I've always been one of those mothers who didn't look forward to sending the kids back to school. I enjoyed having my kids at home and liked doing things together as a family. For the past six years I've homeschooled my younger daughter and for the past three my youngest son. This year will be different. My son has decided to go back to school. He attended Freshman Orientation on Thursday and as of this morning is a bona fide high school freshman.
After dinner last night we went school shopping. Oh, how the times have changed. My son is a very perfunctory boy....he knows what he wants and what he needs and does a good job of discerning the two. He is a little bland when it comes to style....relaxed fit jeans, Converse sneakers and black t-shirts bearing the logo of most any rock band will do. He got most of his t-shirts on eBay. It was actually kind of a boring shopping trip, and was really quite economical. However, I witnessed other families doing their back to school shopping that made me truly enjoy "boring!"
Have you seen what young girls are wearing to school these days? Why is it that they all need to look like the working girls on 42nd Street? Short, short skirts, tight shirts, make-up on 12-year olds....where are their mothers? Oh, yes, I forgot.....they were right there in the store letting their children buy just about whatever they wanted! I don't get it. I know that young girls dress differently than they used to, but can't they find a modest happy medium....at least while they're in school?
And why do the young boys yearn to look like thugs? They're draped in chains....gold around their necks and silver hanging from the wallet attached to their belt loop, and every other step they take requires a double-handed hike-up of the ever sagging pants. We always get to see the tops of their boxer shorts. And those sideways hats make me feel crooked! Every time I see one I want to go over and straighten it out.....or take it right off their crooked little heads.
I have one year left to homeschool our daughter. She's 17 and we're doing Senior Year at home. She buys most of her own clothes, and thankfully has modest but very stylish tastes. You see, it is possible to look nice and wear the latest fashions without bearing various body parts!
I guess every few years the styles change and there are new sets of issues to work out with kids regarding fashion. When I was a kid it was very cool to have long hair, wear dirty bell bottoms and no bra. Now it's a race to see who can pierce the most body parts first, permanently imprint strange creatures on one's skin and dress to expose it all.
I think I'll pass on the latest options! (He did okay!)
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Comments: 35
Going to a public high school can be good for a kid - and your son certainly has all his priorities straight from being with you all these years, so he won't be vulnerable to the neg aspects of public life.
As for the baggy drooping pants that show underwear and chains etc. Our school system does not allow that but you do see kids dressing like that when not on school property. My question is are parents just to lazy to guide their children or do they really think showing your underwear is letting them express their style? I tend to think its the first.
My son does not care yet what he is wearing. In fact, he really doesn't care if he's wearing anything. I'm still trying to convince him that he is too old to play in the back yard naked.
Frankly, I'm relieved to find it at Wal-Mart. My daughter's first Hannah shirt came from Macy's. $30 for a t-shirt! Now I can buy them at Wal-Mart for less than $10.
They still dress very plain.
Now for my middle schooler...it's impossible to find clothes that fit her that are also decent. OMG...I wouldn't even let her out of the house in most of the stuff we have been finding at the stores...and thank goodness, she wouldn't consider wearing it either. Angela has very few outfits right now, because she's between the girls and the teens sizes. I don't want her looking older than her age...no way.
My kids started school a few weeks ago...
You've got to be kidding, Janet. A homeschool anything with a dress code? Our group is all about kids being individuals. It isn't even rare for kids to be naked, which is a good thing for me since mine often is.
I have always had a thing against wearing any logo in plain sight. I feel like I am paying extra to advertise for someone who is ripping me off. If my son wanted anything with a logo, he had to pay the difference between the item I wanted to buy and the one he wanted to buy.
School starts here late next week, usually just in time for a last-of-the-Summer hot spell.
A fw years ago, the School district of Philadephia did a wonderful thing. It required uniforms. What a wonderful difference! GAnsta and whore clothes disappeared at least at school and it even improved classroom discipline. More school districts should go with uniforms.
I wonder where you get your data from?
This is what is in the stores...this is what is in the magazines...this is what the kids are wearing, PLEASE..........
When Madonna was all the rage...all the girls dressed to look like Madonna....etc etc etc...
Girls want to attract the fellows, so the dress to attract the fellows, but mostly the dress the way the girls they hang out with dress. It has nothing to do with acting out against their parents. They are trying to "find" where they "fit" in. Many of the girls leave the house looking one way and change when they get to school and look another way...and change before they go home.
The media has a lot to do with how the kids want to look. My kids often tried different styles. I never worried about them, they never got bizarre. I knew where they were and what they were doing...cause mostly the kids all hung out at my house. Many times the other kids would come talk to me because they couldn't talk to their parents.
Too often adults judge a book by the covers. Some of the nicest kids were the ones who did dress or look a little off the wall. They were trying to make a statement or be a little different. And that is not a bad thing.
What I have found with girls who dressed a certain way...they learned sometimes that they got a response they didn't want and toned it down.
It's funny about fashion. Woman dress up and do their nails and hair to be attractive...and the friends are the ones more concerned about it...guys are happy because they are happy, most guys are not really into it, like they think...
It is amazing how some women when they become mothers forget how they were themselves as teenagers.
Should Burqa's be marketed in America?
I dunno---in my book, Converse sneakers and a Ramones t-shirt is pretty cool.
My imagination is perfectly capable.
I have had so much of sex thrown at us, from TV to the internet (all those ads!) that I have learned to numb my brain to it until I choose to think in that direction.
Kids will wear what they are allowed to wear, provided the parents have taught them reasonable limits to begin with.
I still see no practicality in wearing pants that will not stay up. My belief is that they will end up as victims, because you cannot run....it was planned that way in prisons, I believe.
Punks....
They are pretty girls. I occasionally raised the subject to the perpetual response of, "Sure, Dad."