I’m just wondering how bad the problem was for the principal to have to enforce this…
@Leigh22 same - and then there was the mom who always showed up at middle school events in her cleavage-displaying low-cut sports bra and very short shorts. Felt simultaneously envious of her figure and embarrassed for her kids.
Acceptable dress standards change. As a young mother, my grandmother never left the house without hat and gloves. Mothers didn’t wear trousers when I was in elementary school. My high school changed the dress code to allow jeans. Women wearing pants, then jeans… I remember all the articles about collapse of civilized society, and restaurants trying to ban women in pants, because it was so unseemly. There was debate over distressed jeans when they first appeared, and low rise jeans with thongs exposed. Now the debate is leggings. This isn’t a new debate. It’s just part of the bigger issue of policing women’s bodies. imho.
My father wore a suit and tie to work every day and it was a sign of status. Today gray tee shirts, turtle necks and hoodies signal status… you have enough power you don’t have to dress up in a suit to go to work. And I’m trying my very best to imagine a school administrator attempting to shame an upper middle class mother who shows up at school in her expensive yoga clothes and wearing flip flops because she just had a pedicure, or luxury logo “house shoe” with a designer tote on her shoulder. Since I see those young moms out and about everywhere, I’m pretty sure they go that way to their kids’ schools.
I agree with gardland, post #1.
I’ll bet he had a “uniform shirt” on – maybe with his or his company’s name on it? There is a big difference coming from a real working job with some dirt and whatnot and looking like a slob.
This principal doesn’t have the luxury of cavorting with moms in Lululemon and fresh pedicures, nor does she have to worry about those children. She is trying to get at least some of the kids in her school out of the ghetto, and stressing decent habits of dress and hygiene may help them in that uphill fight.
I’ve never been a fan of dress codes and this ridiculous article just confirms that.
And you have never seen a young woman lose a job they desperately needed because of cluelessness about how she was dressed.
No, I haven’t and I doubt that that happens with any degree of frequency. In any case, the children at this school are in uniforms and certainly the benefits of good hygiene and proper dress can be addressed in their health classes. Shaming their mothers with this nonsense is likely to cause more harm than good.
There is nothing about hygiene in the letter sabaray posted, #4
Decent is in the eye of the beholder. Frequently it has to do with culture. Maybe it has to do with commonly accepted community dress… The Principal here seems to be at odds with local community standards.
Women losing jobs for not adhering to office dress norms is a completely different topic, imho. You can wear a suit to work and still go to your kid’s school in exercise clothes. I can remember moms who did this at my kid’s school. And no one imagined calling them out.
It happens more frequently that you might assume, and no one ever tells the offending employee/applicant, so they never have a clue that they should fix it. Just written off as"not a good fit". This principal is part of her community, and working for the good of her community. Ideally, one wouldn’t need to tell adults about middle class habits of appearance, but it seems some in her school genuinely don’t understand. I regard it the same as telling parents not to pack only chips and candy for their kid’s lunch. Most seem to know this, but apparently not all.
If that was the principal’s concern, she could have scheduled some educational parent workshops. Instead she called police to remove a mom wearing a tee shirt dress and head covering, when the mom asked to see the dress code she was violating. There doesn’t seem to have been a written dress code at that point in time. I can’t see how calling police to remove a mom trying to register her child for school is helpful to the community.
At least there is finally an admission in the thread that it’s really at least partially about classism.
Also, can we assume that no Muslims are allowed to attend this public school? It’s my understanding that Muslim women must wear headscarves or other head covering.
Schools exist to educate their students, @mom2twogirls. That includes at least some expectations of standards, however low, of behavior, dress, hygiene, etc. To the extent parental behavior negatively impacts their students,it is not unreasonable to challenge it. So not just candy for lunch, and no pajamas outside the home. Not really about class-more than one-quarter of my community is foreign born, and about half of those undocumented. They may be poor but they would not dream of appearing in public in pajamas.
I had a guy in his 40’s come apply for a job wearing shorts and flip flops. Obviously no one ever coached him on making a good first impression and I would never hire someone who couldn’t make a decent first impression on me for fear of what my customers would think! IMO we need a general improvement in how we leave the house. If you have time to wander around the department stores, you have time to change out of your pajamas and slippers. If you ever need a favor and leniency from a teacher or principal, you need to have made a good first impression. Is it always fair? No. But that’s how life works
Silk headscarves aren’t lacking in civility. They are not an indication of poor hygiene, standards or behavior.
@roycroftmom you mentioned middle class standards in one of your replies. In yet another you seemed to be saying luluemon dressed moms in fresh pedicures with flip flops are different than “ghetto” moms in similar (but likely non name brand, I assume) dress.
I think many people allow middle and upper class people (let’s face it, especially if they are white) more leeway on what is appropriate dress.
If the community had agreed with a parental dress code, it would have probably been less controversial. IMO (aside from the headscarf thing which I can’t get over), she would have faced a great deal less controversy had she worked with a parent group to come together on a community dress policy for school visitors that was well communicated before it was implemented. She dropped the ball on working with the community and instead decided to power trip.
Two different discussions: knowing how to dress appropriately for the occasion, ex. the workplace, and what is appropriate at a child’s school. Correction: three… who gets to make the judgment?
I know young people having to make a judgment as to whether to wear business casual or althleisure to interviews. Forget about a suit… In those offices, shorts and flip flops are a norm. Those are high paying one percenter jobs. It’s definitely about understanding the culture.
My D went to a school with a black, female principal. She was very tough about all sorts of things, even with the parents. HOWEVER, she also busted her butt to get grants that supported families with workshops, training, classes, opportunities in the school - for the parents and even younger siblings. She was from Barbados and came from a very formal culture. The school was and is predominantly black, with the largest Liberian community in the US. Many (most?) Liberian-American women wear headscarves - fancy ones - so that rule would never fly. This principal never had a dress code for parents, but she often wrote/spoke about standards of civility and behavior, and I don’t think she was wrong. One thing I remember, mostly because I live and work in a diverse community and have a multi-racial family, is that she had a thing about women wearing curlers in public. We do see that a lot here, and it is also common for other black women to really hate seeing that. There are other things that bother me a lot more because it’s just a regular thing to see when people are commuting, but it is absolutely a flashpoint in some communities/families.
@ahl I take your point where shorts and flip flips would be OK in some situations. I still would adhere to dressing slightly above the job you want. And we work construction in WI where flip flips and shorts aren’t just a bad idea but dangerous. Maybe thats the point the school is trying to make - that everything is not OK everywhere.
Here, though, the “job” is picking up your child at school. Or, in the case in the article, of enrolling your child in school. So the focus is changed from what’s good for the child to what the principal wants to see in a parent who is in an office for 5 or 10 minutes.