It’s Monday, laundry day. It means I’m sorting and washing and drying and heaping everything into giant technicolour mountains on our bed for the girls to sort and put away tonight.
There’s a lot to be said about the clothes we wear. When I was in high school my friends and I would take the bus to downtown Toronto for all-day shopping excursions to cute secondhand shops along Queen Street and Kensington Market. I’m sure my parents were appalled that I was, heaven forbid, WEARING SOMEONE ELSE’S CLOTHING. I mean GOD, someone could HAVE DIED IN THOSE JEANS.
When the girls were younger they had little choice over what they wore. We laid out their clothes together before bed and that’s what they wore the next day. (This also prevented commonly reoccurring seasonal issues i.e. one girl wants to wear a summer dress when it’s twenty below.) It made for smoother mornings as there was no arguing over what to wear.
Of course, now that the kids are older they are dressing themselves without my help. When we’re shopping for clothes they have more input. I do, however, retain veto power. Sometimes they put together combinations that surprise me, like this:
… it makes me happy that they are finding their own styles, whatever they are. (Can you believe I caved and bought cream-coloured boots?)
Mothers differ over what is and what is not appropriate clothing for school-age girls. For example, I don’t have a problem with short shorts or two-piece bikinis at the beach. I do, however, have a problem when those short shorts are paired with knee-high boots and an off-the shoulder crop top that has SKANKY HO written across the chest. Five year olds shouldn’t dress like that.
When parents express disdain, that’s when kids dig in their spurs and fight even harder to wear what they want to wear. So at some point I predict that I’m going to lose some leverage and this whole issue is going to get more interesting. :)
How are you finding the issue of dressing your kids? Is it a battlezone, or do you let your kids express themselves through their clothing in their own ways? And where do you draw the line?
