My Mini Me’s Have Minds of Their Own

When it comes to parenting, we are making so much shit up on the fly, I don’t know how any of us survive.

What I find interesting is how we base so much of our parenting handbook on how WE were raised.  We spend a lot of time comparing our childhoods to the one’s we are giving our own children.  This is a bit dodgy because our memories are filtered by so much emotion, time and impressions based on memories of our youth are not terribly accurate.   I do talk to my mom.   I talk to her about what she felt or did when I was a certain age…so we can compare notes.  But again….time does make the past a bit hazy and we are terrible at filtering our memories through our own views and needs.

One area mom and I differ is in how our kids have dressed.

For SURE I enjoyed when they were all wee and I could pick out loads of cute outfits for them to wear.  They were all squirmy dolls to dress in any colour or style.  But I have also been pretty happy watching them figure out their own style and while there are many days that Tara goes to class with inside out sweaters and strange colour choices, not to mention feral lost in the jungle hair and her shoes on the wrong feet, I am probably more okay with that than my mom or my husband for that matter.   I tend to ignore the looks or comments from other parents.    My mantra is if their clothes don’t stink and keep them warm and dry then that is good enough.

I grew up in the UK. we wore school uniforms and between that and my mom’s own views on clothes, I didn’t have much choice in what I wore.  But that wasn’t a big deal. I don’t remember chafing against it or feeling the need to rebel and sadly was probably one of the most non-rebellious teens every created.

In fact, I have always enjoyed shopping with my mom and now enjoy shopping with my daughters too, despite their very clear tastes and how different many of those tastes are.  Adam is 13 and HATES buying clothes, but is also very clear about his ‘look’ so this is his ongoing conundrum.

Caity loves makeup but is fairly conservative with her application, which is great because despite looking 16, she is still 11.  I love that she doesn’t need to be ‘told’ about what is appropriate for her age.   But she has her own look and I have been happy enough to help her achieve that as long as it doesn’t break the bank or school rules.

She recently blitzed on earning bucks for chores and what she really planning was her new look for her hair.  We recently found a fun hair stylist who loves to plan new ‘does’ with Caity.

I love hair styles.   While my clothing has always been a tad boring ( I miss the 80’s) I have always enjoyed playing with my hair.  Sure there has been moments of pure horror when the stylist did not get it right, but between those moments, I have had every length, colour and style possible.  So I am kind of digging that my kids are as into their doe’s as I am.  I also love that we have broken the rules about girls having long hair and boys having short hair….though Adam hair is fairly short and trendy now, for years he loved his shaggy hair and put up with comments from his Uncle about how boys SHOULD look.  Needless to say said Uncle is totally flummoxed by Caity and her hair.    There should be NO rules about colour or styles for kids. NONE.  They are  their own little people and societies weird and baseless rules about image should not be floating into their worlds at all.   Being a kid even a teen should be about getting comfortable in their own skin.

I have also buzzed parts of my head, but every selfie I tried has made me scream in horror and worry that indeed:

Edgy and overweight sadly doesn’t mess with the visions in my head.   Which means, I suppose that thank god I have my kids to live vicariously through, even though they may not always listen to my ideas about what is cool when it comes to fashion.