Buried somewhere in my mother’s house, under every book she owns as well as a few of the heaviest reference books I could steal from the library, is a photo album from my childhood. In it, you can find a picture of me, age four, in a lime green turtleneck, red corduroy pants and rainbow suspenders, smiling brightly and holding a scythe several times my size. Staring aghast at the photo, a friend asked, “How could your family let you near something so dangerous?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Children should never be allowed near corduroy.”
Turn the page and you’ll find me in a white shirt and black cape, hair slicked back, a gold talisman on my chest and fake fangs in my mouth. There’s white face paint everywhere, mostly on the carpet and the dog, and red food coloring dripping from the corner of my lips. I think it was August.
Fast forward a few years. There’s a photo of me from the ’80s wearing a purple T-shirt featuring an anthropomorphic shark standing on a surfboard (because sharks, evidently, can’t swim), wearing swim trunks, sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt, and with the word “SHARKMAN!” imprinted above the image. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
There are strong arguments for letting your parents dress you.
In the September issue, there will be a product section dedicated to children’s apparel, featuring clothing in infant, toddler and youth sizes. I don’t have children, but I have enough experience with knowing how not to dress to find the outline (plus I’ve seen how Mike dresses every day, so I just looked for the opposite of that). At the very least, having an adult pick out the clothing has to turn out better than letting kids dress themselves.
Then again, there’s that time my mom dressed she and I in matching Oshkosh B’gosh. Maybe it runs in the family.
