So are we blaming the 18 year old girl or her parents for not having her pack better???
I still think it’s judgemental on “our” part to be so bothered by this girls attire. Did she hold a conversation? Enter the restaurant with a smile? Seem happy to be dining with the adult couples? Eat with her mouth closed and use her utensils nicely? Not sure why her clothing becomes the outstanding problem.
As I said before, “someone else’s kid,” not mine. I don’t think we’re as bothered (nor as judgmental,) at this point. Agree, what can matter is more than the shorts.
The original question was about the mindset. I think we know, IRL, we’d all do our best to be fair to the guests. OP went to Plan B.
What was wrong with wearing socks in the house?
Some families habitually take their shoes off at the door when entering the house, so everyone inside would be in socks or bare feet.
40 pages and still going strong! ^^^I agree with @abasket that it just isn’t that big a deal (and I don’t think the OP meant it to be as is it seems she was just making an observation). I guess that in the end, I feel like there are much worse things a 17 or 18 year old could be doing wrong. She will eventually figure it out on her own as she gets put into social situations where she feels uncomfortable about the way she is dressed. This has never been an issue for my daughters as both like to wear dresses the majority of the time- the younger one probably goes overboard and looks a bit overdressed if anything. However, while my boys dress in clean, non-wrinkled clothes, they are probably way too casual for many people here. The youngest, who is still in college, lives in shorts and t-shirts. When posters here wrote that boys should just take along a pair of khakis “in case”, I had to laugh because my son did not own a pair of khakis when he was in high school- I think he had one pair of jeans in his drawer. He did have a suit for dressy occasions, and on the opposite end, he had a closet full of t-shirts and sports jerseys. Nothing in between. I remember making him buy a collared shirt at some point when he was in high school and I found it in his closet later, unused and too small. You can lead a boy to nice clothes but you can’t make him wear them. Well, you could, but is it really worth the battle? He left for college with that same wardrobe and even though I would have liked him to have some options, I didn’t push it. What happened his freshman year is that he would suddenly find a need for some new shirt or pair of pants- he never said so, but I know it was because he found that for a particular social situation that had come up, he did not have the appropriate clothes. While his wardrobe is a bit more balanced now, he still lives mostly in shorts and t’s. However, he has learned that some occasions call for a little more of a put-together look and has figured this all out on his own.
Exactly, ucb. When we bought our house it had white carpeting. In rainy Seattle, I think that was insane, but in any case, we all removed our shoes the minute we stepped inside and kept them on a little rug next to the door. We never insisted guests do so, but we answered the door in our socks all the time. Luckily we don;'t seem to have attracted people who were “turned off” by that. They’d have been free to never return in that case. We took up the carpet to discover a beautiful hardwood floor so now people wear shoes in the house. Sometimes. It’s OUR house, so we get to decide. I swear people look for reasons to judge others.
“You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!” – Dolly Parton
There’s a liking among young people today to wear the ripped shirts and jeans, the shirts with burn holes in them, and such. I’m somewhat still in that stage (I shall cling to these pieces with all my might) - oversized shirts, ripped shorts and jeans, messy washes on shirts. My mom never understood it and I had always told her, “It’s just a style”, until one day I came to her and said, “If I’m going to be spending so much on these clothes, might as well make myself look like I more than two cents in my bank account and a joint in my back pocket.” She just shook her head and laughed. I think most will grow out of it. 
Um… shoes go off at the front door in my house. That’s extremely typical around here and I do tell people to take their shoes off if they don’t do it automatically. I don’t need outside stuff tracked into my indoor house.
Yesterday, I had just gotten out of the shower and threw on an oversized t-shirt and black pj pants to run to a drive through ATM. I had a few people give me cash over the weekend as a late wedding present so I just wanted to go deposit that money. While I was out, I got a call from my dad asking me to stop by a bank to have something notarized with him. So I did… showed up with very wet hair, an oversized t-shirt, and black pj pants. I had to chuckle because I thought about how mortified some on this thread would be, but I didn’t really even think twice about it… plus the world didn’t end and the banker didn’t refuse to notarize the papers because of how I looked so all’s well that ends well.
I envy people who have a “mud room”. We are often barefoot in in our house, but have wood floors so will put on (clean) shoes in the house if company is coming over.
When I was growing up, we wore “galoshes” frequently, which would get taken off right by the front door. No one’s shoes got muddy because you would wear galoshes over them in rain or snow.
As for the OP “making an observation”, yeah, it sounds like a MIL making an observation “good for you not being embarrassed to be seen like that!”
Niquii, my gen invented ripped jeans, back in our day. But natural aging, not from some factory. “The look” was with an expensive pullover sweater. And yup, I still get it.
So, in summary, we all have different clothing standards, routines and habits.
And just like many threads on CC, that’s ok.
But I do think it’s good that we have the discussion anyway so as to perhaps open eyes/minds to other standards/ways of living, thinking, etc.
How about this: nice upscale inn in Savannah…guy walks into breakfast, barefoot. People were gawking, especially the young people which I thought was interesting.
Barefoot is usually covered by the Dept of Health regs, no?
@lookingforward Not that older people don’t understand the style or that the current generation created it, but my mom didn’t understand the appeal to it because she’s not from America and she didn’t grow up in the culture that those her age did in America. That’s all.
@dke I’m cringing only because I hate walking barefoot in public places. @-)
^^^ They must not have had the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy.
We ate a restaurant last week that had a sign, “No shirt, no shoes, no service, and we’d appreciate it if you wore something below the waist too.” Too funny.
I think most kids as they get older, figure out when and where to dress. Like takeitallin’s son, mine owned nothing in between beat up work wear, steel toed boots and one formal outfit. When he began working as a team lead and meeting with clients, he began wearing khakis and polos with the company name on them. This wasn’t required, but it matched what other leads were wearing. Now that he has his own company and needs to ratchet up his look even more, he has. Out on his boat or camping, though, he is back to his torn jeans or cargo shorts and ratty tee shirts. At 18, though, I’m not sure he’d have thought, when meeting friends of friends after a hot, busy weekend, to bring dress clothing.
@uskoolfish, thanks for the link. (#561, for the curious.) You wrote,
This is why this thread is so interesting.
That same garment would trigger a “you’re not going out in public in that, are you?” from me, if my daughter wanted to wear it for anything but a beach cover-up. Calling it a dress does not make it a dress. This link, of a different model in the same “dress,” may make my objections clearer: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=33204645&category=W_APP_DRESSES&color=086.
This dress, from the same catalog, is about 3" longer, and “works” as a dress: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=33497207&category=W-DRESSES-TEE&color=008.
However, while traveling, it may be easier to just throw in a pair of jeans or dressier pants, than to set up a situation which requires another pair of shoes.
As to shoes in the house, around here it’s common practice to remove shoes when entering a house. Everyone does it, even plumbers and carpenters. I did once see my sister’s MIL’s shocked reaction, as my kids slipped their shoes off when entering their aunt’s house for a family party.
Again, regional. In our town, my kids were being polite. Had we moved to the MIL’s town, my kids would have had to learn a different set of behaviors. Or learned which households expect the shoes to come off at the door as a sign of respect, and which households expect shoes to stay on the feet, as a sign of respect.
Which is why there’s often room for differing options. The MIL may have lost potential friends by being turned off seeing shoe-less feet in someone’s own home. Her loss. Probably not someone the shoeless guy needed in his life anyway.
Just make sure you are wearing clean underwear in case you get in an accident!
Underwear. I’m bagging some of my kids’giveaway clothes now and found 1" shorts. Rolling my eyes.
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However, many of the women accompanying the men in tuxedos, did not really wear what I would consider formal clothing. There were some lovely short and long dresses, but they were not evening wear (let alone black tie.) Much more color than I would have expected from a very NY crowd. Lots of patent leather or leather shoes vs. fabric or shoes with sparkle.
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Wow…that’s strange. Usually I see the wives dressed better than the H’s.