S
omebody has to talk about this.
Clothing prices today are insane. I am spending $2,000 on my daughter’s wardrobe and sundry items for four weeks of camp so she can feel like the other girls will like her. All the mothers I speak to agree that six pairs of footwear for four weeks is absurd, but there we all go like “sheeple” to the stores to buy two pairs of sneakers, two pairs of slippers, everyday shoes, and Shabbos shoes for four weeks. (I figured out that the money I make from this article will pay for one pair of slippers for Mindy for camp. If I’m lucky.)
Last night, after many months, weeks, days, and hours of haranguing on how much clothing she feels she needs and how much clothing I feel she needs, Mindy and I finally had it out. It was a moment of candor for her (or desperation) when she blurted out, “You don’t understand how judgy everybody is here, Ma. You won’t have any friends if you don’t dress a certain way. They all look at you when you walk in the room and see what you’re wearing.”
And my heart went out to her, this poor 13-year-old adolescent who feels like her life, certainly her social life, depends on her outerwear.
I remember when I was not much older than Mindy and I left my out-of-town community to attend high school in a big city that shall remain nameless. My mother was horrified at my demands for only brand-name, high-quality clothes. I recall the pressure I felt to conform, to dress and look like all my friends. A lot of the time, I bought my own clothes and toiletries — I didn’t have the nerve to ask my mother to buy a brand-name shampoo that cost five times what she would have paid for a generic brand. I pledged to myself that I would remember this always and understand my children if and when they went through this stage.
