School uniforms-pretty funny

[TerryJ2]

Poor difficult child has to wear a uniform at his new Catholic school. It's not too bad ... khaki pants, white dress shirt, brown lace-up shoes, a tie in church. But he wants baggy pants and black shoes and a rapper tshirt.

Poor kid did NOT want to try on a single one of the shoes chosen from the rack yesterday. Boat shoes, wingtips, workboots with-low ankles, anything with-the color tan or brown. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Ready to make a scene at a very busy shoe dept.

I finally threatened to buy the ugliest one unless he tried something on. He chose a heavy duty looking brown pr with-a thick tread, 1/2 size too big.

In the shirt dept. a very nice lady waited on us, and she was VERY assertive. She first of all, assumed that Iv was in my care, because he was the most polite. When she saw that it was the snotty kid who was spilling his drink all over, she was surprised, but didn't back down.
"You're going to try on a nice, new white shirt with-that all over your hands? Put that down and wipe off your hands."
(Yaaay, Warrior Mom--uhh--store clerk!!!)

After we found the right size, which I agreed to buy a bit large (an 18!!!), difficult child refused to carry the heavy bag of stuff we'd purchased.

By that time, she knew his name and called him back.

"Carry that bag for this lady. She's buying you all of this nice clothing and you need to be respectful and grateful."
He picked it up and shot me the Evil Eye.

LOL! It was clear she had no idea he was my kid, not only because of his behavior, but because we look nothing alike. She must have thought he was in foster care.
It takes a village.

 

[Marguerite]

I loathe school uniforms. been there done that too much and seen more problems than benefits. However, it does remove the fashion contest side of things from it all. Too often the uniform items are badly unfashionable, made of impractical materials, or both. When I was at school my uniform was a ghastly dirty pink colour with a full skirt and maroon buttons down the front. Patch pockets on the bodice too, with wide collar. Very Doris Day in style. Worn with black lace-up leather shoes which always blistered my feet, and short blue socks with the tops folded down. And a straw hat, and maroon gloves. We copped a lot of teasing from other schools for the colour and cut of our uniform.

Our kids in primary school wore the generic Aussie primary school uniform - a gingham cotton tunic dress for the girls (white Peter Pan collar with little Colonel Sanders buttoned tie below). For the boys, a white or blue short-sleeved button-up cotton shirt (not stretch) with a patch pocket, and grey flannel trousers or shorts. The fabric had no stretch so it often ripped at the back of the sleeves and limited movement. The trousers would wear through within a day sometimes. The whole uniform - not designed for kids at play. And on school excursions where other schools were there too - it was just about impossible to work out which school was which.
Then our kids transferred to the city school which was a pioneer for uniforms, in terms of practicality - royal blue pants (which meant denim jeans were permitted) with RED t-shirt (ie stretch - great!) with the school logo screen-printed onto it. You could buy the red t-shirts anywhere and take them to the school for screen printing for free. And on school excursions - those kids could be seen across the width of Hyde Park! They also kept spare uniforms in the school office, for those kids whose parents couldn't afford the uniform and needed to borrow a school shirt (kids always had denim jeans!).

Terry, that sales lady sounds like a gem. I'd be calling the store to nominate her for employee of the month!

Marg

 

[trinityroyal]

Oh Marg, that uniform sounds simply horrid!

I rather liked my school uniform. Not for the cut or style...Hunter green tunic dress made from scratchy polyester with box pleats starting about 2 inches from the top, with a urine-yellow blouse and green-yellow-and-white striped tie. Knee socks, and black oxford shoes (like saddle shoes, but solid colour)...but because it took all the thinking out of getting dressed in the morning.

The independent schools each took pains to ensure that their uniform was different from those of the other schools, so it was easy to spot your group on an outing.

Terry, I agree. That saleslady sounds like a real gem.

 

[tiredmommy]

I absolutely *adore* when adults in public reinforce what I've told Duckie in private. But, as a former retail salesperson, I doubt she put much speculation into your relationship with difficult child. She just knew you were in charge.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

love that story! Thanks for sharing. Do you think she does nanny work????????

 

[TerryJ2]

Marg, what a getup!!! And the gloves, too! LOL.

Yeah, I was wondering if I could go back to the store and hire her for nanny work ...
Seriously, I should have gotten her name. I'll go back.

 

[compassion]

The program difficult child starts Aug. 24 has a sort of an uniform which I am relieved about. It is not too rigid though. She wears a T-Shirt from the shcool, jeans or khakis or pants below the knees. She CAN wear her piercings which is important to her.
I am tryin to support her gettign on board/the trasniton: so have her pick out jeans, underwar, socks, hairdye , shoes. I like that it removes a lot of the sutff(competion for name brand shirts, provocative tops, miniskirts, flip flops,etc.. She can still "express" herself at 2:30 when school is out. Comapssion

 

[svengandhi]

No uniforms here but I sort of wish they had them. It would make my life easier. When I was in school, we had to wear dresses or skirts that covered our knees and our elbows had to be covered as well but that was it. I was poor and on scholarship so my clothes were horrible compared to the other girls. I didn't really get teased because I was smarter than them (hence the scholarship) but my little sister was teased badly. I so envied my Catholic friends who got to wear uniforms.

 

[Babbs]

Sounds like you had an awesome saleslady. Having worked retail once upon a time, I always try to drop a letter or a comment card to a manager when I've had a really good experience with a salesperson - too often I only heard when I messed up and not when I did a good job.

I love that she called your difficult child back to get the bag!

 

[Marg's Man]

Marg's school uniform was legendary for its bad taste. She and I grew up on the opposite sides of Sydney but even at my distance we had heard about that High school's horrible uniform.

Funny thing is that the colour scheme hasn't changed! Although the style has; one of her classmates won the design competition. She describes the old one being very "Stepford Wives". The new design had two rows of dark maroon buttons down the front of a lighter maroon - it looked like two rows of nipples. Nasty remarks compared them to female dogs. My favorite radio station was doing one of those "Ugliest School Uniform" phone in things. Her old school 'won' hands down.

Sometimes I think they choose uniforms for their horrible look. My own was solid khaki, shirt, shorts(!), long socks, black shoes with a blue and gold Eton stripe tie. Winter uniform was the same with long trousers and a khaki jumper added. We also had a 'walking out' uniform consisting of long grey flannel trousers, blue shirts for juniors, white for seniors the tie (of course) and a royal blue flannel blazer. This was an alternate winter uniform so most of us wore it in winter because it looked so much better than the khaki.

easy child's summer uniform was also pretty ghastly, it looked like it had been made from the same fabric you would use for a set of [old] men's pyjamas.

Marg's Man

 

[TerryJ2]

ROFL, Marg's Man!

Svengali, I went to an all-girls' Catholic HS and we had uniforms and it really did help to level the economic differences. I hear you.

 

[Wiped Out]

Terry,
I love that saleslady!!!! The "mom" where difficult child goes to respite is like this and I love it!!!

 

[therese005us]

Great Sales lady!
In UK our uniforms were dark blue or grey pinafore skirts, with same color sweater, dark blue stockings; and a tie to denote which school district (from age 4 onwards).

When we came to OZ in 1975, we landed in WA first. Uniform was pale blue dress, wool jumper, wool blazer (summer) stockings, gloves for going out, and straw hat (summer) winter, full length wool pinafore dress, long sleeve shirt, tie, wool hat, stockings and gloves. It was not permissible to wear jumper without blazer at anytime!

I'm glad uniforms are more practical these days and had something to do with changing some uniforms at P & C meetings during my children's schooling (a very dangerous and time consuming activity!)

 

[TerryJ2]

Wow, wool in the summer?

I like that so many schools have gone to khaki pants, because the kids can wear them after school and not be totally embarrassed. This school is more formal, though, with-long sleeve white dress shirts. difficult child's old school allowed light blue, yellow, or red t-shirts and collared polo shirts. Oh well.

 

[Marguerite]

Yep. Wool. I had that as part of my ghastly uniform also. And it HAD to be wool, which itched. So you wore long sleeves under it (or a spencer). At least we could take our jumpers off if we were hot. But we had to change form summer uniform to winter (and back again) on specified dates, regardless of the weather.

And now, uniforms at the local school are only just being dragged into the more sensible versions of stretch fabrics and harder-wearing trousers. But in cold weather we still see the horrible sight of little girls wearing the blue plaid cotton dress OVER a blue tracksuit, the skirt of the cotton dress hanging down over long tracksuit pants and the track jumper over the top of the dress. It looks awful. The only good thing is that if the day gets warmer (as our days are at the moment) then the girl can take off t he track pants and just trot around in the dress only (with or without the jumper).

Trish, did you keep your old felt hat from winter? I kept mine and in the 70s got into the hippie embroidery, I have my hippie hat now. I had to have that school hat blocked so it was as stiff as cardboard. It tooks me weeks to beat the living daylights out of it (very therapeutic) to make it soft and fashionable, so I could begin sewing elves, rainbows and mushrooms onto it. At one point I had it folded and pegged, submerged in a bucket of water.

Trish, sounds like you went to one of the private schools in Perth. And with the sun hours there! I can fully understand why they fight daylight saving in WA. It's already almost permanently daylight saving there. In that overheated uniform you would have been coming home from school at the hottest part of the day, a lot of the time. Nasty...

Marg

 

[TerryJ2]

Wool. Yep. It itches. I used to cry, cry, cry all winter long, growing up in MN, because my skin was so dry, I had to wear tights AND a wool jumper (not half as bad as yours) and poofy netted underslips that made our skirts poof out.
I was hyper sensitive to touch, anyway, which made it worse.
Arrrgh!

 

[Marguerite]

Our kids would never wear pure wool. Even most wool blends, they would complain. Even as babies, now I look back. I used to hate wearing wool. Yes, it's warmer. Yes, it's safer. Yes, it's patriotic for Aussies to wear wool. But I hated it!

However, these days most wool and wool blends are much nicer to wear. The girls still refuse to wear pure wool, even the stuff that's carefully had guard hairs removed. I have some wool blends which I love to wear, they feel warm and not scratchy. Increasingly we have a good alpaca industry here and theyr wool gets either used on its own or mixed with lambswool to make something very warm and wonderfully soft.

easy child had a long black coat as part of her school uniform. It was 100% wool and amazingly warm in winter. It went to mid-calf in length. easy child 2/difficult child 2 would wear it to school in winter (black was one of her school's uniform colours) but then she began getting "out of uniform" notes. We had to send in a note EVERY DAY justifying her wearing something that was not part of the official school uniform. But te official uniform didn't have anything suitable for winterwear! The warmest they had was a thin jumper with a light spray jacket, each with the school logo. Gloves not permitted. Scarf not permitted. Cap not permitted.

So I sent a note in to the school - "When you, madam, get up before sunrise in winter, pull on the skimpy excuse for warmth that is the school uniform, huddle shivering on the wharf (still before sunrise) then travel across the water with the spray from the waves splashing into the boat, then catch an unheated train to the station and walk to school to arrive before 8 am, when you do all this while weighing less than 45 Kg (100 pounds) instead of driving to school in your heated car to arrive at 8.55 am and immediately walk into your heated classroom wearing anything you choose - THEN you can complain about our child wearing a very tidy, tasteful outfit in school colours which also keeps her warm and hence healthy.
For reasons of personal health and safety, we choose to send her wearing gloves, scarf, beanie and heavy black wool coat. We chose them in black so they would look like they belonged to the uniform. If this does not suit you, then modify your uniform policy accordingly."

They did. Not in time to help us, but my insistence meant easy child 2/difficult child 2 got left alone by the uniform police. But now, that school has as part of its winter uniform OPTIONS, the same heavy black coat that is used for easy child's old school. ie the same type of coat.

Idiots. Sometimes they grow up and become bureaucrats...

Marg

 

[TerryJ2]

LOL! What a great letter! I'll have to remind myself never to be on the receiving end of one of those.

When my kids were babies, I bought a lot of clothes from Hanna Anderson. Ea time I put one on them, I dreamed that *I* was the baby or toddler, pretending I was wearing something soft. I love soft things. My little sister still sends me soft t-shirts and nightgowns when she comes across them.