I take the Spoilt Brat Theory.

The busy parents don't care to parent, teach or discipline their kids so when it's time to eat, dress, turn off the TV the kids gets his or her way, not the parent. over and over.

So if Spoilt Brat Kid instantly throws a fit every morning in order to wear some krappy clothes day after day, Busy Mom and Dad don't teach a lesson about dressing well and grooming. They just say OK. Cutting corners parenting. Path of least effort. Kid is running the show.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

I'm guessing this depends on your kids' hair type and the length you keep it.

Yeah my son’s hair has never been in his eyes. We don’t even keep it that short - he’d have to have very long hair for it to be in his eyes at all.

I don’t use any hair products on my boy (he’s 3.5). I think it looks kind of “overdone” when preschool boys come to school with hair gel.

My son's hair doesn't need gel or wet combing, either. He does get it cut fairly often, though. DH takes him for haircuts with him at the same place DH goes to, and they take their time and do a really good job. So maybe that's the key.

Yes, he DOES need wet combing. You're THAT Mom.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you all are spending so much time looking at what other kids are wearing. I honestly couldn't tell you what color shirt my kids' friends were wearing yesterday, let alone what brand.

OP here. I was caring for my nieces all week, so I washed their clothes and dressed them every day.

Anonymous wrote:I was wondering if the OP was black or Hispanic. My sister married a multi-racial black man (white father, black mother, middle to upper middle class) and his mom’s side of the family is very appearance-obsessed. The right brands, the right look/up to date clothes, hair, nails, makeup, etc. and it starts early - especially for girls. I hear a lot of “your child is an extension of you” when they talk about kids. I guess it has to do with avoiding racism or people assuming that you’re poor because of your race.

OP here. Welcome back, thread!

I'm white.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

I'm guessing this depends on your kids' hair type and the length you keep it.

Yeah my son’s hair has never been in his eyes. We don’t even keep it that short - he’d have to have very long hair for it to be in his eyes at all.

I don’t use any hair products on my boy (he’s 3.5). I think it looks kind of “overdone” when preschool boys come to school with hair gel.

My son's hair doesn't need gel or wet combing, either. He does get it cut fairly often, though. DH takes him for haircuts with him at the same place DH goes to, and they take their time and do a really good job. So maybe that's the key.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

Do your kids have very long hair or curly hair or something? I'm trying to imagine needing product for boys to keep it from being in their eyes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

I'm guessing this depends on your kids' hair type and the length you keep it.

Yeah my son’s hair has never been in his eyes. We don’t even keep it that short - he’d have to have very long hair for it to be in his eyes at all.

I don’t use any hair products on my boy (he’s 3.5). I think it looks kind of “overdone” when preschool boys come to school with hair gel.

I'm a girl mom and had barely even noticed boy's hair. Until this family sat in front of me at the school bleachers. All 3 sons had the shaggiest hair I've ever seen in my life. It looked like a 10 year old cut their hair with scissors. It wasn't even at all and stuck straight up on all of them. The mom was dressed very smartly. I could not figure out what was wrong with this family to let their son's hair look so bad. I hoped they headed to Great Clips right after. Their clothes were a disaster too, but I know kids don't always wear what matches or what the parent wants.

Anonymous wrote:All those posters who are saying MYOB. Sure, I won't say anything to you. But I reserve the right to judge you silently like everyone else who will encounter you and your children.

Yes, I buy my son clothes at Target, HM, and Kohls because I don't have a lot of money. But when they get torn or stained I throw them out. He is a boy who loves to play in the dirt, but that doesn't mean I give up.

I want to teach my child that the way he dresses and grooms himself is just as important as speaking properly, being educated and well read. I have seen too many people lose career opportunities for this reason and it's just stupid and naive to think otherwise. But hey, MYOB, right.

Last I checked, four year olds arent' going on job interviews. Your kid is going to develop their own ideas about what they want to wear and look like when they reach adulthood -- and if you're super controlling, you're just asking for them to rebel.
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My kids are clean and happy, but Idgaf about their clothes. Half the cute things I buy don't get worn. Their favorites are the hand-me-down Disney crap from cousins. They wear what they like, and it's a battle I'm not interested in fighting. If they don't want braids/ponytails/barrettes, they dont' wear them. Judge away....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

I'm guessing this depends on your kids' hair type and the length you keep it.

Yeah my son’s hair has never been in his eyes. We don’t even keep it that short - he’d have to have very long hair for it to be in his eyes at all.

I don’t use any hair products on my boy (he’s 3.5). I think it looks kind of “overdone” when preschool boys come to school with hair gel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

I'm guessing this depends on your kids' hair type and the length you keep it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by parents with perfectly coiffed kids. I have twins. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they are a mess. My thing daughters hair is always brushes but doesn't have the tight ponytail going. Do parents yank their kids hair and hold them down to get that look.

Both my husband and I are academics, so we totally fall into the crunch category. We are anti conspicuous consumption and do get as much possible second hand.

I have two year old twins and a newborn and my twins hair is always done and their clothes are clean and cute. I honestly don’t see how this takes more time than what other parents do but maybe I just care more. They get tons of compliments and I love looking back at random pictures and seeing them look so sweet.

I'm a boy mom and my kids' hair looks the same no matter what as long as it's somewhat trimmed so I have a question: what do parents mean by girls having hair that is "done?" Braided? Pigtails? Or just combed and a bob?

I am talking about boys hair being done. You wet it and comb it and put kids hair product in it to keep it from hanging down in their eyes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was wondering if the OP was black or Hispanic. My sister married a multi-racial black man (white father, black mother, middle to upper middle class) and his mom’s side of the family is very appearance-obsessed. The right brands, the right look/up to date clothes, hair, nails, makeup, etc. and it starts early - especially for girls. I hear a lot of “your child is an extension of you” when they talk about kids. I guess it has to do with avoiding racism or people assuming that you’re poor because of your race.

+1. We (families of color) will be extra scrutinized if our children do not look put together. OUr parenting will be questioned. We were raised by parents who were on the extreme receiving ends of this. This is also why you will see people of color be dressed up when going to the doctor's office.

Yup, I think this is a lot of it. When my kids look like slobs, people are like "weird hippie parents letting their kids dress themselves;" when POC's kids look like slobs, people are like "oh, those poor kids/terrible parents/probably on drugs/feed their kids crap/whatever." The double-standard is real and sucks and I totally understand why it leads some POCs to make their kids' appearances a hill to die on when I do not.

+1

+2. And don't let your AA daughter have a frizzy unkempt ponytail, or thick curly dry textured hair that goes flat and loses hydration and curl definition after nap time. The looks and judgment are unreal. The AA hair culture and critical comments started in preschool. This concern about "appearance" drove old-school AA families to place a 400 degree hot iron comb to edges of children to "straighten out" kinks, or worse, chemical relaxers and "kiddie perms" on 5 year olds so their hair would look like their non-black peers. We have not yet heat styled or blown our her curls, and my daughter has already lamented about it at 4. I told my daughter when people ask her why her hair is curly or "looks like that" to say, "Because this is how God made it grow out of my head, isn't it beautiful?". She has finally embraced them. But the fact that AA fros, curls, or frizz can make a black child look less "put together" than a child that has a different texture makes me very sad. The good thing is awareness around hair diversity does seem to be increasing, no where near as bad as it was when I was growing up and we had to get all of our hair products in a small special black person section of the supermarket, away from the other conditioners and shampoos.

All those posters who are saying MYOB. Sure, I won't say anything to you. But I reserve the right to judge you silently like everyone else who will encounter you and your children.

Yes, I buy my son clothes at Target, HM, and Kohls because I don't have a lot of money. But when they get torn or stained I throw them out. He is a boy who loves to play in the dirt, but that doesn't mean I give up.

I want to teach my child that the way he dresses and grooms himself is just as important as speaking properly, being educated and well read. I have seen too many people lose career opportunities for this reason and it's just stupid and naive to think otherwise. But hey, MYOB, right.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was wondering if the OP was black or Hispanic. My sister married a multi-racial black man (white father, black mother, middle to upper middle class) and his mom’s side of the family is very appearance-obsessed. The right brands, the right look/up to date clothes, hair, nails, makeup, etc. and it starts early - especially for girls. I hear a lot of “your child is an extension of you” when they talk about kids. I guess it has to do with avoiding racism or people assuming that you’re poor because of your race.

+1. We (families of color) will be extra scrutinized if our children do not look put together. OUr parenting will be questioned. We were raised by parents who were on the extreme receiving ends of this. This is also why you will see people of color be dressed up when going to the doctor's office.

Yup, I think this is a lot of it. When my kids look like slobs, people are like "weird hippie parents letting their kids dress themselves;" when POC's kids look like slobs, people are like "oh, those poor kids/terrible parents/probably on drugs/feed their kids crap/whatever." The double-standard is real and sucks and I totally understand why it leads some POCs to make their kids' appearances a hill to die on when I do not.

+1

+1.
As a white mom who's been tagged "weird hippie parent" I've been hit with the judgemental comments from black moms at school, and it took me a lot of deep breaths to tell myself "there are double standards, and they have to care, so they project that onto me, hence the nastiness. Let it slide, and it's ok not to change your entire philosophy of what matters just to please those moms."

Sigh. I deal with this. White mom of two biracial daughters. DD4 has very fine, wispy hair that becomes loose and wild within an hour of me spraying it with detangler and brushing/combing it into a neat ponytail. And then there are the days she wants to wear it down. It's cut into a long bob and super cute but she's four and her hair is this combo of wavy/straight/kinda curly...I cannot win. I do sometimes braid it, but I'm not the best braider, though I keep practicing.

The second daughter is only a year old, but has hair that is very thick and curly and LONG. I really can only comb it out once or twice a week, in the tub with detangling leave-in conditioner in it. Most of the time it's in pigtails or a ponytail to keep it somewhat tame, but she does this thing where she always pulls down a thick lock of hair to play with while she sucks her thumb. Her hair looks "done" for approximately 3 minutes before she pulls the hair down and looks a mess again.

They do wear pretty cute clothes. Choosing battles and all that, I guess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents are too self-involved and “busy” to care what their kids look like.

This. There are 2 categories of this and one annoys me and one doesn't.

1.) The parents and the kids EQUALLY aren't into appearances. These types are usually "earthy", maybe professors kids, maybe super religious but in general the whole family doesn't care about clothes, haircuts, hairstyles, being trendy or put together. Lots of times the kids share clothes regardless of gender or condition of clothes. The girls hair always looks terrible. The boys pants have holes. BUT they are well taken care of in the areas of education, hygiene, and general well being.

2.) The parents CLEARLY are obsessed with their own appearance and just could care less about the kids. The kids run around all day doing whatever the it shows. They forget to keep things like socks and new undies supplied and forget to go seasonally shoe shopping for the kids but have vast and expensive clothing and shoe collections themselves. These types really piss me off.

You are right on the money. A good friend of mine once brought her son for a visit. She was on her way to a hairdresser (cut, color, etc). Her son came in a jacket that was way too small for him and it was freezing. This was November. She said Santa is bringing a new coat. Grandma bought him a coat and it's going to be under the tree. It was VERY hard not to call her an idiot. The kid was obviously cold plus he looked ridiculous.