Change of seasons tests fashion sensibilities of father/daughter
“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal
Sept. 13, 2012
Change of seasons tests fashion sensibilities of father/daughter
I just returned home from walking a few of my kids up to school, and there was something in the air this morning. It wasn’t the apprehension of a looming quiz or the incomplete homework stuffed into backpacks, not this time. I walked on one side of my daughter, holding her hand, while the crispness of autumn touched the other. The sun was lower in the sky at that early hour, and we all remarked on the temperature difference from the previous day’s walk.
It isn’t cold, not by any stretch, but the thermometer does herald cooler days, days when we’ll be donning coats and hats and gloves for the two-block walk each morning.
For now, though, it’s simply cooler out, a refreshing respite. Perhaps a light jacket or sweater will suffice; a pair of long pants, certainly. Not for my daughter, though, not yet. For a 6-year-old, these are the days (weeks?) of transition. This is the end of the shorts and short sleeves, the end of sandals and skirts, but it’s going to take some time to get used to such a sartorial shift.
Genevieve refused leggings worn beneath a skirt this morning, based solely on color. Navy blue? Not school sanctioned, according to her. The same jacket she wore every day last winter, in and out of school, is suddenly not a proper uniform cover-up. Not that sweater, no, not ever. “But they actually call it ‘sweater weather,'” I pleaded.
Her parents, of course, don’t know what they’re talking about when they assure her that she can wear blue pants, that she can wear that very same jacket she wore only six months ago, that the sweater looks cute on her. But how could we possibly know anything?
This fight doesn’t apply to the boys. To be fair, though, my sons have been wearing fleece jackets to school all school year — a year made up mostly of the month of August — as if their first class of the day is Intro to Igloos. It burns me up, literally, to see my son walk in at the end of a school day wearing an admittedly school-appropriate jacket, when the heat index is 103.
I’ve asked my sons not to wear jackets when it’s still so hot outside, but they say their classrooms are cold. I tell my daughter she should wear one because it’s cold in the morning, but she says it will be hot at dismissal. I stop talking. I need to have faith that somewhere, maybe in the pockets of that coat, they carry with them the common sense to stay warm or dry, to not succumb to heat stroke in the name of — or the profound lack of — fashion.
When we got to school this morning, we met up with Genevieve’s friend, a little girl wearing navy blue pants who seemed comfortable in the morning air. I saw the opportunity to make a point. “See those pants, Genevieve? What color are those?”
The look she returned was chilling.