Daddy-daughter dances ended by political correctness

It’s not a scene that they’ll see in Cranston, Rhode Island any longer. Girls dressed up to go to their first dance – and not their first boy-girl dance where the genders spend three hours staring at each other from walls on opposite sides of the room. No, these dances are for bonding with their dads.

One single mom in Cranston decided it wouldn’t be fair for her daughter so she took her case to the ACLU. Together, they decided that these dances were discriminatory. And with that the superintendent put an end to a decades-long tradition.

According to Dori Monson, in most states Title IX makes an exemption for parent-child events like the daddy-daughter dances. Rhode Island apparently does not.

Dori and the New Jersey single mother who raised a stink do not see eye-to-eye. Some dads simply don’t do enough with their daughters. That’s why organizations, like the Pierce County Parks Department, create these events.

Daddy-daughter time is important to Dori. Just a few nights ago, his youngest daughter started planning out a weekend for the two of them to tour prospective colleges. He did it with his two older daughters, traveled around the Bay Area, or Southern California. In the end, both of them chose the University of Washington, so the trip was just as much about bonding as much as the checking out a future school.

Father-daughter time is important: and not just for some fun bonding. Women who have a good relationship with their father, according to Dori, have healthier relationships with men when they’re adults.

Some of these kids in New Jersey weren’t going to go to the dance anyway – because they too don’t have a dad around. It’s not that fun, Dori knows it.

“Having grown up largely without a dad it created some challenges and my dad was around some and he wasn’t around a lot.”

When one of these father-son events came up at his church when Dori was around 8 years old, a man in the congregation offered to take him.

The man told Dori’s mom that he shouldn’t be left out. So the two of them marched to the church dinner. Dori looked around the room and saw the fathers and sons talking and felt awkward.

The man had wanted to be nice, but it was uncomfortable.

But Dori survived going to that event with someone else, and skipping out on some others. If he can overcome the obstacles of not going to a parent-child event, these other kids can too.