The Joy of Attending a Bat Mitzvah as an Adult

Last weekend, I attended my cousin’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in New Jersey and it was a spiritual experience, in more ways than one. 

I have attended probably close to 70 or 80 Bar and Bat Mitzvahs at this point in my life: friends and family,  friends of the family, classmates, cousins, my siblings, siblings of my friends, people who went to my temple growing up, members of my Bat Mitzvah study group, my rabbi’s children, the list goes on. Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox. Whole weekend affairs (mine), Havdalah services followed by an outlandish party, Shabbat morning services with only a kiddush lunch to follow. I’ve danced the night away in Synagogue event halls, JCC rec rooms, upscale country clubs and backyards (again, my own). At one point, my entire pajama drawer was populated with giveaways, sweatpants and t-shirts and sweatshirts and socks and boxers and tank tops and hats. For 10 years, my ballet bag was a drawstring bag adorned with “I got carried away at Nancy’s Bat Mitzvah” in black stick-on letters. 

From the ages of 11-14, my weekends were as packed with B’nai Mitzvot as a 20-something’s summer weekends are with weddings, my closet stocked with dresses that ranged from cocktail to black tie. My own Bat Mitzvah party dress resembled a princess wedding dress (my family jokes I look like a child bride, complete with braces and tiara, in the photo album) and fell somewhere on the cocktail end of fanciness. 

Attending this 2024 Bat Mitzvah, my first in probably a decade, I was curious about what had changed. Would the kids spend the whole time doing Tik Tok dances and filming themselves? Would their make up and dresses put me, a 30 year old who barely wears more than mascara and tinted moisturizer, to shame? 

I’m happy to report that this experience was exactly as I remember it. My cousin’s daughter, a timid thirteen year old with glasses who had just begun puberty, was so embarrassed and shy, the rabbi made her start her speech over and move closer to the microphone because no one could hear her. Sunkist, a candy that seems to only exist at B’nai Mitzvot (Goyim, do you know this candy? Has anyone seen it for purchase out in the wild?) were still thrown at the Bat Mitzvah girl when she finished her dvar. My non-Jewish girlfriend was confused by this tradition, my 6 year old nephew thrilled by it as he scrabbled around the Bimah with the other kids collecting the candy. 

But it was the party, held at a New Jersey function hall on the side of one of those two lane highways central Jersey is infamous for, that I had really been anticipating. What music did tweens these days listen to? Would there be Coke and Pepsi? Glow sticks? Party favors? Awkward tween flirting? 

And, oh boy, was I not disappointed. While the adults had a cocktail hour in a separate room, the kids did the Cotton-Eyed Joe, Cha-Cha Slid, Cupid Shuffled, limboed and drank Shirley Temples. My girlfriend and I were dying to get out on the dance floor, but sadly we had to eat a truly shocking amount of cocktail snacks and drink wine. 

The ages merged and the party really started. There was the horah, the chairs, the slideshow of adorable pictures of the Bat Mitzvah girl that turned her cheeks bright red.  

And then, there was Coke and Pepsi. Me, again, 30 years old, and my sister, 34, and my cousins, in their late 30’s and 40’s, all lined up alongside the tweens on the sides of the marbled dance floor, paired up and ready to play. 

The DJ assigned a Coke and a Pepsi side and then it was on! The anticipation of which soda the DJ was going to call, the rush of hurtling across a slippery floor in socks, trying to make sure to reach your perch on your partner’s knee before the child next to you, the burn in your thighs as you squatted over their leg so you don’t crush them–what a thrill! I hadn’t had this much fun sober since I went to a whale exhibit in Iceland. It was totally worth the soreness the next day after my sister tackled me two Pepsis before we got out. 

Other highlights: Watching the tweens all hold hands and dance in a circle to “Yeah” by Usher (none of the music was more recent than 2016), having a lightsaber fight with the light up foam noodles they handed out in the last half hour, my 78-year-old aunt starting a 6 person conga line out of nowhere, cramming my immediate family into one photobooth strip, the tweens chasing each other around as a form of amusement. 

To my shock, there were no Tik Tok dances, all of the tweens looked like tweens (lots of ponytails, shoes abandoned for socks, no makeup beyond shiny lipgloss) and there was no flirting or awkward slow dancing, which was mildly disappointing. 

My verdict? The bartender at this party must have been pouring some unfiltered early adolescent joy with the grenadine in those Shirley Temples, but I was glad I got to leave the cloud of hormones in the function hall.