When Your Daughter Only Wants To Wear Sweatpants

Lounging around the house: Appropriate use of sweatpants

Over the weekend I got into a screaming fight with Fiona about what she was wearing. No, she wasn’t trying to wear something too skimpy or sexy for an eleven year old. Nope, we have the opposite problem. She wants to wear sweatpants all the time.

She wears sweatpants to school every day. Sometimes she dresses them up a little with a nice shirt or sweater, but still…sweatpants. We don’t like it, but the school doesn’t care, and it’s not a battle that we’ve chosen to fight.

Sunday, though, she was going to an audition for a prestigious music program. And the first thing you have to understand about me and this situation is that I couldn’t care less if she auditioned for this program. I’m not a stage mom. I don’t push my kids into doing things. If they want to do them I will try to support them, but the desire (and the work) has to come from them. This was not about me. I wasn’t even the one taking her to the audition.

Riding an exercise bike: Appropriate use of sweatpants

If this had been something that she could do on her own, I probably wouldn’t have given her an ultimatum about the sweatpants. I would have given her my opinion, and ended with something like “But hey, if you want to waste your time, go crazy.”

But this audition was in Manhattan. One of us had to take her there. One of us (Omer, this time) had to spend three hours on a Sunday trekking into the city, waiting, trekking back. If she isn’t going to maximize her chances, we don’t want to waste our time. Weekends are for couches.

Explaining to an eleven year old the difference between being judged for your looks and showing respect for a situation isn’t easy. After a lifetime of hearing “It’s inside what counts!” Fiona throws that back in my face every time I try to get her to wear something that doesn’t look like she just ran in from a playground. Several times during our argument she said something like “I’m not going to wear a dress just because…” I never  told her that she had to wear a dress. This isn’t about looking feminine, or fancy, or pretty.

This is about showing a certain level of respect for a situation.

Doing a split: Appropriate use of sweatpants

She gets the basics. She didn’t argue a few months ago when we went to a memorial service for a relative. She would never try to wear sweatpants while performing in a concert, because the conductor has rules about what the kids need to wear: black suits for the boys, black dresses or pants/skirts and shirts for the girls. But there are no such rules for auditions. She insisted that her clothes didn’t matter at the audition, just how her music sounded.

And I hope she’s right. In some auditions when she’s older, she may even find herself auditioning behind a screen. But she’s not there yet, and appearances matter. Going into an audition wearing sweatpants only works if you’re going to blow them away so much that they’ll offer you the job no matter what, and she’s not at that point. So she has to do what she can to make a good impression.

In the end we compromised on some nice-looking black yoga pants, and I told her that if she didn’t buy better pants, next time she’d have to wear a dress, because that’s all she has. There’s practically nothing in her closet between sweatpants and fancy dresses. She’s been warned and she has plenty of time to find some clothes that make her feel comfortable but still fit the situation.

Riding a bike: Appropriate use of sweatpants

I also told her to look around the audition room at what the other kids have decided to wear. I’ve been to enough of these auditions with Jake to know that there will be a few kids who are way overdressed, and maybe even a couple who’ve gone the sweatpants route. But the vast majority will be in something that as adults we would probably call business casual. It’s what that little society has decided is appropriate.

There are times when it’s important to be yourself 100%. There are times when it’s worth it to go against the system and stand out. But I want her to realize that this isn’t one of those times, that she doesn’t benefit in this case from dressing in the exact way that she wants to. She has everything to lose and nothing to gain from that decision.

In a few years, she’ll be hopping on the subway and getting to these things herself. At that point I’ll roll my eyes and tell her what I think, but the final decision will be hers.