As a mom, one of the more stressful times is the holiday season. You have to prepare for family to visit, you have to prepare for Santa to visit. You have to clean house, attend parties, bake cookies, decorate, and overall be a jolly old elf. Then the few weeks before Christmas and you have to buy the inevitable holiday outfit for your child to wear to their holiday performance. You know...the one that is mandatory and your girl must wear "a dress or skirt" and the boys must "dress appropriately". For us, this outfit usually doubles as a Christmas day church outfit, so I usually love buying them unless I am too late that year and all the stores are sold out of anything Christmas dressy which usually occurs the first week of December. Anywhoo....Today, a friend brought this up. She has 2 girls- both awesome, outgoing, sporty girls who like to camp, play karate, read, and draw. Well, the 12 year old hates to wear dresses and skirts - no, she is not gender bending (not that there is anything wrong with that!) but she just hates skirts. Do you think she should HAVE to wear one to this event? I would argue no. In today's world I see no reason to make a girl wear a skirt. I have been to many of these concerts and, honestly, a girl dressed in a nice blouse with a pair of dress pants often looks way more put together and pretty than the girl who wore the ugly dress because she had to. You've seen them...they look awkward, the dress hangs strangely and the shoes look awful with it...you know very well that this kid DOES NOT want to be there wearing that. So, what is wrong with a dressed up set of pants? Any thoughts to the contrary?
I am not really a shit stirrer usually, but (you knew there was going to be a but...), if I was in this position, as I told my friend, I wouldn't say a thing but I would spend a few bucks (because I am blessed and can) and I would dress her up beautifully in pants and blouse. I would then take her to the concert, drop her off, and find my seat. That's it. If someone said something, I would seriously just smile. If they said it forcefully, I would point out that my daughter looks suitable, she is dressed beautiful, looks like she put effort in and she showed up for the mandatory thing none of us wanted to go to anyway. That's it. My friend kind of laughed because maybe she thought this was strange. She wouldn't think to do it? She couldn't imagine bucking the system in this way? I don't know. I guess I can't help thinking that the "dress or skirt" thing is a guideline (c'mon its not actually a law, we know that, right?) so I went with the spirit of the guideline and dressed her our version of appropriately. I am a huge rule follower and this wouldn't phase me at all....so maybe I am not as much of a rule follower as I thought? I don't know. I just think if my kid doesn't want to do this thing anyway and we are all making her do the thing then at least she should feel her best doing it so I will do whatever is within my power to make it a little better for her and still teach her appropriate etiquette.
I remember being in law school and being told that I had to wear a skirt suit to court. I love skirts. I really do. But, even in law school, I decided one snowy day to wear a very nice (my nicest) pant suit to a mock trial. Not a thing happened. No one noticed or, if they did, no one said a thing. Then, years later, I was working for a judge way up north in crazy snow country and the public defender, I kid you not, daily came to court in a muu muu. Yes, that was her "going with the spirit of the thing", not pants, but a freaking muu muu. She looked like a homeless person. So, would you rather your lawyer wear a nice pant suit or a big tent of a flowery dress? hmmmm.....? right? so, using my life experience, a nice outfit with pants would work just fine. That's that.
Monday, December 10, 2018
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