<p>I would not buy the offensive t shirts. Actually, none of them were really outrageous, but I wasn’t sure if they’d pass the scholol’s approval, and I didn’t want to get called there from work.</p>
<p>This reminds me of an incident a few years back. We attended my company’s summer outing at a local amusement area. As we were walking into the reserved pavillion area for lunch, I happened to look over at S and noticed his t-shirt…it read ‘I See Stupid People’. I had a moment of heart failure, but then I had to laugh. I don’t think he did it on purpose.</p>
<p>Don’t have any girls. My two S’s have always basically stuck to the t-shirt/jeans/khaki shorts/flip-flops wardrobe. Fashion is one issue we’ve never had to police. I would speak up if they were going somewhere with us and dressed inappropriately but that doesn’t happen often. It’s would generally be something like switching out the t-shirt for a polo.</p>
<p>I went to Catholic schools through high school, so I have quite the collection of plaid skirts, polo shirts, and gym shorts to wear underneath. School uniform shopping for me involved 2 $45 skirts freshman year and a “refreshed as needed” supply of white polos from Target or navy polos from my school’s bookstore. I’d be surprised if my family spent more than $500 on my school clothes from kindergarten through senior year. </p>
<p>As for college, I stick with tank tops, short sleeves, shorts, and skirts for the summer; pants, jeans, sweats, and sweaters or sweatshirts for the winter. If I’m feeling lazy, it’s gym shorts or sweat pants and whatever clean free T-shirt I can find. I’m pretty low maintenance when it comes to clothes; much less work than my younger sister! She’s quite the fashionista.</p>
<p>I require that each boy have at least one third of their wardrobe be at MOST a year old. Both of my boys like to wear the oldest, most faded, droopiest clothes they can find. Just went through my second son’s clothes getting ready to send him off for freshman year. Finally convinced that he should give up the T-shirts he’s been wearing since 8th grade. He refuses to give up his sixth grade field day T-shirt.</p>
<p>This is probably unusual, but the number 1 “limit” on my list is no purchases from stores that don’t treat their employees or suppliers fairly. We will not shop at Wal Mart, for example, because they don’t pay most of their full-time employees a living wage and benefits are scant or nonexistent.</p>
<p>So I walked into my local grocery store after my bike ride, wearing the bright yellow soccer shirt. “BIMBO” in big, bold red letters. and underneath that was CocaCola script, 4 fonts smaller. </p>
<p>its a CocaCola brand, Mexico.
Even DW was slightly offended.</p>
<p>When I was in 7th grade, I got sent home from school because of shorts my mother and grandmother had picked out for me. The shorts really were fine, but we were loitering before class near a really crabby teacher’s room and I guess she was in a particularly bad mood.</p>
<p>Years later it is still our favorite story whenever my mom criticizes an outfit one of us is wearing. “But MOM, the outfits that YOU pick out get us sent home from school!!!”</p>
<p>@Long Prime - haha. I know what shirts you’re talking about. BIMBO is a baking company in Mexico that sells a lot of different types of baked goods. They sell some of their products here in the US too. They sponsor that particular soccer team in Mexico. :D</p>
<p>Both my son’s tend to wear t-shirts with nerdy jokes. Older son has a lot of plain knit shirts, younger son a collection of nice buttoned shirts. Older son only wore khakis and younger son nearly always wears jeans. He has some with holes - I don’t let him wear them to restaurants. Younger son has one shirt which we both think is funny, but he’s not allowed to wear it to school. (It features a knife-wielding bunny and the words “Time to die nerd-boy!”).) I wore my Dad’s Marine Corps jacket with my school uniform. It never bothered my parents, but it drove the headmistress nuts!</p>
<p>When I was in junior high, girls couldn’t wear pants to school- then one day a week we could wear pant- but not jeans.
I was very slight- no hips and it was really hard to find anything to fit- we couldn’t even wear jeans that were made of out of material other than denim.</p>
<p>However, but 9th grade they allowed us to wear jeans some times and by high school they probably would have been thrilled if we had been wearing pants because then our bums would have been covered when we bent over.
I always thought it was ridiculous to spend so much energy on regulating clothing choice.</p>
<p>I pick my battles- but my girls dressed appropriately IMO & I don’t remember ever saying they couldn’t wear a particular outfit.</p>
<p>( although I have to admit- the senior year " unofficial" theme tshirt for youngest was in questionable taste.- but by that point not a big deal)</p>
<p>Kids went to public schools with (pretty reasonable) dress codes, and since our clothing budget is not unlimited, clothes had to conform to the dress codes. Never had a fight over clothes. The rules are pretty simple at my house: hair will grow back, trendy, edgy clothes can be tossed and replaced, tattoos require a major medical intervention to be removed, so use your brains before diving into a new fad headfirst.</p>
<p>Through high school my daughter was always a very modest dresser so i had no worries back then. I did accidentally drop one pair of long shorts she had behind the dryer, not because they were immodest but they were sooo unflattering.</p>
<p>I never had any concerns about my son’s clothing but today he showed up wearing a t-shirt that said “F*%k Cancer”. He was given it at a rock festival for a donation to cancer research!! His dad and I were quite horrified (much though we might agree with the sentiment behind the shirt).</p>
<p>No t-shirts with bad language, drug stuff, or sexual content. Other than that we have really not had any huge restrictions. Fortunately, neither daughter has pushed the limits on inappropriate clothing as far as low-cut/too short clothing. Boys haven’t really pushed it either. They have all held jobs and bought a lot of their own clothing, so we have really not interfered. Older daughter went thru a dying her hair and piercing (lip, eyebrow,nose) stage, as well as some very quirky clothing when she was around 16. She was in all other respects the model daughter; responsible, good grades, great friends-who were also very quirky. She is now a 26 year old high school teacher with all piercings having closed. One of her students recently noticed the slight dimple in her lower lip from an old piercing and made a big deal about it- we had to laugh!</p>
<p>Oh yeah- no tatoos. When they did ask for tattoos, I told them to write down what tattoo they wanted on a piece of paper, and then date it. I would put it away and we would look at it a year later. Their universal reaction at seeing what they had written down was (basically) “OMG I can’t believe I ever wanted that! How embarrassing!” I then told them that if they got a tatoo at 18 when they no longer needed our permission, they would most likely be embarrassed by that tatoo by the time they were 25. They actually believed me. No tatoos out of the bunch so far, and the oldest is 26. We still have a 14 year old coming up so we will see what happens…</p>
<p>Does this strike a chord with me! So many girls today wear tops showing cleavage, and I mean all the way to the bottom of the tatas! I would never have gone out in public like that, and I don’t know if these are “nice” girls with no taste, or sluts trying to attract guys. I just can’t tell.</p>
<p>mommusic … after having had a lot of darling girls show up for interviews with cleavage hanging out, I think that they think they are fashionable and cute that way. Our dress code is a store tee shirt and NO CLEAVAGE so I don’t have to deal with it once they are hired. But I do get to know them … and most of these girls are actually pretty conservative. The ones that are wild … you wouldn’t actually know it by their clothes.</p>
<p>I don’t have girls so my job is easier, but not without it’s own struggles. No t’shirts with holes. By the time they are handed down to S3 even AE and Hollister wear out. No offensive phrases, overt or suggested…Hollister is bad about this. Rarely anything that’s not on sale!! Belts must be worn out of the house, they are thin. If you raise your arms over your head and I can see your boxers put on a longer shirt or pull up your pants. They can’t wear jeans with holes or sandals because of dress codes, although it’s rarely enforced in high school. Once jeans are ripped they stay at home. I won’t buy them that way. On any give day when I’m at the kids school I can tell you what color bra a young lady is wearing it’s that obvious. They don’t seem to care.
For the most part, my kids are conservative. A few polo shirts, oxfords, flannels were big last year. One wears his hair pretty long which drives his dad nuts. As long as it’s clean and out of his eyes I don’t care. He gets it cut for competitions, maybe twice a year. Why fuss when he’s got good grades…
I guess the only other thing is they must respect the dress code for holidays. Very formal at their grandparents, they wear a suit or similar. Anything black tie they just wear a dark suit. Other things are casual pants and oxfords. I’m the family rebel…when we have Christmas here my dress code for all is jeans (or pj’s if you’re more comfy!).</p>
<p>No shorts with words across the butt. I think they are sl***y. Ds agree. Just inviting people to stare at that part of your anatomy.</p>
<p>And I discourage low rise jeans, unless they are wearing a longer shirt. It is hard to find jeans that aren’t super low-rise sometimes. However, one of D1’s classmates had a scene in a school play in about 6th grade where she had to fall on the floor and lay there for 5 minutes while the play went on around her. She was wearing low rise jeans, and you could see right down the back of them for the whole 5 minutes :eek:… this helped cure my Ds of the desire to have jeans that were TOO low in back. They don’t have to be Mom jeans (I don’t even wear those any more :)), but you should be able to crouch down without seeing too much in back. We test this in the fitting room or when they bring them home.</p>
<p>Other than that, we expect them to stay within the school dress code (which includes no torn jeans), and they do.</p>
<p>If the straps were the only issue, I’d agree with you. I guess the flip side is, if the shirt is that low cut, I’m glad something is covering her chest even if it means showing off her bra.
I do know it’s hard to buy clothes for young ladies that are somewhere between looking like a dork, and revealing too much. Tight and low is the style that is marketed at every price point. It’s easy to see that when I’m shopping for my boys. I know a lot of the girls here layer tank tops under really low cut stuff. It has to be very, very hard to find the style you want and keep some level of decency…</p>