“I’m not going to school. Nothing to wear.” “Not coming in today. Nothing fits.” “Sorry, can’t make the party. No threads.”
The importance of clothing goes far beyond basic protection of the body from the elements of weather and rough objects. Throughout history, clothing has played a major part in influencing self esteem and identifying social status.
A cool wardrobe can take us anywhere. It's our ride to town, our ticket to popularity.
An inadequate closet, however, makes us feel depressed and agoraphobic. None of these stupid outfits can cover the disappointment we feel about our body. They don't create the right impression to face our peers. Especially at school.
Closet issues can even determine Where we're going. In very rough neighborhoods, if you head out dressed in the wrong color, it’s not just a faux pas. It’s a motive for murder. (Even in neighborhoods that look calm on the surface, battles are waged in the morning before millions of kids get on the road to school.)
“You’re not leaving the house dressed like that!”
“I’m not wearing the yellow raincoat. You can ground me till I’m a hundred.”
“No child of mine is going out with a ring through the eyelid!"
Children have always reached a stage where any ideas of any grownups are stupid. Parents go to the bottom of the list of people to consult about anything. Kids give their full allegiance to the most confused person they can find in their age bracket. Peer approval is everything.
When I was at this stage, my friends and I wore Levi's and striped Penney’s T-shirts. Period. To ratchet up the bonding, we added navy watch caps and started calling each other by our last names.
Pulling off this kind of splash meant getting permission to use the family landline the night before. We had to set up a network of compliance.
"May I please call Martha and Liz to see what they're wearing tomorrow?"
Our parents conferred over cocktails and set some limits.
"When your homework is done, you may make one quick call.”
Since parents were so oblivious even then, we waited for the second cocktail and stayed on the phone for as long as we wanted.
But that was in the late fifties, in the heartland, where vast wheat fields surrounded the humid suburbs of Tulsa. And that was the extent of our rebellion.
When we converged with kids from different neighborhoods at Jr. High, we heard whispers of real gangs, dangerous gangs. But always at other schools, in other parts of town. There were tough girls who dressed in black and hid razor blades in their ratted hair, always ready for a rumble. They were the Black Widows.
At our school we groveled to join elitist social clubs called Skippers and Merry Maids. Our top priorities were to cling and to conform. We wore a shiny Circle Pin on the left side of our starched Peter Pan collars.
An anthropologist might have interpreted this as a cultural symbol of our virginity. We knew nothing about anthropologists; we just wanted to look exactly like Nancy Van Mullen.
She wore her Bobbi Brooks Hooded Car Coat slung off the shoulders, straight-jacket style, arms through the sleeves, fists on her hips. This left the furry hood riding snugly on her butt, a pre-conscious pubescent display, if an anthropologist ever saw one.
An anthropologist might have interpreted this as a cultural symbol of our virginity.
Nancy had an enviable slouch, and could roll her eyes, chew gum, and sneer at the same time. We all tried our best to emulate her, moving about the school foyer in threes and fours. Synchronized sheep-like behavior, a social scientist might have observed.
My strongest memory of late childhood is just a feeling. A deep aching to belong, a painful fear of not belonging. This same fierce need to fit in is what motivates most kids to come to school…in any decade.
"What would you say is your number one reason for coming to school today?" I ask my students occasionally, holding an invisible mic.
"That's easy. To see our friends. That's the only reason we come to school, ever."
Children move toward school in the morning like a vast colony of ants, constantly communicating, exchanging goods and information along the route.
The school bus is a rolling cocoon, a swelling and pulsating mysterious process of metamorphosis.
"Here's the math homework. Can I wear your shoes till lunch?"
"Justin wants to know if you'll go out with him."
"I brought the eye shadow and earrings."
"Tell him I'll tell him at recess."
"Don't get make-up on this tank top. It's my sister's and she’ll kill me."
The school bus is a rolling cocoon, a swelling and pulsating mysterious process of metamorphosis.
We are always amazed in nature when a fuzzy striped caterpillar crawls out of its dressing room and stretches its gorgeous new butterfly wings.
And when the big yellow bus rolls to a complete hydraulic stop and the door hisses open in front of the school, our jaws drop again.
Sweet little girls now look like Barbie the Streetwalker. Vulnerable young males add bulk and bravado by going baggy.
"Don't overreact," I caution myself.
On a playground in any era, a teacher is wise to choose battles carefully.
For instance, a school's Dress Code does not convey a shared community sense of what's decent to wear in public. It simply spells out the consequences for wearing certain arbitrarily ‘unacceptable’ trends after a specific number of warnings.
We have driven the "do your own thing" thing into an abandoned parking lot on the desperate side of town.
I favor a pleasant uniformity: colorful variations of practical camp clothes. But I don’t draw the line until some popular style becomes a safety issue.
I blow the whistle when I see a student hit the pavement as a result of being hog tied at the knees by the crotch of his own pants.
“You need a belt."
I spread my arms and shrug.
"I rest my case.”
OMG Sherry-I had to laugh and cry at the same time in parts. Vivid, excruciating memories, and now I watch the grandkids navigating this territory.
OMG Sherry-I had to laugh and cry at the same time in parts. Vivid, excruciating memories, and now I watch the grandkids navigating this territory. My granddaughter's current Nancy Van Mullen is named Angie.