What's the deal with cotillions?

[underpants]

I am going to get to my point first. You can read below if you want to.

I thought cotillions were a richy Rich or private school thing.
Are middle class families doing this now?
Is this some new have-to-do THING being mass marketed?

Please help.

Thoughts?

---------------
This has crossed my path several times recently. I figured they still happened but I assumed it was amongst the same crowd it always has - the whitebread elites country club and in religous organizations.

A few months ago I saw a Facebook post from someone in my past. I knew she'd married well but a cotillion? She didn't marry THAT well. I then saw a post from someone I went to high school with. Again I knew their basic situation and it wasn't of the cotillion class. At a neighborhood Halloween bonfire our next door neighbor mentioned that her son was going to cotillion training. Now I KNOW they are not of what is usually the cotillion class. Ours is a dead middle middle class neighborhood. Then last night my wife gets a text from friends of ours, our kids grew up together, asking if our daughter would be interested in cotillion.

I see that a lot of Catholic private schools have these. As I said I thought this was a the really wealthy class type thing.

I googled it a bit and on the first page was "Open your own junior cotillion franchise!" Oh maybe that's it.

My wife and I are both from middle class backgrounds. I rejected the idea because of my ...well... that's not me. Big-is-bad punk rock attitude (not the punk rock look) from my youth. My wife thinks it's putting on airs and more of a "this is what your suitable mate looks like" type thing. Plus we don't want a "humble" "proper deportment" child as we read in some descriptions last night. We don't have a brat - our girl is the best kid I could imagine being a parent of. We are really lucky.

I just never thought this was anything that would enter the world we live in.

Thoughts?

[TBF]

1. Huh, I was thinking it was a southern thing

We are living in a middle class suburb of Houston. I've been seeing things on my facebook page about people sending their kids to cotillion. I wonder if this is one of those things that is being encouraged by the churches. Marry them off young, send the boys to the military, de-emphasize college. They are going for a large underclass of people who aren't very well off or very educated, and remain true to the churches. That is how certain people at the top (including the heads of the churches with their private jets) stay incredibly wealthy.

I am much better off financially now then when I was growing up. We've definitely spent money on our kids, but more in line with their individual interests. We've not giving 10% to any church (that is standard here with the large mainstream congregations) and we're not sending our kids to cotillion training. My daughter is a 12-yr old tomboy who can take all the dance classes she wants when she is done with graduate school (!). That's how I feel about dating in general for her. She is a quiet and introspective girl, but if she is comfortable and you ask her if she believes in God, she will look you straight in the eye and say "I think that's a myth" and change the subject. That impresses me more than any forced obedience ever would.

[underpants]

4. Well this is in Virginia

Lots of private catholic schools here.

I think we are in pretty much the same boat other than my girl not bring a tomboy. She's 10 and she still shies aware from watching the TV when their kissing on.

I just don't like they "ooh look at me!" Aspect of it. richmond is famous for its "oh you just HAVE TO" mentality.

[TBF]

10. They are holding their classes in the community center

for our neighborhood, with the big dance at the end of the semester in a hotel. Costs hundreds of dollars (pretty much what folks pay here for dance, cheer, karate, etc).

I did go to Ring Figure once at a military school (many moons ago) - but that was at the college level. I've never seen such a thing in middle school. But I grew up in a small factory town in the midwest so that would explain my general ignorance on the topic other than seeing the advertisements lately.

[tanyev]

2. Interesting. I take ballroom dance lessons, and my last teacher had a fairly regular gig

doing cotillions for some group further north of the DFW metroplex area. I think it was for a homeschool association. I figured it was something they were doing to try and provide social interaction for their kids, but now I'm wondering if it's just something that's gotten popular in right wing religious circles. Maybe there's some Mormon influence bleeding over--they are big on ballroom dancing.

[underpants]

5. I don't know tan

This is mystifying to me and I'm about as white as you can get. I'm usually better at reading my people than this.

I really do think it's a new TO DO thing being marketing to the expendable wealth and time crowd.

[trof]

3. I went to them in highschool, late 1950s.

They were held by high school sororities and called 'Lead Outs'.
The girls wore gowns and our corsages, we wore tuxes.
Live band.
Usually held at a 'minor' country club.
There were a couple of 'major' CCs in Birmingham where the movers and shakers gathered.

Our crowd was mainly middle to upper middle class and this was a 'big deal'.
Especially for me to be invited to be the girl's escort.
I was pore, but a handsome devil.

[underpants]

6. Well we had "ring dance"

This is addition to Homecoming in the fall. This was when everyone got Thor class rings. I never bought a ring (I fear jewelry) or a letter jacket (didn't see the point). But I went to the ring dance. Had to.

[trof]

7. Gemophobia?

That's a new one on me.
How ya' doin'?

[underpants]

8. Kosmemophobia

Apparently Dale Earnhart Jr. (I'm not a NASCAR FAN) has it too

[trof]

9. I'll be damned. Learn something new every day.

Sorry you suffer from it.
Not to make light of your condition, but I wish my wife had it.

[Solly Mack]

11. That sort of social emulation and aspiration spread out a long time ago.

The upper middle class has been hosting cotillions and soirees for pretty much the same reasons the upper crust did, and they started years ago.

Over the last 40-50 years or so it has become more widespread, and in the last 20 years it has positively blown up into a big deal for many in the middle class. It's also a big business, with "schools" and classes to teach your child the social graces. Said schools have always existed, but there are more of them now. A lot more.

It's not a new phenomenon...just one that has spread.

I'm from the south as well.

[underpants]

15. That's what I thought too

When I saw the franchise link in the first age s lightbulb went off. It's like ballet school (which we did) but you don't actually have to able to do the ballet to instruct.

[Solly Mack]

21. I was taught that having class meant you knew how to put people at ease in a social setting.

No matter how different they are from you. Class knew that good manners, and not etiquette, were the key to any situation. You can pay to learn proper etiquette, but you can't buy class.

And that was the only kind of class anyone need ever aspire to - being comfortable enough in your own skin to be gracious and kind to others.

And I think a lot of people have different ideas about what class is - and act accordingly.

[BlueJazz]

12. I did the cotillion thing when I was in Catholic school. I didn't mind it at all.

Was rather fun and the girls were nice.

Wound up an Atheist but cotillion didn't have anything to do with it

[underpants]

16. Okay

Thanks sinner

[madamesilverspurs]

13. We did something called cotillion

in the 1950s and early '60s. It was junior high school, and "cotillion" was essentially dance lessons. We were taught basic steps for fox trot, waltz, cha-cha, and jitterbug. We'd go into the boys' gym and take off our shoes to protect the floor (sneakers were not yet approved for school); they'd bring in a record player after showing us the basics. When the music started, boys would line up along one wall, girls would line up against the opposite wall, and we'd stare at each other until faculty dragged us to the middle and made us partner up.

That was in the western suburbs of Denver, by the way.

[underpants]

18. That's funny we did that in elementary school at a public school

They gave us an open class and we could choose from electives. The teacher who had the dance was a friend of my mom's (also taught there) so I had to take it. Yep the old public school record player belting out ooooold songs.

[Recursion]

14. It's definitely middle class in Mississippi, or was 20 years ago

I think of it as slightly more of a black thing to do than a white thing (as in, literally every AA girl I knew debuted at 16 and maybe 3/4ths of the white girls did).

The announcements and photog fees kept the town paper in business.

[underpants]

17. We found that there appeared to be two different worlds

The white and the black. Surprisingly not surprising.

I looked up what appears to a rather pipular one here in Richmond. There was a black girl and her father who were on every other page. In the group shot I had to look pretty hard to find her.

[Orrex]

19. It's a mathematical term describing a vast number of social poseurs.

Almost as bad as the type of person who casually uses the term "poseur," and you know how bad they are.

[underpants]

20. Yeah. That goes without saying