Help! My Kids are Growing!

There are moments in everyone’s life that are extremely discouraging, that force you to dig deep and find that core kernel of strength that allows you to know that you are not alone in the world and that this, too, shall pass.

I experience one of these moments every time I try to figure out how the hell to buy clothes for my kids.

I have a three year old son and a six and a half year old daughter. Five pounds and several inches separate them in size. They can wear some of the same clothing sizes. I could go on about the trials and tribulations of trying to buy pants, of any kind, for a skinny little girl who literally has abs of steel (as my husband said the other day—“do you know who has a ridiculously strong core? Lenora.”) and yet has long legs like her mother. On a fat day, 4t pants fit her waist. They are all floods on her, however. So she wears leggings almost every day, with dresses or skirts or on their own. I took her to actually try on pants in a department store and the entire situation depressed me. My mind fast-forwarded to the rest of her female life, attempting to buy pants in random sizes, sizes that might actually stand for 4 trucks or 4 teacups for all the good they do in representing 4 toddler. How is this different than her mother buying size 0 sometimes, size 2 most of the time, or just splitting the difference and buying clothes that are simply “extra small” or “small” because at least that is descriptive? I saw her try on those pants, none of which fit, and it really pissed me off--as much as it angers me to have trouble finding pants that fit my booty, or shirts that fit my biceps.

I think about how most manufacturers make adjustable waist pants for boys, but not always for girls. And those manufacturers start a mindset in those boys that says: your clothes should adjust to fit your body, not the other way around. And those boys, like my son, will grow to be men who can buy pants with actual waist and inseam sizes. I know this, because I buy all of my husband’s clothes, in an attempt to get him not to dress as if he’s off to the next anime convention, and I know how hard it is in our expanding society to find 31 inch waist pants. But when I find them—or when I settle for 32—they fit him…every time.

But leaving that tirade aside, I want to talk about the most discouraging aspect of buying clothes for small children: crazy people design all of them. ALL OF THEM.

My daughter is fairly “girly,” whatever that means, and thank god. I can’t imagine agreeing to the amount of pink she is willing to wear when I was her age. She likes dresses because they are the most comfortable thing she can possibly wear, closer to being naked than anything else, but also because, as I said, little else fits. I like for her to wear dresses because they make cute dresses for little girls, dresses that are fairly shapeless and comfortable, that have plain colors, or stripes, or subtle flower patterns on them. Compare this to the shirts little girls get to wear—the shirts covered in princess regalia, or ponies, or rainbows or ponies wearing princess costumes while sitting under rainbows. Even worse, there are the shirts that have little sayings about being a “diva” or “my best subjects: boys, dancing, shopping” or “dumb blonde” or “aspiring rich blonde socialite” (seriously, those are real). And then of course there are the glittery triangle bikinis and slinky camisoles that we all know 6 year olds want to wear. Let’s not even venture into the “low-rise” pants or “hipster” jeans made for girls; my kid is so skinny that everything she put on started showing off her behind once there was no diaper in place to keep it up. There is underwear cut in such a skimpy fashion that it doesn’t actually cover girls’ crotches, and shoes as practical as stilletos—all for the preschool set.

Now don’t get me wrong—I like little girls clothes, in some ways, more than little boys.’ There is more variety, and definitely more cuteness. And, I’m all about the two piece bathing suit. It is damn hard for a little kid to get one of those one piece bathing suits off to go to the bathroom, and she’s too old for me to do that work for her. So, to save myself, she wears a two piece--you know, a tankini that has a cute little cherry print on it. I make her wear a rash guard shirt anyway, always in a color that is neutral so she can hand it down to her brother.

Because that’s what I wore growing up—my brother’s old clothes. And his clothes weren’t all that. Polyester short sets, overalls, plain tshirts and tube socks. I had some adorable dresses that my grandfather bought for me, and my daughter wears some of those dresses today. They have smocking, or frilly bows, or other things that are very little-girly that no grownup woman would ever be caught dead wearing—BECAUSE THEY WERE MADE FOR LITTLE GIRLS. But for the most part, I wore whatever lame 70s and 80s working class fashion that I, my brother, and everyone else and their brother wore back then, and no one paid any attention, because they were marketing to our parents, not to us, and our parents were under the impression that we were cute no matter what we wore.

So girls wore boys clothes and vice versa and it was pretty hard to tell what was what if you weren’t in your Sunday best. I’m glad that Augie doesn’t understand that there is some kind of ridiculous subtle difference in the neckline of tshirts for boys and girls, because that kid has been wearing his sister’s clothes for years. His favorite long sleeved shirts are these plain blue and brown ones of Lenny’s that are “girl cut,” whatever that means. I guess those shirts aren’t made for the muscly necks so rampant on three year old boys. Lenny went through a phase where she wore button down shirts every day. She has outgrown the phase and the shirts for the most part. I hope her brother appreciates the yellow, blue, and pink “button-downs” that he will inherent, complete with pocket and buttons on the other damn side from where they lie on the boys’ shirts.

Here’s the thing—I HATE buying clothes for him. There are only so many trucks or basketballs or dinosaurs or basketball-playing dinosaurs driving trucks that a mother can stand. I will buy a ridiculous amount of plain tshirts and thermals in various sizes and colors when they go on sale, just to avoid all of that crap. And mostly, I just accept hand me downs. All the boys clothes look the same, and they are all pretty boring, so I have no attachment to them or desire to keep them for the sake of sentiment. Even the little cordouroys and jeans that he refuses to wear because they aren’t “cozy” enough aren’t that exciting. It’s like we start the low expectations early. Hey honey it’s ok to look like a little scruffpile that barely bothered to roll out of bed this morning! Some day you will be a teenager, and girls will accept you even when your drawers are hanging out of your pants, or you will be a grown man, still looking like crap, while your girlfriend or your wife looks like a million bucks in the outfit she spent 4 hours preparing! But before you get there, we will make sure to supply you with lots of shirts that say things like “hide your daughters,” “heartbreaker,” “party animal,” “fart loading” “cereal killer,” “bad boy for life” or “it’s not my fault.”

I mean, the kind of stuff that people design, and then other people buy because it seems cute or ironic, just seems one step away from that guy that Gabe spilled a beer on in an obnoxiously loud bar several months ago—you know, the guy wearing a tshirt that read “I fuck sluts” over his beer belly. The dude didn’t seem to notice the spilled beer; maybe he was looking too intently at some woman with “who needs money when you have these” emblazoned on her chest.

I don’t want my son to be a bad boy, or someone girls should hide from, or someone who doesn’t have to take responsibility for what he does. And I don’t want my daughter to be spoiled or think her looks and her ability to attract rich men are her saving graces.

I struggle with these gender issues with my kids. I live in this house where the parents hold opposite gender roles a lot of the time, so we aren’t surprised when our kids seem to follow the gender roles fairly closely, because we didn’t really have any expectations in that regard. Gabe was the quiet one who never made himself a nuisance as a child. I was the one who went tearing through a room, the one who grew up with the nickname “little shit.” Just ask my mom—that was her term of endearment for me.

So when Augie is highly aggressive or Lenny doesn’t seem to know how to defend herself, when she sits quietly or is so shy she doesn’t even talk to the kids she DOES know while Augie just sings and dances and charms and makes friends with everyone, it’s not about gender to us. It’s about personality, and age. Augie gets away with some things because he’s a nut and because he’s three—NOT because he’s a boy. Lenny is entrusted with certain responsibilities because she’s six and because we know she has an overdeveloped instinct for self preservation and a desire to never get in trouble.

In my house growing up, it was the opposite for my brother and I. Maybe that instinct for self-preservation is a girl thing, and maybe it saved me from myself. But the point is—I was a nut. And my brother, while neurotic perhaps in some ways, was the sensitive one, the one who worried. You all know that Gabe is the crier in my house. He’s the one who was reading the Hunger Games last night because he thought the Bears would choke, while I was pausing the DVR so I wouldn’t miss anything, and laughing at Lenny yelling “MOM! SACK!” when I left the room and at Augie who was just waiting for the touchdown so he could do his booty-shaking touchdown dance.

Boys and girls are different—fine. But they aren’t that different. Individuals are more different than genders, in my opinion—at least it’s true that individual personalities have more variation than the genders do. I mean, both of my kids will be good at math and reading, damnit, even if only one is good at sitting still. It still bothers me that we had to push to get them to focus on math for Lenny and that we have to push to get them to focus on reading for Augie at Montessori. They are tiny children. They can both learn EVERYTHING. So yes, Lenny has a photographic memory, a spatial memory, a memory that is unworldly and bizarre. That is NOT because she is a girl. The only other person I know with that memory is her uncle. So clearly, Augie will be different. He might not put his fingers on the Norad tracker and guess to within the minute at how long it will take Santa to get from Helsinki to Estonia. But then again, who the hell can do that? I mean, can you? But Augie notices everything—he observes the differences, no matter how subtle, in everything he sees, and can imitate even complex things immediately. Last night he watched me open a box with my keys, and he proceeded to cleanly open several others with the keys he stole while I wasn’t looking. That’s not because he’s a boy. It's because he's Augie.

Boys and girls are different. But both should be able to behave, to have empathy for others, to be crazy and joyful. Both should clean up after themselves and learn how to cook, and do other practical things. Both should be able to stand up for themselves. When Augie puts Lenny in a headlock, I no longer have to tell her to fight back. She elbows him, tumbles around with him, kicks him, uses her little biceps and that crazy core strength to counteract his manic will and total lack of fear. And they both laugh the whole time, until someone gets hurt. Augie doesn’t seem to know that his sister is a girl and therefore not into roughhousing, just as she doesn’t seem to know that he is a boy and therefore not interested in spending 4 hours just planning the party for the stuffed animals. He will go along with it, not realizing that in some houses, the animals actually get to PARTY. Lenny’s guys never do—there are too many details to arrange in the meantime.

I just can’t stand these clothes and what they say about us and what we expect from our adult relationships. I can’t stand the way they make my mind jumpstart to adult expectations for things like birth control (the woman’s responsibility, even though her parts are nice and internally contained and it’s the man’s parts that shoot out the stuff that gets folks pregnant or diseased) or chores (because you know men just CAN’T multitask, and they would all STARVE if left to their own devices) or letting boys get away with shit because of their raging hormones or their innate aggression or because boys will just be boys or whatever. I can’t stand how we dumb down both boys and girls, and men and women, by focusing on what is supposedly different or superior about each gender.

I can remember having raging hormones as a teenager, and being self-involved and aggressive. Isn’t that the definition of youth? Being aggressive in how you present yourself to the world, being reckless and rebellious and horny and a little crazy? Newsflash: girls are like that too. And they don’t get away with behaving like criminals, and we don’t think it’s funny if they are crude, and we sure as hell don’t think it’s cute if they’re crazy about boys. And on the other hand, why do we think so little of boys, that we assume they can’t be both loud and respectful, lustful and kind, strong and sensitive? You know--the things women should be able to be, as well?

My kids are very different, in almost every way. But there are things about them that are remarkably the same, including their love of comfortable clothes. I love my pencil skirts and heels and clothes that show off my figure as much as I love my comfortable workout clothes and nightshirts. And Gabe loves his comfortable jeans but also likes to put on a tie and look like a grownup and he’s pretty damn proud of those size 31s and what they say about his 37 year old abs. So there’s nothing wrong with being comfortable and happy in your body, or in recognizing that your body is different because it is male or female. But all this other stuff? What a bunch of crap that obfuscates people’s actual potential.

I’m wishing there was someone out there channeling Marlo Thomas, and I don’t care how old that makes me sound. She is what, 72? And still looks and sounds amazing. She was “That Girl,” but more importantly to me, she was the narrator of Free to Be You and Me. What a great, gender bending 70s hippie lovefest that show was. My kids love it. When we took them to see Brave, I had high hopes that the archery competition scene would rival the version of Atalanta that FTBYAM portrayed. Sadly, it fell far short. That girl hardly got to shoot her arrows, and the boys were all portrayed as idiots. I felt nostalgic for that race that the princess had with Young John, a handsome, serious, smart kid who admired Atalanta from afar for her skills and maybe for her charms. Do you remember what happened? This was the 70s, as you recall. She didn’t promise to marry him, but she left that option open, as they both planned to see the world and grow up a little bit first. But before they could have that conversation, they raced. And she didn’t kick his ass, or beat him. Nobody won.

They crossed the finish line together.

Call me crazy, or a prude, or a femiNazi. I’d like to think of myself as one of those people for whom gender is a fact, and not a statement, nor a limit. And when I buy clothes for my kids, I’m going to do it as that person—you know, the basketball-playing dinosaur wearing a princess costume while riding a pony on my way to the truckstop that lies underneath the rainbow.