Debt-Free School Clothes
June 14, 2007 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
I realized my daughter is starting Kindergarten in September and there will be this mad rush for school clothes.
I can’t really understand why kids need a whole new wardrobe for school. I mean, kids get clothes all year long these days right? It’s not like in my Grandma’s day when she saved up enough to buy her children two pairs of shoes a year, for school and Easter Sunday.
I went garage sailing and picked up about all she’ll need for about $12. I’m not about to blow a couple of hundred dollars for this consumerist tradition. I picked up a black pair and brown pair of nearly-new Mary Janes and some super cute Sketchers for $2.50. The rest was spent on new-looking matching outfits, dresses, tops and jeans in her size.
If I have the cash on hand I may take her to Old Navy and let her pick one outfit for the first day.
To read about how I really did take all her clothes away after repeated clothing tanatrums and fits of hysteria, you can check out Kindergarten Fashion Show on Sioux So Me. Yes, I did. It worked, and I’ll do it again if she loses her grip on reality about how important her clothes are. I got the advice from Madonna of all places.
I remember a supervising comment my mother made to me just a few years ago. I was talking to her about my junior/high school days and recounting how stupid it was yet how important it seemed it was to wear the “right” kind of clothing. I never felt that I could ever really fit it, because my parents couldn’t afford the designer jeans.
She said to me, “yes, I feel really bad about that. I should have spent more money on your clothes. Kids have so many pressures and worries; clothing shouldn’t have to be one of them.” It was not the comment I was expecting and it really gave me cause to think. Looking back I think my parents did a great job at the balancing act, so I was shocked by what my mom said. Although, it would be nice to look back on my childhood fondly and not be plagued by feelings of embarrassment about how the clothes I wore. But really I think that’s more of a self-esteem issue than one of fashion.
I guess ideally I’d hope that my children growing up won’t place much emphasis on their clothing because they have confidence in themselves and not just in what they wear.
My recently decided philosophy is this: regardless of how much money is spent or not, children should look clean and presentable. I traveled to Romania a few years back to visit a very poor family I’d become friends with through a contact made in Germany where I was living at the time. I noticed that many of the items of clothing they were wearing were donations I myself and others had sent. They were obviously not new or top of the line. Yet, they were treated very well, kept clean and pressed if needed and worn with dignity. My friends were shockingly poor, yet you’d never know it by looking at them. I believe it’s not really what you wear but how you were it. Confidence comes from within, and I think it’s how you wear the article of clothing, not what you wear.
I don’t know if I’ll let my children go to school miss matched. Whether or not it bothers them, people will treat them accordingly. I want my children to be respected and treated kindly by others. Not like Oscar the grouch, who wears garbage on his back. He may be a sweetheart inside, but appearances do matter. The saying goes, “never judge a book by its cover” but it is also said that, “first impressions are lasting.” I want to help my children fit in socially without being victim to fashion and debt, and I think it is possible to do both.
Janet
Janet,
The question is begging to be asked
Who CREATES the fashion show, the mother who brings her fashion wounds with her into parenting and therefore places tons of significance on what her 5 year old wears to school – or the child, who just wants to wear something she likes but isn’t allowed to?
“You’re not going out looking like that, what will people think?” How many women say that to their daughters when they dress themselves? Isn’t it obvious that eventually the daughters, only then, decide that it’s important what other people think?
Who’s really running the fashion show? The mothers or the daughters? In Kindergarten I think it’s obviously the mothers and we’re creating this significance, that turns into mean girl judgement, for our children out of our own left-over childhood feelings of insecurity about clothes.
And I for one, think the game is stupid and wish mothers would stop it rather than enforce it.
Cause really those little girls don’t care what they look like when going to school nearly half as much as their mothers do.
Tracee
I grew up in the sixties and seventies – we went school shopping but then those clothes had to last us the whole school year because other than Christmas and birthdays… there really wasn’t just shopping.
I’m on my second round of kids and my boys will get what my girls got – a nice first day outfit. I will have a first grader and kindergartener (he’s clothes conscious!) but I won’t give in on this.
The rest are second hand or hand me downs because they get nice things for birthdays and Christmas which take them the rest of the way clothes wise.
I hate buy new clothes because then I worry about them ending up stained or ripped, worse yet – lost.
So I’m right there with you on this one!
Tami,
Sometimes I’m just so grateful for the Joneses aren’t you? They spent tons of money on their kids’ clothes and then I get all those great clothes for dirt cheap or free!
Love it!
Tracee
My kids are fortunate to go to a rural country school
of mostly farm kids. Clothes dont matter here.
The only store in town IS a Second hand Thrift Store. And Everyone has to travel Miles away to the
nearest Walmart. The Whole School wears second
hand clothes. Mostly jeans, t shirts and overalls.
You just wear what you’ve got and go with it.
No one cares. We LOVE this School!
Wow. That’s not my idea of Utopia (maybe for the kids, but not for me). But, I’m glad it’s yours. Definately not a school clothes problem.
Tracee
I never said anything about Utopia.
???????????????
You did say you LOVE that school. So, I assumed you loved where you live. Small town and all. My “utopia” would be a big city near the ocean. That’s all I’m saying. The kids would probably love to live on a farm though. They sure like visiting a farm.
Tracee