MATRIC dances can unwittingly turn some of us into izikhothane .

As the matric dance season approaches, parents go all out to ensure their daughter or son is wearing the right dress or suit, cut and designed only by the best David Tlale in their township or suburb.

Obscene amounts of money will be spent hiring special cars to transport them. Or the unfortunate well-to-do relatives will have to bear the inconvenience of playing chauffeur for the night, offering their decorative carriages - their German-engineered cars.

And even more moolah will be spent buying after-party outfits.

It all becomes a little insane as parents set out to outdo each other to ensure that their children represent their bank balances and their social status. Everyone wants to be the Joneses and no one wants to be seen as the Smiths who are struggling to keep up with the Joneses.

This week matrics began writing their final exams, but a few months before the biggest test of their schooling career, many families have been caught up in the madness and the whirlwind that was the preparation for matric dances. The impetus to prepare for exams had to compete with the imperative to stand out at the dance.

I got lessons on how to handle the craze. When my child finally reaches that ripe age I'll be prepared.

It was when my two sisters were preparing for their matric dances that I appreciated the whole circus that came with making sure that your daughter, son or sister looked their best on the night.

My one sister, a fashionista of note, did all the homework for the kind of dress she wanted. She spent the year cutting out pages from fashion magazines and saving them so that she could instruct the designer how to create her dream dress.

When the time came to brief the designer she couldn't make up her mind on whether she wanted to look like Beyoncé  at the Grammys or Halle Berry at the Oscars. And so she decided to combine the two designs. Beyoncé's dress on top and Halle's high-slit bottom with side cut-outs at the bottom.

I could tell at the briefing that she was presenting a major headache to the designer. It was something quite impossible to pull off, but calls to get her to choose a simple design fell on deaf ears.

My sister, like many young women who view the matric dance as a dress rehearsal for their wedding day, made the mistake many young girls do when it comes to choosing their dresses.

She wanted a dress that would combine all the latest fashion styles of that year. She wanted the big, pointy astronaut shoulder pads, intricate cut-outs at the back and sides, as well as the killer slit she saw Angelina Jolie sporting.

The problem was when we went to fetch the dream dress. She discovered to her horror that her brief to the designer resulted in a freaky costume out of Star Trek. The material she had chosen did not complement the design and my sister looked like a miserable dressed-up doll in that number.

She realised she could not rock up at the dance in that hideous outfit and had a meltdown there and then at the design shop.

Needless to say, an amazing race ensued as we spent a whole weekend rushing from one mall to the next for an off-the-rack number that was decent enough for her to go to the dance in. Even when she found the dress she was still not too content as it was not what she had desired.

My other sister was more pragmatic. At the third designer studio we went to she found something she liked that fitted her perfectly. And she went for it.

But then she went to town with the make-up, hair and shoes. Let me not even get into the bill.

Parents can spend thousands on weaves, pedicures, manicures and professional make-up before even hiring the limousine to drop their young ones at the dance.

This is when parents outdo izikhothane. It is sad when parents who live beyond their means have to whip out their credit cards.

It is even sadder when some go as far as borrowing thousands from loan sharks to please their children. I have heard of parents who fork out between R20000 and R30000 for their son's suits.

At least the boy might wear the suit to church. Most matric dance dresses are only ever worn once and later live at the back of wardrobes preserved by mothballs. As soon as these young women come back from the dance they realise that the fancy gowns cannot be worn anywhere else.

But seriously, we need to stop and ask ourselves what we are doing. What values are we teaching our children? Why are we so intent on perpetuating the culture of crass materialism to the detriment of more important principles like saving, good education and investing for the future?

l Follow me on Twitter @MapulaNkosi

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