High school trends

[Anonymous]

Your DD will know after just a few days. Maybe best to hold off shopping till then - or most shopping.

[Anonymous]

For the haters on this thread, i remember my first few weeks of HS. I attended a fairly casual (though fairly affluent) MS and we split into two HS. Most of my friends attended one and I ended up at the other. The latter HS was much more middle class, yet a lot more formal dress. Most girls wore dress pants, etc. Even some of the guys. And every girl carried a purse. Okay, that last comment is fairly dramatic, but I trust I am making my point. Took me a while to acclimate - I was part of the "popular" group in MS and wanted to be part of the same in HS. By senior year, I finally had enough of hanging with the popular folks, ditched the dress clothes, and went bohemian. While my mom was not particularly fashionable, I appreciated that she was open-minded about my dress dramas - she didn't cater or indulge, but she didn't resist me trying to figure out who I wanted to be along the way.

OP, good luck to your daughter and best to you on this transition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, if they have any integrity, they roll their eyes and take pride in not needing to look rich to be popular.

OP, does your DD care about this, or just you?

NP. I do not agree with what you are implying here. You have said that people who care about finding out what the typical/appropriate/preferred mode of dress is for a particular environment have no integrity. I think this is a ridiculous and hurtful statement to make about someone's children on the basis of such limited information -- I do not think one is evidence or proof of the other.

When moving to a new city, or interviewing for a job, or starting a new position, did you honestly never once ask a friend in the area/company what they "typical" dress was like? That's pretty much the adult equivalent of what this poster is attempting to do for her DD.

I don't think it's necessarily about trying to look "rich", I think it's about trying to look "appropriate", and I fail to see how that is a sign that the person conducting such fact-finding, or the person on whose behalf it is being conducted, lacks integrity.

Please enlighten me, and I do mean that sincerely, on why you think this. I have often encouraged and assisted my girls to learn about and at least consider what constitutes typical dress for their various social circles and activities, but if doing this is somehow harmful to their moral development or to the public perception of their moral development I would genuinely like to know why so I can consider changing my stance.

NP here and all I can say is if my mother had worried about what brands and labels other kids were wearing and whether I was equipped with the right products to make me popular, I think I'd have turned into a neurotic mess. OP didn't ask about appropriate stuff, she asked what was "in."

Her daughter is a teenager. Can't she figure this all out for herself like other teenagers do, by looking at magazines and websites and hanging out at the mall or movie theaters or wherever it is that kids go? If she shows up on the first day of class wearing jeans and sees that all the other girls are wearing maxi-dresses and she likes that, well she can always go out and get one. If she likes to wear makeup but notices the other girls do not and it makes her uncomfortable she can go easier on it the next day. Or she can decide to be herself and do whatever pleases her.

I personally find it strange that a parent would be looking into what was in for a teenager. But then again, my parents taught us to concern ourselves primarily with our character and mind and discouraged us from following the crowd.

Spoken like someone who has never been bullied for her clothes.

[Anonymous]

Yeah as someone who was bullied because of my out of style, hand me down and homemade clothes, this mom sounds really great to me. I'm glad you never has to deal with that, but you should recognize that some people do and it really could be fairly easily avoided.