FASHION : Negotiating Strategies in Kids’ Style Wars
Most preteen girls who shop at the Kids Mart in Burbank stop cold when they see a certain outfit: a simple black dress with a matching jacket. Store manager Jocelyn Neris said she hears many girls beg their parents to buy the suit for holiday parties.
But the adults usually say no.
It’s not the style, which is unadorned except for four gold buttons on the jacket. “It’s not the price,” said Neris, who considers it a bargain at $23.95. “It’s the color.”
An all-black outfit for a preteen doesn’t win the hearts of mothers and fathers--even at holiday time. Such clothing disputes span the seasons, of course. But they seem to peak during December, when parents must judge what is appropriate to wear to holiday get-togethers and to give as Christmas or Hanukkah gifts.
According to parents, children and salespeople, here are the items kids want most and parents like least:
* All-black outfits.
* Bart Simpson T-shirts.
* Tights topped with miniskirts or long, loose-fitting tops (“dress-blouses”).
* The pricey ($95 and up) PUMP line of Reebok kids’ basketball shoes.
Disputes about these items can transform the jolliest soul into a Scrooge. Salespeople--the childless ones, anyway--can pop an aspirin and forget about it the minute they lock up for the day. But parents may be faced with sullen silences or incessant begging for hours or days on end.
Nevertheless, such disputes are part and parcel of growing up, mental health experts say. They are, in fact, a sign of normal, healthy development.
“About 40% of the teens and parents I see have some sort of issue with clothing,” said Dee Shepherd-Look, a Woodland Hills psychologist who specializes in treating children and adolescents.
Underlying the warfare, whatever the season, is the child’s attempt to become an individual, said Dr. Alan Sandler, director of child psychiatry at Pine Grove Hospital and Mental Health Center in Canoga Park. It’s a paradoxical process, Sandler acknowledges. “In becoming his own person, the child often wears the same uniforms as everyone else.”
The development of distinct clothing tastes--even though they may be a carbon copy of a best friend’s--reflects a child’s growing independence, said Gary Alan Fine, professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, Athens. It means a child is “moving away from the family as the center of his existence” and learning to reach out to peers. “That can be threatening to parents,” Fine said.
But compromises over clothing disputes are possible, according to experts. Some parents agree, and describe the compromises they’ve made that keep the whole family happy--or at least on speaking terms.
Pat and Gary Emery of Los Angeles, for instance, set a $50 limit when their 11-year-old son Zack needs a new pair of athletic shoes.
“Anything above that, he can come up with the difference,” explained Pat Emery.
When Marcia and Carl Skolnik’s daughter Jessica, a seventh-grader, wanted black tights with lace trim and a “baby-doll” dress, the parents balked, reasoning that it looked too seductive. The neckline was much too far off-the-shoulder for Marcia’s taste. So the Burbank parents compromised: “She can wear the off-the-shoulder baby doll top and tights to school as long as she wears a turtleneck underneath,” Marcia said.
Parents who don’t like the tights-with-miniskirt look often talk their daughters into wearing longer skirts, salespeople say.
And those who balk at the popular all-black dress in Kids Mart often persuade their daughters to choose a similar style with a black-and-white polka dot top instead, Neris said. Parents say it looks more childlike.
Parents in the midst of wars over Bart Simpson shirts often give a go-ahead to some of the “milder messages” as a compromise. Or, salespeople say, they talk their offspring into a shirt with a Raiders or other sports team logo.
Some parents admit they just give in--budget allowing--and buy whatever clothing their offspring want. Some reason that’s more economically sound over the long term. Why buy a shirt your child hates, for instance, only to have it hang in the closet until his arms grow longer than its sleeves?
Other parents don’t cave in to a child’s every clothing whim. But they are reluctant to impose too many restrictions on clothing purchases, fearful of repressing their child’s need to express individuality. Pat Emery has this guideline for her son, who wears school uniforms all week: “If the clothes he wants say, ‘I’m cool’ or ‘I’m different’ I allow them. If they seem to say, ‘I’m dangerous’ or ‘I’m sexy’ I won’t allow them.”
Dave Cagle, a West Los Angeles free-lance writer, follows much the same philosophy with his daughter Heather, 7. “A child’s clothing is a way of expressing herself,” he say. He is liberal, with two exceptions: “If she wants to wear something that’s inappropriate for the weather--like sweat pants to the beach in July--or if I think her attire is inappropriate for the occasion, like wearing her jams and pink tank top to a wedding.”
Understanding the dynamics behind a child’s particular wardrobe wishes can help parents decide when to refuse, when to compromise and when to give in.
Young fans of black clothing may be trying to look sophisticated, or may be working their way through a rebellion phase. “Black clothing is anti-authoritarian, because it started out as punk attire,” said Shepherd-Look. But all-black attire for children strikes fear in some parents, said Shepherd-Look, because many equate it with the occult, gangs, witchcraft and heavy-metal rock groups.
Bart Simpson fans are probably snarling their way through rebellion, too, said Shepherd-Look, who is also a professor of psychology at Cal State Northridge. The Simpson shirt messages (such as “I’m Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?”) express an inner child we all have, Shepherd-Look said. “And it’s more socially acceptable, in my opinion, to wear a Simpson shirt than to say ‘bleep-bleep’ to a teacher.”
Girls who ask for tights paired with an oversize, loose-fitting “baby-doll” style blouse may be torn between their wishes to stay a child and society’s pressure to grow up and to look seductive. “The look is a contrast,” Shepherd-Look observed. “The top is very childlike and feminine, loose-fitting. The tights are very sexual.”
PUMP fans enjoy a pretty transparent fantasy, said Walter Woods, an Atlanta psychologist and consumer research consultant. They can be airborne. They can be a great basketball star. They can be the next Michael Jordan.
“One fundamental fact about kids and dress is their desire to be affiliated with a particular team or individual, a hero of some sort,” Woods said. But kids offer other reasons as well. Wearing PUMP shoes, they say, is bound to impress classmates simply because they are new and expensive.
Even the most tuned-in parents might experience a guilt trip on the heels of a shopping trip. “We remember the battles we had with our own parents, over such fashions as bell-bottoms and miniskirts,” Fine said. “On one hand, we want to give in and say what we wish our parents would have said. But then practicality sets in. And we begin to understand where our own parents were coming from.”
