We’ve entered a new era in our house. It’s called the
I-care-if-I’m-dressed-cool era. And I can guarantee you that I’m
not the one who wants to dress cool. No, in our house,
”
Mr. Snazzy Dresser
”
is none other than Junior.
We’ve entered a new era in our house. It’s called the I-care-if-I’m-dressed-cool era. And I can guarantee you that I’m not the one who wants to dress cool. No, in our house, “Mr. Snazzy Dresser” is none other than Junior.
Back in the day (about two weeks ago, if you’re keeping track), Junior would wear the same thing over and over again. I’d just pick up a few school T-shirts and five pairs of identical Lee jeans, and poof! Junior had an entire wardrobe.
Oh sure, in the summer, we’d add some shorts. But otherwise, Junior was pretty much set for a year. He even wore his uniform on weekends. I’m telling you, it was a nice life. No arguments over clothes. No spending tons of money on fancy shoes or shorts or sweatshirts. No figuring out what T-shirt matched which pants.
I should have known it was too good to be true, because Junior suddenly decided that he actually cared about what he wore. I have no idea where this desire to become fashionable came from. I mean, if you saw his father, you’d know Junior didn’t exactly inherit a cool dressing gene from that end of the parental spectrum. And I’m no fashion diva, either. If it doesn’t match with blue jeans, I’m pretty much not going to wear it.
But Junior came home one day and said he wanted to dress “cooler.” In case you were wondering, in kid talk,
“cooler” translates to “extremely expensive outfits that cost the equivalent of a mortgage payment and include matching accessories like belts and shoes, which cost extra.”
Oh, I’d been warned that this would happen. Other parents told me that one day my sloppy, uniform-wearing boy would insist that he had to wear the latest in fashion. But I didn’t think it would happen to Junior. After all, he’s the child of two people who define fashion dysfunction.
What I didn’t count on was a child I like to call “alpha-boy.” Like the alpha-male that he will grow up to be, alpha-boy is the leader of the pack. And as such, the little fashion victims around him will emulate his style.
My personal feeling is that alpha-boys are born, not made. We’ve all seen them. They’re the babies in the hospital nursery who rule the roost. The nurses coo over him. The other babies stop crying the minute he’s placed into the crib near them. He’s got the ultra-hip name that all the other parents wish they’d used for their kid.
By preschool, alpha-boy makes wearing overalls with crotch snaps and a Pooh T-shirt look like the latest fashion off the runways. When he reaches kindergarten, his UnderRoos are always the best. And by the time alpha-boy hits fourth grade, his style is the one that all the other fashion-challenged boys want to have.
There’s no rhyme or reason why these kids are cool. To parents, alpha-boy looks just like all the other kids. But to the kids, alpha-boy epitomizes cool. He’s the Steve McQueen of the fourth grade.
But sometimes things go terribly wrong. Sometimes the alpha-boy has a style that is generally pleasing to all who see him. And sometimes alpha-boy will be strangely uncool, which in a perverse way makes him seem even cooler to the other kids.
And that’s why you will see weird things in elementary school. Take my friend’s son, for example. One day, my
friend, Judy, gets into her car, only to be blinded by the sparkly rhinestones on her son’s arm. Turns out the rage in his fourth-grade class is a temporary tattoo that says “bling-bling.” At this point, all poor Judy can hope for is a worldwide shortage of rhinestones.
Take my other friend, Hannah. Her son insisted on growing his hair long. And when he reached the point where he couldn’t see through his overgrown bangs, he refused a trim or even to part his long hair. And why? Because the alpha-boy in his class had long, overgrown bangs that he couldn’t see through. Fortunately for Hannah, one day alpha-boy came to school sporting a crew cut.
As for Junior and me, I have to say we’re pretty lucky. The alpha-boy in Junior’s class has decent taste, and the clothes aren’t breaking the bank … yet.
Junior did mention something yesterday about shoe shopping. I can only hope that alpha-boy’s mom believes in low-priced footwear.
