Skulls and other bits of masculine style
It seems like every two weeks He’s needing new clothes. Jeans and shirts mostly. And socks. Holy Hell! I don’t even know how it’s possible to lose as many socks as He’s lost. Not one at a time, either. Pairs and pairs of socks. Finding random lone socks strewn about would at least give Me the chance to create odd, mismatched pairs. And it’s when I’m buying another pack of socks that I think about Her dad and his sock clips. The clips that hold a pair of socks together after they’re taken off, only yo ride with the socks through the wash. I think about those clips and about how I’d buy them, He’d play with them, then lose those too, or clip them to a pair every so often so that pair could be lost together. Or not lost since they would be together. Or whatever.
But socks are cheap. It’s the jeans that kill Me. Mini denim using roughly one fifth the fabric but still selling for half the cost of an adult pair. But the kid is growing. It’s viral. Then there was that phase of intentionally trying to fall on His knees in order to stain the jeans because kids st school did it and it was fun and oh Hell no that wasn’t going to happen. But it did and He killed two pairs of jeans. That didn’t help either
Anyway, We bought Him a new pair a few weeks ago and We finally put down the boot cut and went with the slim fit. Not the skinny jeans, just the slim ones. Jeans We can cuff up and pair with His royal blue retro Newbalance shoes. Be bought them, left them in the bag for two weeks, finally caved, and they’re the best jeans We’ve ever bought.
Moral: Hipsters know what’s up.
But We couldn’t just look for jeans because surely He (meaning She) would want a new shirt to go with them. It’s like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie but it’s If You Give a Woman a Cute Son and Access to Gap Kids She’ll Probably Want a Shirt to Go With Everything. Luckily, Gap ruins all of their boy’s clothing by slathering it in a thick helping of tiny testosterone. Skulls, snowboards, footballs, skulls. Maybe I’m just out of touch.
Hey! Look at this cu– oh, there’s a huge skull and crossbones on the back.
Oh, these pajama pants woul– oh, they’re covered in skulls.
And a sweater with a little embroidered skull on the chest.
And underwear covered in helmets, and t-shirts covered with snowboards, and crossbones for everyone!
What’s with the morbid? Or is it the rebel? Do We need to dress Him in skulls in order for Him to fit in? Are We setting Him up for adolescent insecurities by thinking that He should be able to wear clothes that don’t look like they’re the result of a pirate vintage sale?
What the Hell Gap? What happened to nice plain clothes? Stripes. Textures. Something other than (a really odd) gender based slap in the face?
He owns nothing with a skull on it anywhere. Nothing. I went to three stores in order to find pajama pants without skulls last winter, finally settling on one pair with electric guitars and one with yetis yawning. But skulls and sports abound. It’s everything that some uncreative designer decided was necessary or symbolic of “boy.” But We don’t need skulls and snowboards or, for those with daughters, ponies and butterflies, to know which side of the store We’re on. We just need clothes. Nice clothes that don’t make Our son look like a pirate flag. Or a sports poster.
One Comment
It’s noting like the good old days when we could just (only really) go to the Sears or Pennys catalog and get cool clothes!
Seriously though, good point. Everything doesn’t have to be ‘symbolic’ of something. Just comfortable and wearable.
seattledad
12/18/2011