Why I WON'T Buy Back-To-School Clothes

Cry on, Kid.  Not happening.

In case you hadn't noticed, the ads for back-to-school clothing are in full swing on TV. Some of them are pretty aggressive, telling kids the “must-haves” they need to look good come September.  The commercials insinuate that the success of your whole school year is determined by what you are or are not wearing.  My daughter is taking more copious notes than she'll ever take any semester and even the Teen is occasionally looking up from his iPad to catch a glimpse of the latest fashions.

They can look all they want. Diva can plead with and eventually scream at me to take her shopping until she turns blue. I do not buy back-to-school clothes. Here's why:

1. My kids have plenty of nice tops and shorts to wear. They don't need any new clothes. At least yet. 
   
   
2. Their clothes have not been placed neatly in their drawers as I've asked them numerous times to do. Garments are strewn all over the kids' rooms, hanging from drawers, littering the floor. Since my children are not taking care of the clothes they have, they do not deserve new ones. 
   
   
3. The weather is my part of the country is presently cool; too cold, in fact, to go to the pool this past week. It will stay cool through the next few weeks and go back up into the high 90s just AFTER Labor Day. That means any of the woolen/corduroy/heavy-cotton garments currently being sold will be too warm for the kids to wear, probably for many weeks.
   
   
4. They are both due for growth spurts sometime between September 1^st and October 15^th. I'm not kidding. It happens every year and is most prominent in The Boy. The sweatpants that fit him perfectly in early September look like knickers by mid-October. And the shorts that looked great on Diva that first day of school will be inappropriately short a mere few weeks later.
   
   
5. She especially will be influenced by peer pressure and change her mind about what she wants after she sees what her richer friends are wearing. So even if I bought clothes now, she'd want different ones after the first week of teaching ends.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not depriving my kids of new clothes. But there's a massive difference between WANTING a new wardrobe versus NEEDING one. Do I want them to be social pariahs? No. But as I said, they have nice clothes, fashionable clothes, ones they chose in the Spring after their last growth spurts. I'm not asking my daughter to wear saddle shoes and poodle skirts or my son to wear cardigans. My brood will get new attire when the time is right and I decide, not a bunch of marketing executives circling my kids like sharks pressuring them to pressure ME to buy the latest merchandise. “Must-haves?” I know what my kids must have and when. Not advertisers. 

May you, dear reader,  always be able to resist the temptation of marketers...

Thanks for reading!