst all the grownups who have to say No, simply because they are grownups.  Pretty much as far back as recorded history, you can see elders wagging fingers at wayward youths—surely there are hieroglyphics with this theme.  In Plato’s Republic, there’s anxiety about the lawless amusements of youth, and in the 16th century, essayist Michel de Montaigne warned, “Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.”

In the disco ball-glinted darkness of the dance, against the pulsing back-beat, I was just enacting the familiar and hapless moves of those with power, who assert whatever scolding force they have over those with slightly less.  If you’ve ever seen grammar-schoolers correct toddlers— “No, no – don’t touch that” – you see how early we learn this dynamic, as well as its limits.  The littler kid is likely to holler back: “You’re not the boss of me.” In fact, the sobering realization of adulthood is that the only boss of us is ourselves.  That’s the heck of it – we become our own chaperones.

And, alas, here we are, on the cusp of Spring, the season that loves a chaperone the least.  All that running sap, those swelling buds rushing headlong into outrageous outbursts of scent and sensation.  Gardening zones 5 and 6 are fizzing with pollination potential, and yet the price of adulthood – of fully blossoming—is self-policing.  The high schoolers I failed to chaperone knew it, too – they are on the greening tip of all that complexity. What can I say, folks? The sap is running.  Good luck with being good.  The only finger left to tap you on the shoulder is your own.

Broadcast by April Lidinsky on March 13, 2009
Community • Customs & Rituals • Education • Sports & Recreation • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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April Lidinsky -- The Chaperone’s Dilemma / More essays by April

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