Fashion: Back To School : The Great Divide : THE DAUGHTER : ‘She Just Thinks I Look Like Trash’

For as long as there have been mothers and daughters, there have been battles over clothes. Valencia real estate assistant Rose Marie Rockel, 39, says she sometimes goes ballistic over what 15-year-old Jaime wears. Jaime, who will be a junior at Hart High School in Newhall, says her look is a form of self-expression. This is how they see it, as told to free-lance writer Andrea Heiman.

“I wear whatever I want, but no matter what, she doesn’t like it. She hates my Docs (the boot variety). I always wear them with dresses and she hates it. I wear black a lot, too, and she doesn’t like that, either. Sometimes if I’m wearing something she really hates, she’ll tell me to get it off--she tells me I’m not leaving the house, she doesn’t want me to go to school looking like that. But I don’t care, she usually can’t stop me.

Sometimes I’ll change if we’re going out together, because I don’t want to start a fight, and I won’t wear anything to embarrass her. If I’m going to school I usually won’t change.

She just thinks I look like trash, but I just like to be different. I don’t like to be like anyone else, I like to have my own style.. . . I shop at thrift stores because I like to get one-of-a-kind things. It’s also cheaper to shop there.. . .

Last weekend she wouldn’t let me go to church with her. I had on a white dress and my Docs, and she said she was embarrassed to be seen with me. She says everywhere I go people stare, but she’s exaggerating--she’s just saying that because she doesn’t like what I wear, and she’s trying to control me.

When she doesn’t like what I’m wearing, she usually just yells a lot and slams doors, and that makes me want to dress worse to make her more angry. I don’t dress this way to make her mad, though sometimes when she makes me mad I like to do it more.

She’s happy if I dress in a way she would call ‘normal’--like shorts and a T-shirt. I wear that around the house, but not out. She doesn’t like the idea of me drawing attention to myself, but I don’t think I (do) because most of the people I hang around with dress the way I do. . . . My friends like my clothes--one always wants to borrow my clothes.

I’ve never really wanted to do anything with my hair or makeup that she said no (to). She’s let me dye my hair purplish red, and she didn’t mind when I dyed it orange. I think it’s funny that she doesn’t care if I dye my hair but she gets so mad at my clothes. . . .

I don’t care how she dresses--that’s up to her. She just looks like a mom going to work. It should be up to me how I dress, too. . . .”

I think I’ll stay this way for a while.”