School Clothes for the Fall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am not sure I understand the question even. Do we replace clothing as it becomes unwearable? Do we throw away clothes the moment they are no longer pristine?

I think the question is pretty straightforward - do you buy a new set of summer clothes that are clean/new for the remaining hot days before fall weather sets in.

If the clothes are in rags with stains all over them, yes I buy new clothes as needed. If the clothes have been worn before and are perfectly good, which is 95% of the time, then no.

We buy a couple items that can be layered when it gets colder out just to tide us through that first month or so when summer clothes are trashed and it is too warm to wear the warm fall school clothes I have purchases.

[Anonymous]

Summer clothes in this house are completely and totally trashed. Stained (art camps) ripped (outdoor life) stretched beyond recognition (everything else). I'm as low key as they come, but even I couldn't return my child to school with a shredded camisole and skirts/shorts that look they were subjected to an "accident" (why avoid the mud?). I stocked up on a big pile of Children's Place sale items, took 'em home, washed 'em, and realized the carefully selected not too sexy stuff was... too babyish for 9/10 year olds. She's stuck with them for this year. The end.

[Anonymous]

I actually think it looks kinda tacky to be in all new clothes. I have tried to make sure that their outfits aren't screaming " we just bought this!"
I like clothes that wear well.
J. Crew looks too labely. I see kids in the playground with distinctive JC on and it shouts "my mom spent a lot".
I keep my kids in the stained or worn out clothes until fall. It is just pratical. I am always told how well my dd and ds are dressed though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding me? Crew cuts? I'm not going to spend 100 - $150 dollars on an outfit from crew cuts for my daughter (lets assume shirt, pants, shoes) who is almost 7.

She will be able to buy an outfit that costs that much when she has her first real job.
Until then she will get to shop at Target, Kmart, and (gasp) yard sales.

That may work perfectly fine for you. What school does she go to?

don't know if this is what you intended but your response seems completely condescending

". . . may work perfectly fine for you" - And then you ask what school she sends her child to.

What? Yard sale clothes would make her daughter an outcast in your opinion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it looks kinda tacky to be in all new clothes. I have tried to make sure that their outfits aren't screaming " we just bought this!"
I like clothes that wear well.
J. Crew looks too labely. I see kids in the playground with distinctive JC on and it shouts "my mom spent a lot".
I keep my kids in the stained or worn out clothes until fall. It is just pratical. I am always told how well my dd and ds are dressed though.

Typically in this area, and the area where I grew up, school starts after Labor Day. As far as I know (or my mom always told me), the fall clothing season also starts after Labor Day. If you are not wearing your new fall clothes, you are wearing out of season clothes. Now, the whole white after Easter or do you wait until Memorial Day is always tricky. I was raised with Easter, but I think the fashion rule is Memorial Day.

[Anonymous]

*I actually think it looks kinda tacky to be in all new clothes. I keep my kids in the stained or worn out clothes until fall. It is just pratical. I am always told how well my dd and ds are dressed though.

Lucky for you. My DD safety pins the tatters back together and is perfectly content. But even I (they don't exist less fashion conscious) can't send her off to school with anatomical parts that are meant to be covered flashing through the gaps. Or torn GAPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since when is trying to help a child lead a happy, balanced school experience become an "unprincipled stance"?

Um, maybe when you find yourself checking out the labels on 3rd graders' clothing so that you can make sure your child wear the right clothes while simultaneously telling your child that she or he shouldn't judge people based on what they wear?

Re absurd examples. I think that they've all come from one side. Remember how this discussion started. OP basically said I'm spending tons of $$ on tuition and already feeling strapped, do I have to buy my 3rd grader expensive clothes as well so she'll fit in? As the discussion evolved, those who say "no, it won't matter" become cast as extremists who must dress their own children in burlap, floppy-eared hats, sackcloth and ashes, whatever. Because kids must have the right labels (realism) -- the only question is how many and at what price (balance). Interestingly enough, the extreme examples on the must-have-labels side (brand of socks in schools with uniforms) came from the must-have-labels side. Or maybe that's predictable. Because the only way that the must-have-labels faction can cast itself as balanced is by showing there are people in that camp who are total whackjobs.

To me, the middle ground is dress your elementary school kids in clothes that you can afford, that fit, that look good on them, that they like, and that are comfortable and easy to clean. Must-have-labels is an extreme. Not a laudable extreme. And not a realistic one given my own daughter's experience in one of these schools.

This response is ridiculous. This poster clearly did not understand the OP's questions. I think a lot of folks didn't say "no, it won't matter." They basically wrote, "I can't believe how incredibly shallow you are for posting these questions." The OP is not in the must-have-labels category. The OP is simply trying to figure out how to navigate what can be the very rough waters of DC at a new school. I can't believe how unsympathetic so many of these posters are. For folks flouting convention, there is an underlying callousness in their responses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeing the world through high-minded principles is admirable. Seeing it as it actually is, is smarter.

Yes, but it doesn't follow that unprincipled stances are necessarily more realistic than principled ones.

The suggestion is kids will be social outcasts at Big 3 schools unless their wardrobes are sprinkled with acceptable labels and/or unless they wear the same kind of shoes as the other kids. The reality is this isn't true. We've already heard -- both from people who believe and people who don't believe in the importance of labels -- that fashion doesn't appear to be a make-or-break issue at Sidwell or GDS. NCS and St. Albans have uniforms, so you'd have to believe that intolerance on those campuses goes so far as to ostracize kids based on things like choice of socks. And if you do believe that, you should be running like a bat out of hell in the opposite direction from those schools rather than inquiring about which socks are the right socks.

No, the suggestion is NOT that these children will be social outcasts if they don't wear acceptable labels. Get real.

[Anonymous]

OP isn't being criticized; the criticism is directed toward the chorus of advisors insisting that expensive clothes are key to social success at big 3 elementary schools and that any parent who ignores this "fact" is putting her child's happiness at risk. That's just not true.

[Anonymous]

Condescending:

I guess that the economy depends on a critical mass of people thinking like this,

Exaggerating the opposite point(s) of view:

but it's mind-blowing to watch how the response to the claim that your kid won't need to wear expensive brands of clothing to make
friends at a "big three" school is, essentially, that parents who believe that and act on their belief are somehow putting their children
at risk. And the "balanced" point of view is that not ALL clothing needs to have a designer label -- just a few crucial pieces.

Bending the opposite point of view so it looks like something that's too adult for the circumstances or just plain twisted:

I don't know what is meant by "social success" (is that getting into the right country club?), but get real -- most of us are old enough
to know that our lack of interest in conspicuous consumption hasn't kept us from having good friends, good jobs, happy families,
and, yes, even smart, happy, well-socialized kids in chi-chi private schools. I've got no problem with people who take pleasure in
clothes, but the whole the keeping up with the Joneses phenomenon and the fear of ostracism if you don't wear the right brands and
the idea that people are deliberately/self-righteously passing this on to their kids strikes me as profoundly sad. YMMV. Obviously
does in some cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP isn't being criticized; the criticism is directed toward the chorus of advisors insisting that expensive clothes are key to social success at big 3 elementary schools and that any parent who ignores this "fact" is putting her child's happiness at risk. That's just not true.

But the reverse also isn't true. If someone were to take a stand that somehow they have more values and are taking a stand against [fill in x evil thing] by refusing to allow their kids to dress in certain labels, that seems just as warped to me. This assumes, of course, that their parents could buy them those labels, which is not the budget priority that all families will have.

I don't really have a dog in this hunt either way. I let my kids pick their own clothes from a variety of sources. So far they go by what they like and not the label. I will continue to do this until they insist on things that fall under my personal definition of ridiculous (Jimmy Choo? Over my dead body). Since one is entering Pre-K and one is entering first grade, hopefully I have a long way to go before I hit that issue and will have thought of a much more clever way to deal with it by then. My take away from all this discussion is that I hope I teach my kids to wear things THEY like, and not to judge anyone else by what they are wearing. I tell my kids that being beautiful or not is like the icing on a cupcake - it's nice, but what the cupcake is made of is much more important. I guess I have to add clothing to the list of things that are like icing, too.

[Anonymous]

I didn't see anyone take the "my kid will never wear certain labels" stance in this discussion. The so-called "extreme" position has been that don't have to buy your kid expensive clothes or particular labels if you want her to fit in at a "big 3" elementary school.

[Anonymous]

I cut the labels off most clothes that I can cut them off. I don't advertise for these companies for free.

[Anonymous]

Use a seam-ripper. Sounds like there'd be a resale market for those labels here!

[Anonymous]

20:40 i laughed and our poor startled dog jumped in fright...
thanks