Twelve months old GD just returned from her first trip to Europe. The biggest challenge was flight there when they turned off the lights because she couldn’t sleep and was getting frustrated as flight progressed. It was better on a way home because it was during daylight. She loved rotisserie chicken and croissants in Paris!
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I was on video call with my DS and my 12 month old GD this morning and she started walking! So exciting! She walked strong 3 steps before falling. And then she repeated. And at the end of the call she sent me kisses 
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When traveling with GD to Europe we usually go later, like after 8pm. We travel in premium economy because we would sleep most of the way. On the way back we tend to sit in the business. GD would have her own seat, but she would want to be with one of us. D1 uses her points from business travel to get upgrades.
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Apropos of nothing, I feel a need to say that I hate when families are required to buy uniforms from one vendor. To enforce the use of that vendor, the polos, sweaters, etc. must have the school logo on them. I don’t want to say anything remotely negative about the school to D or SiL since the only alternative to this school they will consider is homeschooling with us doing it for them. I love our GDs dearly, but I do not want that responsibility.
If a school has deemed that uniforms are best for their students, for whatever reason, then at least consider the not insignificant outlay to provide a student with everything needed. I’d much prefer for the school to say that students must wear pants, Bermuda shorts or skirts in navy or tan with white polos or shirts. At least those items can be purchased from Target, JCPenney, LandsEnd, etc. at a more reasonable price and can often be bought on sale. Why do girls’ skirts and jumpers have to be plaid? And why do even the most basic items have to be bought from a single uniform vendor?
We’re fortunate to be able to provide things for our grandchildren. The jumpers worn with polos and blouses plus the mandatory “modesty shorts” and regulation socks/shoes, won’t break our budget. However, one complete warm weather outfit will run about $105 + tax and shipping, plus the cost of acceptable shoes. A cardigan and long sleeve top increases the total to about $160+. Considering how dirty, stained and/or torn a kindergartener’s clothes can get, a family would need to buy multiples of everything and still do laundry frequently.
At least in high school I could get by with two plaid pleated skirts and a few white shirts. Our sweaters, sweatshirts, socks, etc. did not have to be bought from the uniform company but just had to be predominantly certain colors. I had one new skirt and one new blouse with the others bought used from graduating seniors. I doubt many K5 - 3rd grade students can pass down their uniforms after a year of art, PE, playground activities, etc. as well as inevitable food spills.
I know there are families receiving tuition scholarships for their kids to attend this school. I hope they receive financial assistance with the uniforms, too. That doesn’t help the majority of families whose incomes don’t qualify for any help, but who still find it a strain to buy these uniforms on top of all of the other expenses.
Grumpy Grandmother
I don’t think I can pick a single emoji to reflect my reaction to your post. Holy cow! A child would need at least 3 sets of such uniforms each year. That’s thousands of dollars over K-12!!
Yes, that’s what blows my mind. This is not a wealthy area. Many families are comfortably middle class but they’re also known to be frugal. It’s quite a sacrifice to pay for everything the school requires. Yet the clergy still doesn’t seem to understand why young parents look at these costs, and all of the others related to child-rearing, and decide they can’t afford large families.
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I wish the Catholic school I had growing up (1-6) had a uniform, as my parents were buying out a business and were very sparse on kids clothing - so I repeated clothes every other day (yes, I had two dresses for school). Once I was able to babysit and earn money, and also learned to sew in 7th/8th grades and made quite a bit of clothing in HS. At that time, there was not the explosion of clothing in stores like there is now with lots of choices at all income levels. Later, my parents purse strings were not so tight - dad was very successful with the business. Back then, the parish picked up a lot of the overhead on the Catholic school, and the cost to send a child to the Catholic school was very minor. Even now in my DH’s home town, their Diocese helps with the school overhead to keep tuition costs low for the famiies - and they do not wear uniforms. Not so in my home town in the next Diocese over, which is costly to attend, and limiting to many families - I don’t think they have school uniforms there either.
My DDs had uniforms with Catholic School through HS, but they had used uniform sales, and it honestly made things easy for them on school days/clothing. A popular item for them was when they had a plaid skorts option. One DD went to public 7-8-9 (for the big band program - she was all state on her instrument in 6th grade) and I made sure she had enough clothes to ‘fit in’ – she decided what to get when we shopped. A popular store for her was ‘Forever 21’ where the clothing was very reasonably priced.
DD1/SIL have GD1 and GS1 in Catholic school with the uniforms. One thing they had to have were black leather shoes, which DD was able to buy on Amazon. Their school is Anglican Ordinate, so the British influence on higher ed/peppiness. One of DD’s friends moved out of state mid-year, and DD’s daughter received extra jumpers. GD2 can eventually wear them. The fabric from their uniform store is good quality, so it holds up well with multiple washing. The boys have black slacks and light gray polo. They have red sweaters in a variety - button front, V-neck. The kids have 3 days worth of shirts/uniforms, and DD/SIL does laundry Wednesday and over the weekend. It makes it very easy for getting ready in the morning with the uniforms. With 2 boys and 2 girls, DD will buy extra pieces for the younger two when the uniform pieces fade or get worn out.
The only good thing about plaid skirts is that running a blind hem is much easier when there is a line already there to use. But those darn pleats were a pain. I’m not a seamstress, but you bet I learned to hem when my D had to wear a uniform in high school!
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The trick to this is to have the smallest kids in the class. I did have to buy my daughter a skort from the uniform store when she went to K and it was $42 - a fortune for me - but she was a size 4T and no hand me downs (the pre-school kids didn’t wear uniforms). Everything else came from the used uniform sale at the school for $5 each - shirts, sweaters, more skorts and jumpers, shorts. And after a few weeks we realized they ONLY liked the skorts and red short sleeved polos. Not white or blue (also allowed), not the sweaters or the cute hair bows, or the shorts (because they had to wear a belt with them), not the jumpers but only the skorts and red polos. My kids would also wear the uniform on ‘free dress days’ because it was just easier. One daughter would put on a clean uniform to sleep in so she could ‘save time’ in the morning. Whatever.
After that first year, everyone gave us their too small clothes. Each girl had 3-4 skorts and we had a least 15 red polo shirts and plenty of others too.
They came home filthy every day. Filthy. Those uniform skirts are made out of kryptonite and I just tossed them all into the wash, hung on a rack to dry, and never worried about them. The shirts did wear out (and we had to have the official uniform store shirts), but that’s why red was better than white.
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My kids had uniform cotton tshirts in middle school. There was a few colors—white, blue and black, all with silkscreened logo of the school. I believe they were $15-20 apiece. Any pants, jeans or shorts were OK, if i’m remembering correctly and I believe the school sold them. The shirts were hanes and durable, lasting long after our kids have graduated out of that school.
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Everything needing the logo is crazy and expensive. Fortunately, we had boy, so they didn’t need the jumpers, though our school allowed the girls to wear the same as the boys. Plain white polo shirts and black pants/shorts. But you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find black non-athletic shorts back then!
But my poor younger S looked like a ragamuffin. We didn’t have much $$$, so my kids had 3 white shirts from (K-Mart/Value City) in the early grades. And older S would wear his for 3 years. The first year it’d be too big. The middle year just right, and then 3rd year on the small side. Then younger S got them for 3 years. They were pretty gray by then. But honestly, all the boys looked like that. They survived. Their pants I’d use the iron on patches on the knees. Sometimes MIL would sew them up. Lands End pants were the worst for us. Value City had the best. Much tougher.
For the older grades, a friend gave us these two HUGE boxes of her kids’ old uniforms in all of the bigger sizes. That was wonderful.
Lol this was so true. You could grow out of them but never did they wear out!
My kids went to Catholic private school Pre-K through 8th. Two went to public high school and for a few years the public schools tried a bit of a lesser uniform that included polo shirts - POLO SHIRTS FOR TEENS!- neither of those two has or would wear a polo shirt since!
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My kids also had uniforms at their first school; through 2nd grade for D and 5th for son. Like others have said, those jumpers held up, but my D was not tough on clothes, but she grew long legs, that meant a change of size often to adhere to the dress code length. My son, who was all boy and ADHD destroyed his white polo shirts, the only color allowed. I had several and spent much time trying to remove stains.
I was a bit compulsive about their sweatshirts and jackets, all also with school logo required. When I would go to the lost and found when I knew a jacket didn’t make it home, I was a bit surprised how many jackets and sweatshirts were in there. I remember once see the same name inside at least 3 jackets; did mom just buy a new one ever time the child lost one? 
Again, only one style and color allowed for the jackets. I don’t care if I could afford it or not, going to the lost and found was my first choice. I did send my son to look at times, but he always said it wasn’t there, when most of the time I did find it. I think the lost and found items were sold at the end of the year at the resale shop. Imagine pulling your own child’s jacket to purchase!
The idea of wearing uniform in school is to equalize all kids, so there wouldn’t be some kids who are wearing $500 Burberry dress and others wearing $2 t-shirt. If that’s the case then it makes sense to have all parents buy the uniforms from the same vendor. IMHO.
I wish my girls private school required uniforms. I think their clothing expenses would have been a lot lower and a lot less angst.
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Having gone to multiple Catholic schools growing up, I understand that uniforms are supposed to remove any competitive attitudes regarding expensive vs cheap clothing. In my experience, once kids got out of grade school that didn’t work since the ones who cared about such things made sure they wore pricey/trendy shoes, carried expensive designer purses, wore real gem stud earrings vs cheap ones, etc.
As for making getting dressed easier, uniforms can remove or reduce the time spent on deciding what to wear. I do give them points for that. I wish that this school allowed kids to wear non-logo plain white polos purchased from any store. I’d understand banning things such as a RL pony or LaCoste gator or any obvious labels. The same with basic navy pants, shorts, skirts, and skorts.
GD is off the chart for height and weight, so there’s no hope of buying second hand uniforms for K, and uniform requirements change at certain grade levels.
Oh well. It’s certainly not the biggest school related expense. I also admit that my attitude may be colored by some negative experiences with parochial schools. Plus, I’m not quite ready for this. GD is still four and I think she’s not ready.
I did start a new thread for uniforms! :). Figured others who don’t visit this thread might participate.
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I just got home from a long weekend watching my 3 year old GD while her parents were out of town for a wedding. She was awesome, and we had a great time. She’s 3, so there were some tests of will, but we got through those. Overall, it was wonderful, but my back hurts … she loves pretend play, and she was my baby a lot. She’s really tall, so shlepping her around is tough.
As I enjoyed the snuggles, hugs and “I love you, Grandma - you’re my best friend” moments, I couldn’t help but think that I want to make sure that I remain an important part of her life. D’s wedding this weekend was 45 minutes from her grandmother, and D hasn’t seen her in 3 years (and then only very briefly). She had no interest in going out of her way to visit. Her grandmother never went out of her way to see her, so they never had a strong relationship. I want my GD to move heaven & earth to visit me when I’m old. We reap what we sow.
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