A Fashion Showdown

by

Christine Bruun

My youngest daughter is a tomboy.  I say this proudly, because it made my life and my budget a lot easier.  While other parents were struggling with keeping up with the latest fashion craze, I was relaxing and counting the savings that her lack of fashion interest afforded me.

Every August, we made our pre-school shopping trip to just four stores--The Sports shoe store, the T-shirt place, K-mart or Wal-Mart, (which ever was closer at the time for underwear, socks, a PJ's), and the Levi emporium.  I was home and sipping a soothing cup of hot tea long before most parents had even gotten started, and without a major dent in our finances..  

Unfortunately, the peace and ease in our life was about to be disrupted.  High school meant basketball and volleyball.  Along with this would come the coach's demand that all team members where dresses on the day of home games as well as when they traveled away.  This was going to pose a problem, for the only dress my daughter owned was one she wore to the last family funeral.  It just wasn't appropriate for a sports event.  Yet, as the coach emphasized at my daughters emphatic objection, "No dress, no play. "

 "I'm not wearing a dress!" my daughter blurted as she burst through the door after a difficult practice just before school started.  This was my signal to find a solution that all would find acceptable.

I brought out the latest issue of  Young Miss magazine and Seventeen.  I had ordered a subscription of each the year before, hoping that, one day, my tomboy might transform into the "Little Princess".  However, from the dust I had to blow from the cover, the change had not happened yet.

"Let's look through these and see what the latest fashions are.  Perhaps we can find something that even you will like," I said hopefully.

"Fat chance!" she said as she slammed her body down on the couch next to me.

"Well, we can at least look.  No harm there," I urged with lack of conviction.  This was going to be a bad day.

"What ever!" 

As we turned the pages I could tell by the grunts, groans,  and facial contortions that we were getting no where. However, perseverance won out.  As we turned a page, expecting to see some silly girlie thing staring at us from the brightly colored pages, a very simple outfit came into view.  The silence was deafening.  I held my breath.

"Well, what do you think of this?" I said.  I waited for the objections which didn't  appear.

"Not half bad."

"Well, let's see...basically it is an oversized white t-shirt that they have folded the sleeves up to look like cap sleeves."  I was getting excited.  We could do this!  "They have put it over a tank top dress.  Very simple and basic."  My daughter was actually smiling.  " We could buy you a blue tank top dress and get you an oversized t-shirt.  Then, if we buy a white scarf that we tie around the bottom of the shirt at the hem line, and blouse the t-shirt at the bottom, it will look like one piece.  No one will ever know you are wearing a t-shirt.  We add a basic necklace, and voila´!"

"Mom, do you think we can find these things?"  

"I don't see why not.  If we buy you a basic pair of white flats, you'll look like you came out of the pages of this magazine and no one will be the wiser."

"Ok, let's get this over.  I want to get back so I can go one on one with Jake, next door.  He thinks he's going to beat me at HORSE this time."

Our shopping trip lasted about an hour.  We were able to buy everything at one store.  By the time we got back home, I was happy, my daughter was relieved, and our life seemed to be back on track.  

The peace didn't last long.  One, cool fall day, still early in the school year, we were late getting my daughter to the bus that was taking her to an away game.  We had been to visit relatives and had gotten a late start home.  As we hurried, gathering all her equipment and uniform paraphernalia together, she was busy slipping into her outfit.  Unfortunately, as tomboys will, she decided not to attach the scarf to the bottom of the t-shirt and left it loose.  She also neglected to wear the necklace, which topped off the entire look.  

When the coach saw her, she realized that she was wearing a t-shirt and went ballistic.  She ranted, she raved, and forbid her from wearing that outfit again.  We tried to intervene and tried to explain that it was from Seventeen magazine, but she would hear none of it.  We had tried to slip through the cracks unnoticed and unless she wore a traditional dress, she would not be playing in the next game.  

We were shocked and dismayed...well, actually we are incensed that even though she was certainly wearing a dress, (the tank top dress was, after all, still a dress), that the coach would ban her from wearing it and force us to use our hard earned money to buy her one that conforms to that of the other girls, who are fashion conscious.  We felt it not only irrational, but dictatorial and we were not having any of it.  What right did she have of forcing our daughter to be someone that she was not?  What right did she have to force us to buy her clothing that was not only not in our budget, but in a style that was not appropriate for our daughter.  

We had conformed to the letter of the rule she had set down, but we were not letting her dictate how we dressed and raised our child.  That was when I realized that no matter what we had done, the coach would find something to complain about.  

I remembered the day our daughter had badly sprained her ankle jumping on a trampoline with the next door neighbor. Even though she had a cast on her leg and we had escorted her to the practice, (her hobbling on crutches), the coach had insinuated that she was faking it.  

I knew then that it was not anything we had done, but a personality conflict between us, the coach and our daughter.   It was at that point that the problem was solved for us.  My daughter looked straight into the eyes of the coach, carried her gym bag back off the bus, and resigned from the team at that very moment.  

There was a dead silence for a moment while we all digested  what had just happened.  As my daughter wordlessly walked to the car, putting her bag inside and sitting in the back seat for the ride back home, the coach just stared with her mouth open.  I was so proud at that moment! 

We had worked so hard to find a compromise that would work for both sides and now, my daughter had sacrificed her sports for the sake of a very important principal.  At that moment in time my daughter had matured into a woman.  All the things we had taught her had culminated in this one special event.  She had stood on principal and regardless of the outcome, she had won.

The coach gathered herself together and saying nothing, turned and entered the bus, closing the door.  The ride home was filled with the silence of shock.  She took off her tank top dress and hung it in the closet.  She put on her new white t-shirt with the rolled up sleeves and a pair of jeans and came downstairs where we were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a coke.  She smiled as she entered the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator where she grabbed a bottle of coke and sat across the table from us.

"You know, I feel relieved that it is over," she said sadly.  "It just wasn't fun anymore."

We all smiled and just sat quietly, thinking to ourselves.  We never looked back and that new tank top dress stayed in the closet, unworn until she graduated.  We had all learned an important lesson.  Sometimes there are principles worth standing up for,  no matter what the consequences.  

Today, my grandchildren have it a lot easier than my daughter did.  There is more give and take in the dress code, allowing kids to express their individuality and personalities.  It has come from the sacrifices and struggles of those who have come before us.

I can remember that when my brothers and sister were in high school they had a dress code that included haircuts for the boys.  One day my brother was sent home because he was told that he needed a haircut.  My father marched over to the school and told them that he would be the one to decide when my brother needed a haircut.  That if that wasn't good enough they could just fork over the money for it and he would be glad to take my brother down to the barber.  Otherwise, they were to keep out of his business.  My brother was allowed back in school without a haircut.

When I was in school, (I am eleven years older than my youngest sibling), the girls had to wear dresses no shorter than our knee caps.  We were often asked to kneel on the floor where the principal or his assistant would view the length and make the judgment.  

Our senior year, we were a rather rebellious group.  We ordered our pep club uniforms pre-made and non refundable.  Well, the day they arrived, the whole school was ushered into the auditorium for a lecture.  It seems that we ordered cheer leader-length skirts instead of the knee length ones we were supposed to.  I can remember the principal ranting and raving for about an hour, but we still got to wear the uniforms as they were.  

Also my senior year we decided we were tired of all the expense of having to buy expensive outfits for school. Our school had been voted the best dressed in the region for five consecutive years.  It was becoming quite the contest to see who could come up with the most expensive clothes.  We decided that for our senior year, we would have a dress-down policy.  Sandals, jeans, and sweatshirts were seen all over the school that year.  It was such a relief to us as well as our parents!

My point is, there is a time and a place for everything.  And, when it is time for change, sometimes the changes come about through rebellion and other times through negotiation.  Standing up for one's convictions has its  consequences, for standing up for what you believe don't always work out. 

I am just thankful that this courage, to go against the current,  has been carried on, through the generations, to my children.  I can only hope that it is a quality that becomes a legacy in our family.