Dressing Teens in Hard Times

So this is the year that has the potential to break the budget at our house. The clothing budget that is. Such is the case in the houses of all fast growing teens not including those independently wealthy ones. Gone are the days when I could expect my son’s clothes to fit him long enough to wear out. Following my endeavors to update his wardrobe I am shocked to observe the speed with which the floor of his bedroom is not just carpeted with dirty clothes, but with outgrown dirty clothes. Yes, he has a dresser and of course he has a very nice closet and a laundry basket. I’m not going to go into the particulars surrounding his clothes organization system. Suffice it to say that there are some areas in which a young person can safely exert independence and although I do get invasive and insist on the full laundry clean-up project on a frequent basis, the rest of the time I stay clear of the laundry-specific independence stance. I pick my battles.

Anyway, having been especially busy for a couple weeks, I had not observed just how desperate was the situation in Clothing Land for my fast growing teen. Perhaps all that candy he’s enjoyed since Halloween had contributed, but in general I knew I had a problem when he actually brought up the subject of “not-enough-pants-that-fit”. He even threw in a little something suggesting issues with underwear. Let me tell you, teenaged boys never, never, never bring up the subject of underwear with their mothers unless they’re desperate. Of course this made me wonder about all his grumpy moments over the last few weeks and whether, you know, he had been uncomfortable somehow, and whether this problem might have contributed. Something like that would make me cranky certainly. Obviously we had a problem that needed immediate attention.

Unfortunately, our clothing budget, like the rest of the planet’s budget right now, is not so very plush. This situation compels clever parents to be especially clever. Social awareness can be a huge problem with regard to options in such situations though. Teens can hold to an especially unforgiving and expensive social dress code. I myself recall my parent’s effort to fulfill my desire to have a down jacket such as what “everybody else” wore in High School. You know, nylon taffeta shell, dark color, horizontal sewn-through casings, makes you look like the “Michelin Man”. Imagine my horror when, on Christmas day in 1975, I opened the so-promising box and discovered what was technically a down jacket, but which I couldn’t be caught dead in. With a canary yellow broadcloth outer shell with down-filled taffeta lining, not at all sewn through, this jacket had come at an excellent price and was in fact a very warm and serviceable garment. It fulfilled all of my parent’s requirements, but would have been a huge red flag at my school that I was a bigger dork than anyone had previously suspected. I know my parents felt hurt when I was so disappointed and refused to wear it. My dad wore the jacket himself from time to time after that. Some kids would prefer nothing to wearing the best bargains if the bargains don’t permit them to dress in accordance with the social code.

Lucky for us we have a forgiving school for my son to be seen in. We’re fortunate too, in the fact that our son is more relaxed about his appearance than was I. He’s so relaxed that while he might indicate a need, he feels no need to participate in the process of fulfilling that need. Therefore, when I suggested that we head over to Savers together, he argued with me. In his mind, I was perfectly capable of selecting great clothes for him while he stayed at home and played video games. For the sake of brevity I will say that I found a way to explain why this didn’t work, we negotiated a plan and he came along. Of course I took a risk with this. When his older brother was of a similar age, I once tried taking him shopping for shoes in a large sporting goods store. Having gone in search of a salesperson and actually found one, I discovered that my son had disappeared. I scoured the store, not finding him anywhere. Finally I stood in the center of the store and said calmly; in a carrying voice “If Brian Hallesy does not present himself to me right now, he will have no video time this afternoon”. Brian decided to come out of the tent he’d zipped himself into and we found him shoes. Clearly he’d been overwhelmed by what must have felt like a pretty chaotic environment and took practical steps to manage the situation.

Fast forward to last week, when his younger brother found himself inside of Savers, obviously enjoying himself, picking out pants and dress shirts and very willingly trying them on. As I had found out previously that Savers was having a fifty-percent-off sale, we were able to find plenty of acceptable garments (except for the underwear which I later bought new from Target) and kept the entire tab under fifty bucks. This for three nice shirts, three pairs of jeans, a pair of trousers, a pair of sweat pants and I threw in a couple of dresses for myself too.

Next time we find our selves in a similar pinch (in two weeks?) you know what we’ll be doing…

Teaching the Concept of Social Currency

I am going to imagine that you have very polite and considerate teens. That is, they are very polite and considerate to most everyone else besides yourself. My youngest son has taken to telling me that I’m a towel he can use to dry himself on. He means this in really a jocular and somewhat literal way- following up with attempts to dry his freshly washed hair on me. Today I joked that I really preferred to be considered a door mat instead, the traditional position of parents everywhere.

My son’s comments are what I consider to be charming ways of engaging with me while not violating the teen Code-of-Separation. I have in my years of parenting, been called some very awful things by my teens and I had to learn that the really nasty stuff was going to have to bounce off, because it was just a test to see how steadfast I was and how safe my teens were with me.

Of course that didn’t mean that I had to just lie down and take it.

Oh no. There were always consequences.

I’d ignore the ugly stuff and then lie in wait as a spider in her web, for an appropriate time to talk about how I felt about being called names. Generally I would wax rhapsodic on the subject of human nature, one of my favorite topics. Of course I had to reign myself in to keep within the limits of teenage attention spans. I also knew that inevitably my child would need something from me, whether it be video time, a ride to a friend’s house, a trip to the market to pick up something he or she had run out of. I would mention that I always had numerous things to do and that it helped tremendously if I felt good about the teen for whom I was asked to do something. Had this same teen called me a @#% earlier, I would not feel the least bit inclined. Of course recompense would be necessary to reduce my feelings of injury. Extra chores or some limitation in some favorite activity were required. Apologies were also helpful though a particularly surly teen couldn’t always manage to bring themselves to do that. We would work something out. It was never necessary for me to express myself in anything other than a reasonable and solemn tone. Histrionics were never necessary.

When my eldest son, our “worst offender” in the nasty name-calling department, had his first set of high school conferences, I was stunned to hear just how polite and considerate he was to everyone. This included fellow students, teachers and administrators. Well knock me over with a feather. Something went in after all.

This same son, who lives with us now as a penny-pinching, hard working master’s student at CU, although generally exceedingly polite to everyone, still has some attitude about helping out with chores. He recently argued long and hard against cleaning in rooms that in his estimate didn’t need cleaning. Of course young men in their early twenties do not have the same general standard of cleanliness as do their mothers and I make accommodation for this. However, I must also make my needs clear. In light of my son's advanced age, I adjusted my discourse on the topic of human nature to include the concept of social currency. This is of course what I have been talking about all along. Once I helped him to understand how important it is that I feel positively disposed with regard to his needs when he calls late at night (during a snow storm) with a request for a ride home if he’s missed the bus back from campus, he shut down his argument altogether. Of course to vent his spleen he did a lousy job with the vacuuming and sweeping, but that was much better than the alternative (no vacuuming for another six months).

One can only push these things so far…