Fashion (non) Sense

There is a little girl crying in the room above me because I won't let her go to First Grade looking like a refugee from Cyndi Lauper's closet.

Considering my own "fashion history", and my generally laissez faire attitude to childrens' sense of stylistic expression, this really shouldn't be an issue. I really, REALLY don't care what anyone wears, as a rule, as long as no one gets arrested. If it was really my call, I'd say "whatever" without blinking.

But I have learned that this is not acceptable.

See, I let it go when Boy#1 decided to wear a green cammo turtle neck and grey cammo pants... with a red sweater vest emblazoned with a dragon. I also let it go when Boy#2 wore an over-sized T-shirt tucked into his baseball pants... which were pulled up to his armpits, by the way. And I frequently let it go when the eldest (the Tween, the middle schooler) wears a t-shirt and jeans (the fashionable, butt-cleavage revealing jeans)... and my Air Force BDU cap.

And my lovely bride never fails to mock me for allowing this to happen.

I have fought the battle with her many times.

"They are covered, they are warm/cool enough for the season, and it's all clean."

"But they look like idiots."

"That's apparently okay with them."

"Then *I* look like an idiot for allowing them to look like idiots."

"But it's obviously *my* fault, because I dropped them off."

"Then YOU are an idiot!"

So, when Cyndi Lou Who came downstairs to tell me she's Good Enough to go to school, I told the little Goonie to go change. I realize that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, but I would really like to have a chance to have a pleasant conversation with her mother after school that doesn't involve my lack of fashion sense.

Time After Time, I went back to check on her progress, and she was still wailing at the unfairness of the universe. Her True Colors (pink, green, orange, and yellow) still clash from her ruffled mini and her tights to her nauseatingly striped shirt.

Then, just when I think I'm going to have to Drive All Night just to win this argument, the lovely bride calls to caution me that it's FAR too cold for them to go out in anything less than full Antarctic gear. Which means the tights must go. Which news the little girl takes with nary a blink, and toddles off to change into jeans.

Sheesh.

If God had meant for us to be naked, we'd have been born that way.
-Mark Twain