clothes

Today for some reason I started thinking about clothes and kids.  I've had several conversations with friends lately about their kids in middle school and how much they struggle with fitting in, girls especially.  I am angry and outraged at what we as a society have come to.  We teach our kids that they have to look the best if they are to be successful.  They care so much about the brands of clothes they wear and if they're one of those that can't afford them they feel self conscious and like they're somehow less.  And the kids at that age are so mean on top of that.  They say comments like :"oh, you couldn't afford shoes like these" or they make fun of other kids' clothes.  If it were up to me I would order everyone to start wearing uniforms to school.  It would be cheaper for parents and kids would have one less thing to worry about when they go to school.

We are starting to see it with our Kade, how he wants to wear the clothes certain way because that's what other boys do, just following the crowd attitude so we're trying to talk to him about it.  Luckily, he could care less about what brand his clothes are for now .  I buy most of them at a second hand store or places like walmart and to him, it doesn't matter where it comes from he gets excited about a new shirt or even socks every time. :) It makes me happy to see that even though I've been having different kinds of clothes issues with Kade.

Even though I try to get clothes as cheap as I can with a good enough quality that they don't fall apart right away, I like to dress our kids nicely and that's the problem.  Kade does not want to look nice, the worse he looks the better, is what it seems to me anyway. :) He has his 2 favorite pants (with holes all over the knees) and 2-3 favorite T shirts and he'd be happy if he could just wear those every single day and then sleep in those shirts too.  He would just wear one shirt all week if I let him but he knows that's against the rules :).  Anyway, maybe there are a lot of boys like that and it kind of reminds me of one of my brothers growing up.  But it's frustrating when I look for the best deals on cute long sleeve shirts/sweaters since our winter lasts forever and all he wears is the same Tshirt over and over. :)

Luckily our Anika hasn't discovered her strong opinions about clothes yet and for now pretty much wears whatever I give her which is such a gift. :)  I really hope it lasts.  I do ask her sometimes which shirt/pants or whatever so she does pick but for the most part she lets me pick out what to wear.  And if she dresses by herself for church and it totally doesn't match, she hasn't fought me once yet to change and put something on that goes together so I am very thankful for that.

And then we have Kason who right away at 2 years old wanted to pick what to wear and he had a period when he would change his clothes 2-3 times a day because he liked them all. :)  At least he listens to me as far as colors not matching or wearing the wrong pants but the outfit has to be his pick or else he won't wear it. :)  So I'm guessing we have another Kade on our hands soon, but maybe he'll be dressed a little better because he likes to wear a different shirt every day.

It is just funny how much of our life we spend on clothes, thinking about clothes, buying clothes, fixing clothes and worrying about right or wrong clothes. :)  I just hope we can teach our kids that no matter what they wear, clothes they wear do not make them who they are and what really matters is what's inside.