Worlds pickiest kid

animzmirot wrote:
Help!

I'm trying to shop for camp for my daughter. She's almost 13, wears a size
4, is extremely opinionated about clothing, and we cannot agree on what to
buy.

Sounds normal. ;-

I would like suggestions of web sites that carry hip, well made clothing.

Have you looked at bluefly.com? They're still far from cheap, but at
least the clothes are discounted. Ebay is also good as someone
mentioned, but 2 caveats. One -- make sure that your daughter has
tried on the item and knows her size, or she could make expensive
mistakes. Two -- particularly with respect to high-end jeans, fakes
are rampant. You can also try outlet malls if there are any near you.
And I've heard that some of the Mall Rat stores like Forever 21
actually carry decent quality tee shirts.

SNIP

The only brands she likes are Juicy Coutoure, SoLow, and Jasmine Sola. Does
anyone know of stores that sell knockoffs of this type of stuff.

I don't, but the fine folks over at alt.fashion may be able to help
you. If it's out there, they've tried it on, evaluated it, and would
love to discuss it with you.

I just
can't see spending $75 on a t-shirt that won't last 3 washings.


A lot of people have discussed giving her a clothing budget and letting
her do as she wants. One is only 8 (and a boy), but I still cannot
imagine myself doing that. When push came to shove, and he had no
socks, boots, or clothes to wear to an event, I'd give in and buy him
clothes. So what about helping her to budget? Go through what she
already owns that might fit, even if she hates it. Then list what she
needs (eg, an overnight camp requires that she have x pairs of shorts).
Figure out your budget for items in each category (eg, you know that
decent quality, somewhat stylish jeans are available for $x, and she
needs 3 pairs. Budget $3X for jeans. Help her figure out how she can
get 3 pairs of jeans for $3x, even if that means buying one pair of
very expensive jeans, adding trim to a pair she already owns that's too
short, and buying a third unfashionable pair; it may also mean having
her supplement the budget with money she earns or from gifts.

Barbara

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey, who's driving the boat here? I have a 14 year old son, and there
is NO WAY I would take him to a pricey store, even if he begged me on
his knees. Forget it. I'm not pandering to that crap. Fads I
understand, but not the designer label uber pricey thing. He's not too
young to figure out that our family has a specific income and that has
to cover everything, including clothing for five people.

I digress, but I disagree here. IMHO, He is not too young to understand that
you have to pay for housing, heat, water, food, gas, insurance, college,
etc., and that there is a limited amount left over.

Jeff

Uh, isn't that what I said?

Mary G.

Marjorie writes:

"She also won't consider shopping at Target,
Macy's or Nordstrom. I'm going insane."

Honestly, if one of my daughters pulled this kind of thing, I'd say
camp's off unless she can agree to act like a sensible being. At the
very least, if she won't agree to buy anything reasonable, say that
clearly she isn't ready to make clothing decisions and you will do the
shopping for her, just as you did when she was two or four or six or
whenever.

What kind of camp is this where she thinks she should be wearing
designer duds? My kids purposely wear their *oldest* clothes to camp.

--Helen

wrote in message
oups.com...
Marjorie writes:

"She also won't consider shopping at Target,
Macy's or Nordstrom. I'm going insane."


What kind of camp is this where she thinks she should be wearing
designer duds? My kids purposely wear their *oldest* clothes to camp.

It isn't size or style, it's FEEL. She only wants to wear yoga clothes, and
she only liked particular brands that feel comfortable for her. She's a tad
sensitive about clothing, just like her dear old mum. She doesn't like heavy
t-shirts, only the really really light ones, and she won't wear any pants
that have ties, buttons, or aren't very stretchy. She's discovered clothing
that she likes, that are comfy and stylish, and feel good on her. I don't
feel that this is a bad thing, per se, but the clothing she likes are
expensive and I'm looking for knockoffs.

Marjorie

--Helen

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey, who's driving the boat here? I have a 14 year old son, and there
is NO WAY I would take him to a pricey store, even if he begged me on
his knees. Forget it. I'm not pandering to that crap. Fads I
understand, but not the designer label uber pricey thing. He's not too
young to figure out that our family has a specific income and that has
to cover everything, including clothing for five people. He can have 5
pairs of acceptible jeans from Sears or Walmart and look okay all
school year, or he can have one pair of fancy pants from some designer
store, and be wearing holey pants by Christmas.

First of all, I don't appreciate your tone. Pandering to 'that crap' might
mean something different to you, but to me it says that you feel that I am
such a pathetic parent that I'm unable to keep my child away from what
everyone else in her school is wearing, and you assume it's all
inappropriate "prostitot" clothing. You're dead wrong.

Second, it's rather apparent that I am in charge, since I'm NOT paying top
dollar for clothing that DD wants, nor would I. If I did, would I have
posted asking for help?

Third, much of what DD wants to wear has much more to do with comfort than
with style. She's not begging for miniskirts or bootie shorts, she's asking
for yoga pants and cotton t-shirts. That she has found a couple of stores in
our city that sell precisely what she loves for top dollar has nothing to do
with it. I asked for KNOCKOFFS for a reason. I think it's insane to pay the
kind of money these stores ask for for a very particular type of clothing. I
do buy stuff on sale, when the $68 SoLow foldover yoga pants are marked down
to $30, and I don't have much of an issue with that.

Fourth, I'm SOOO not into allowing my DD (or DS for that matter) to become a
geek outcast because I'm too cheap to buy what the other kids are wearing.
BTDT in my own life, and it's not nice and it feels like crap. I don't ever
want my children to be embarassed about the clothing they own, nor do I want
them to become the butt of bullies or 'mean girls' because they're wearing
clothing that is obviously not au currant. You have a son, not a daughter.
You apparently don't get that at 13, girls are very very bought into the
fashion of their particular schools, and they are incredibly mean to kids
that don't fit in. If your son is oblivious to fashion, well I guess you're
just a lucky parent. Neither of my kids have ever, and I mean ever, been
oblivous to fashion, nor do they buy clothing that is uncomfortable. My DS
has cherry red hair (dyed, very not natural) and is into a black phase. This
his particular style for right now, probably having something to do with
having to dress for school in much more appropriate clothing. I don't care
what he wears as long as he's comfy and happy. He will not wear ANYTHING
that has to do with hip-hop or rappers. He hates the ghetto look (thank
goodness) and that's who he is. But he's NOT a girl, nor does he have the
pressure to be perfectly groomed at school every day.

Girls are different in middle school, and I get mighty irked when people
don't acknowledge that.

Now, as to the allowance, I discussed this with DD and we decided that she
could have $350 per quarter. It makes more sense to buy for a season than it
does to have less money and to have to carry money over for something she
wants with no guarantee that it will be in the store when she finally gets
the money. This time she can buy, for example, several bathing suits for
camp (on sale at Marshalls) and have plenty of money left for shorts and
t-shirts. I'm getting her one of those loaded visa cards so that she doesn't
have to carry the money with her, and she'll be able to choose what she
wants. She also knows that this money is for regular clothing, but for
special occasions, I'll still front her the money. There is no way she could
afford the amount of formal wear she's needed this past year (b'nai mitzvah
year for her and her friends) on that money.

We'll see how it goes. She's had her own money before, and in Sept she'll
probably be getting a large chunk of change for her bat mitzvah, and some of
it can be spent on stuff she wants, but most will go into her college
account.

She's a smart shopper, we do Marshalls and Filenes Basement first, and we
NEVER shop department stores, although she'd kill to have an account at
Bloomingdales, and she knows how to look for stuff on sale, etc. I've
watched her over this past year and she's really quite economical with her
choices, but she really really wants the yoga pants and shirts, and those
are pricey, no matter how you look at it.

Marjorie

"animzmirot" wrote:

You kind of didn't give us the total picture in the first post, which
laid you open to the kind of comments you have been getting. I can
totally see where those people were coming from.

snip
Fourth, I'm SOOO not into allowing my DD (or DS for that matter) to become a
geek outcast because I'm too cheap to buy what the other kids are wearing.
BTDT in my own life, and it's not nice and it feels like crap. I don't ever
want my children to be embarassed about the clothing they own, nor do I want
them to become the butt of bullies or 'mean girls' because they're wearing
clothing that is obviously not au currant.

snip

I'm not sure that there is anyone who isn't embarrassed by some aspect
of the clothing that their parents make them wear or their hairstyles
or some other part of their appearance when they get to this age.

Some parents insist on their standards of cost (like probably your
parents), and some want to dress their children according to their own
style (like IIRC Banty's mom). I remember when the 'New Look' came in
after WW II, and my best friend inherited a lot of clothes from her
cousin of the same age who lived in NYC because the skirt lengths were
too short for the cousin. And this was when we were in elementary
school for goodness sakes.

I know my mom tried very hard to get me fashionable clothing, but she
had her quirks which made life difficult for me. She and I could both
sew, and she could make clothing fit me, and we always picked out the
patterns and material together, so if I wasn't in fashion it was as
much my fault as hers. I really personally didn't care about clothing
except that it had to be comfortable and the colors had to be good but
I had what I recognize now as a kind of passive aggressive style of
just not wearing clothing that wasn't comfortable.

Mom had long hair which she had never had cut, and so she totally
didn't know how to fix hair in the current styles. Her idea of
'putting up' hair was putting hair in rags so that it made Shirley
Temple type curls. And I have particularly difficult hair to make
behave, plus the hair styles weren't really compatible with it - I had
very fine flyaway hair (shoulder length) which didn't hold a set well,
and the fashion then was the lacquered in place page boy.

She also felt that young girls should not wear dark colors of
lipstick, so she bought me pink. Now 15 years later, that would have
been in style, but at the time, all the lipsticks were dark red. It
is a very aging look. I look older in my high school and college
photos than I do now except for that I've got a fuller face now.

In any case, high school, particularly 9th grade was really miserable
for me, but I blame that on the fact that I was a teen at a new
school, and not on any of my mom's clothing buying faux pas.

Now, we have me, a person who doesn't really care about clothing
raising 3 daughters. I dressed my girls in boys clothing a lot of the
time, and I also sewed for them. None of them made any particular
fuss about their clothing except that the clothing for dd#1 and dd#2
had gone out of style in the 5 years before dd#3 came along and the
older girls told me that she couldn't wear it.

In 9th grade DD#3 had to go to an awards dinner, and she didn't have
any skirts or dresses at all (hadn't had any since 6th grade), and all
her jeans were boys jeans, which didn't fit in a particularly
flattering fashion. Since they spent most of their time at the
stable, it hadn't been an issue before.

All my girls have grown up to have their own very stylish way of
dressing. They always look really nice and apparently care about
their clothes. and what they wear. Whereas I still want nice colors
and clothes that don't bind.

So, not only is it not possible not to embarrass your teen age
children, they also don't 'grow out of' the way the feel about
clothing and it probably doesn't have too much to do with the way they
were brought up.

..


grandma Rosalie

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...
It isn't size or style, it's FEEL. She only wants to wear yoga clothes,
and
she only liked particular brands that feel comfortable for her. She's a
tad
sensitive about clothing, just like her dear old mum. She doesn't like
heavy
t-shirts, only the really really light ones, and she won't wear any pants
that have ties, buttons, or aren't very stretchy. She's discovered
clothing
that she likes, that are comfy and stylish, and feel good on her. I don't
feel that this is a bad thing, per se, but the clothing she likes are
expensive and I'm looking for knockoffs.

Has she tried the Old Navy yoga clothes? My daughter loves them for dance.
They fit her well and are very comfy. Look expensive, but are really
reasonable. Is she heading to a dance or arts camp? I gotta tell you those
kind of pants don't hold up on trails if it's an outdoorsy camp. They will
be trashed by the end of the week. Then again, my oldest always went to
airconditioned indoor camps, and there they would do fine.




--Helen

wrote in message
oups.com...
Uh, isn't that what I said?

Mary G.

Oopsie. You're right.

My apologies.

Jeff

Marjorie, I do have a daughter, and yes, she is more fashion conscious
than my sons - but I regard at least some of that as "teachable
moments" where we can discuss values - like, is your self worth
dependent on the value of your clothing? Do real friends shun you
because of labels? Is someone really worth knowing going to bully you
because of your pants or your shoes?

I'm not sure where the prostitute comment came from - not me. I didn't
assume anything about specific styles.

Your comment "I'm SOOO not into allowing my DD (or DS for that matter)
to become a
geek outcast because I'm too cheap to buy what the other kids are
wearing." I suspect this is more about you than them. Your 12 year old
daughter has a clothing allowance several times what I have to spend
per child (unless I'm reading it wrong, its $1500 US per year for
routine stuff - and party clothes on top of that - right?). Phew.

I'm not too cheap to buy my kids well made, attractive, comfortable
clothing - and we shop at places we can afford and they get to pick.
I'm not even walking in the door of designer places, and I don't feel
guilty for a nanosecond. They aren't complaining. They aren't geeks,
and judging from the number of kids routinely in our house on a daily
basis, they aren't outcasts. They also don't get new outfits for every
big dressup occasion - each of them has one or two nice outfits and
that is it. That is just the way it is - parents can and should shape
expectations and telegraph what is really important. Heck, I don't get
a new outfit for every "do" I go to either, and honestly, I could care
less if every friend, relative and neighbour have seen my little black
dress 6 times or not. Hopefully, invites are about the pleasure of a
person's company, not critiquing their wardrobe.

Just because a kid wants something isn't a reason that mom needs to
cough up or feel guilty about saying no, especially when it involves
competing for peer status based on clothing and other material things
rather than character and achievement.

Helping a kid learn limits and how to handle the worst aspects of peer
pressure is part of our jobs (i.e. catty girls - ay, yi, yi, time for
new friends). I guess it depends on what you want to feed into.

Mary G.