Why I don't let my children wear whatever they want
I don't let my children wear whatever they want. Most of the time I will give them a choice between outfit A and outfit B, so that they feel their preferences have been consulted. Sure, occasionally I will let them wear a princess outfit to the Super Bowl party, or a Lucy Pevensie cape and sword on a grocery shopping expedition; they are, after all, children, and I want them to play, to have fun, and to experience, every once in a while, a victory in the exercise of their will and to have a sense that they have expressed themselves exactly as they wished.
But only every once in a while. The rest of the time, I want them to get used to the idea of social norms and expectations -- as well as social meanings -- that govern even so mundane a topic as dress, and I want them to get used to the idea that they often don't have control over those norms, expectations, and meanings. I understand that some conventions of dress are arbitrary, and some conventions seem downright silly, but arbitrary and even silly are not the same thing as meaningless.
Here are two examples of dress-related issues that I think about when I try to articulate my child-dressing philosophy:
In the movie Jezebel, Bette Davis plays a strong-willed Southern belle who decides to wear a scarlet-colored gown to an annual ball at which all the young girls traditionally wear white. When one of her beaus comes to escort her to the ball and sees her gown, he refuses to take her. I wish I could find his speech so that I could quote it verbatim, but he explains that while she may view her decision as merely a matter of personal will and expression, it will be interpreted as a decision to flout a time-honored tradition and the values of the community, with scandalous implications. When Bette Davis shows up at the ball in her red gown, in defiance of his counsel, she begins to understand the wisdom of his advice, and she realizes, too late, that her willful insistence on personal expression will have effects that she neither intends nor has any power to control.
When I was teaching at an all-girls school, some of the girls complained to me about school restrictions on Halloween costumes that prevented them dressing in "gangsta" style for Halloween (because of a general ban on costumes which connoted or endorsed violence or a violent lifestyle). When I asked them why they wanted to dress like that, they explained that they simply liked the style. I asked them whether, if I walked into class in a white robe and hood, they would accept the excuse that I simply liked how it looked.
Self-expression is a fine thing, but a child of four -- or eight -- has little idea how to use it and even less understanding of when and why it should be voluntarily curbed in deference to the expectations and values of the community. I'm sure my girls will experiment with breaking the rules when they get older. I only hope that, by that time, they have some sense of why the rules exist in the first place.
UPDATE: I should note that when we are alone at home, and when the girls want to play "dress up," or when they just want to play, I will generally let them wear whatever they want.
But only every once in a while. The rest of the time, I want them to get used to the idea of social norms and expectations -- as well as social meanings -- that govern even so mundane a topic as dress, and I want them to get used to the idea that they often don't have control over those norms, expectations, and meanings. I understand that some conventions of dress are arbitrary, and some conventions seem downright silly, but arbitrary and even silly are not the same thing as meaningless.
Here are two examples of dress-related issues that I think about when I try to articulate my child-dressing philosophy:
In the movie Jezebel, Bette Davis plays a strong-willed Southern belle who decides to wear a scarlet-colored gown to an annual ball at which all the young girls traditionally wear white. When one of her beaus comes to escort her to the ball and sees her gown, he refuses to take her. I wish I could find his speech so that I could quote it verbatim, but he explains that while she may view her decision as merely a matter of personal will and expression, it will be interpreted as a decision to flout a time-honored tradition and the values of the community, with scandalous implications. When Bette Davis shows up at the ball in her red gown, in defiance of his counsel, she begins to understand the wisdom of his advice, and she realizes, too late, that her willful insistence on personal expression will have effects that she neither intends nor has any power to control.
When I was teaching at an all-girls school, some of the girls complained to me about school restrictions on Halloween costumes that prevented them dressing in "gangsta" style for Halloween (because of a general ban on costumes which connoted or endorsed violence or a violent lifestyle). When I asked them why they wanted to dress like that, they explained that they simply liked the style. I asked them whether, if I walked into class in a white robe and hood, they would accept the excuse that I simply liked how it looked.
Self-expression is a fine thing, but a child of four -- or eight -- has little idea how to use it and even less understanding of when and why it should be voluntarily curbed in deference to the expectations and values of the community. I'm sure my girls will experiment with breaking the rules when they get older. I only hope that, by that time, they have some sense of why the rules exist in the first place.
UPDATE: I should note that when we are alone at home, and when the girls want to play "dress up," or when they just want to play, I will generally let them wear whatever they want.
posted by Kate Marie | 11:07 AM | Permalink
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6 comments
6 Comments:
I always dressed mine like Bratz.
Bravo, KM. Keep up the good work.
SD, I'm beginning to think it was sheer luck -- or perhaps the influence of the Stewwife -- that your pups turned out OK.
Well, obviously when your children are little, you have to make choices like this one. Nevertheless, I think what you wrote is somewhat problematic...
I'm not sure that social norms even exist anymore as far as clothing is concerned. They certainly exist insofar as one cannot go naked, but most choices of clothes exist to convey different messages. And these days, your clothing will create reactions you cannot control no matter what you wear - what some see as innovative, others will see as scandalous, and what some see as proper, in some circles may be viewed as indicative of being boring.
Choosing what someone else is wearing is effectively boxing them into a message - your preferred message. This may "work," in that the person may grow accustomed to it and come to believe it is the only "natural" choice out there. On the other hand, it may be counterproductive - I know that if my parents did something of the sort for me, I would have discarded their rules (solely for the sake of personal exploration) the moment I went off to college.
Alex, I take your point that social norms regarding clothing are more fluid and more difficult to define these days, but they certainly exist, and I think it's a matter of understanding how different social "circles" will likely interpret your dress choices. You might be able to wear a Charles Manson T-shirt to a punk rock club (do those still exist these days?), for instance, but not to school, or work, or a job interview, or a funeral (except maybe to Charles Manson's funeral). I might add that being perceived as boring or square (say, wearing a suit to a punk rock club, though come to think of it, that could just as easily be seen as "innovative" or non-conformist in that setting) is different from being perceived as disrespectful or cavalier about mass murder (wearing a Charles Manson T-shirt to a funeral).
What I want my children to understand is that, whatever social circle/event they're dressing for, their own interpretation is *not* the interpretation that will control others' reactions to them. But I don't want to box them in. I certainly expect to relax my own control over their wardrobe choices as they get older.
Fair enough. I'll only quibble with one bit, based on my personal experience. At my school, and also at the place that I'm working this summer - which is a government research lab - there is no dress code at all, and I expect no one would comment on a charles manson t-shirt. Though I can't be entirely sure as I haven't tried wearing one...
Sure, you're right about universities and dress codes . . . but when I said school, I was thinking more about elementary and high school. I can still imagine certain kinds of dress that would attract comment, at the very least, even at universities. The white robe and hood . . . a T-shirt with a swastika on it . . .
Actually, I think it's kind of sad that people would have to go so far to shock the bourgeois. As you can probably tell, I think formality and convention get kind of a bad rap these days. I have a certain admiration for the era when one's manner of dress and speech reflected clearly defined boundaries and rules for social interaction (though I realize many clothing/speech conventions reflected *class* boundaries, and that's not something I wish to extol). I just think that convention is more a liberating force than a repressive one nowadays.
And besides, after a while "unconventional" dress becomes its own convention, at which point it's just as likely to reflect insipid personalities and banal patterns of thought as conventional dress.
But now I'm just babbling.
Anyway, I appreciate your comments, as always, and I hope you're enjoying your summer job! I dare you to try the Charles Manson T-shirt experiment and record the reactions. :)
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