Some days I stand my ground and tell my four-year-old daughter what to wear.
It is a co-ordinated outfit, contains no Disney characters and most importantly; it all matches! Most days however, I lose the will to live and let her dress herself…
It’s a daily battle between mother versus child. The battle commences at approximately 7am every day:
Stage 1: Opening discussions
It’s groundhog day in our house.
Every SINGLE day begins with a clothing debate along the lines of: “No, you can’t wear a size two sundress. Not only because it’s 5 degrees outside, but because wearing a mini-dress is frowned upon at pre-school.”
Sometimes it goes likes this: “No, you can’t wear the same spotty dress you have been wearing for seven days straight,” and even, “No, you can’t model a Tinkerbell swimming costume with tights.”
This usually leads us onto…
Stage 2: Negotiations
At this point I’ve usually spent around 10 valuable minutes in her bedroom selecting and suggesting suitable items.
For a four-year-old she has a pretty impressive wardrobe containing a large number of items which have yet to be worn. This is because they do not exactly match her criteria:
must be pink (although will accept purple in exceptional circumstances)
display gaudy princess images or at the very least a dog or cat
contain embroidery or stitching
must not bear creases or anything that is “sticky outy”
must not have pockets
ideally would feature at least one bow.
Stage 3: Breakdown in negotiations
At exactly 7.30am every single day I officially lose my temper and flounce out of her bedroom, morphing into my mother shouting as I go down the stairs not to “come running to me if she catches a cold” from wearing a nightie to pre-school.
She is now in a pyjama top, beanie and princess knickers.
Stage 4: Deadlock
At this stage of the process, the four-year-old is upstairs sulking in her bedroom and I am in the kitchen swearing as the innocent two-year-old politely asks for some breakfast.
There’s lots of noise coming from upstairs which lets me know that she’s now emptying the contents of her wardrobe to find a compromise item of clothing.
Stage 5: Ceasefire
A temporary reprieve is granted whilst breakfast is served to the four-year-old who is now wearing a Frozen Elsa dress.
Stage 6: Defeat
It is now 8.15am and we have to leave the house in 15 minutes.
My mood has officially escalated from angry to uber-stressed trying to dress the two-year-old who is asking to wear a flamenco dress instead of jeans today.
It is at this point the four-year-old usually appears (minus socks) in a mismatched, weather inappropriate ensemble.
Sometimes it’s Christmas leggings with a toddler’s sundress, and other times it’s an eclectic mix of a princess dress with jeans and an over-sized cardigan.
Each outfit is complemented with a pair of red shoes and a fuschia pink coat or Peppa Pig wellies.
Stage 7: Submission
With no available time left to argue about her outfit and with my stress levels much like a cartoon bomb with a lit fuse hastily burning away, we leave the house.
I can’t bear to look in too much detail at what she’s thrown together, and find myself over-compensating to her pre-school teacher explaining she dresses herself, and how I long for the days of school uniform.
However, the teacher points out that I should be embracing this stage, that she’s displaying her creativity and independence.
I hadn’t really thought of it this way. All I was upset about were the untouched Boden dresses longing to be worn.
I also never actually have a good reason why she can’t wear mismatching clothes, or Christmas jumpers eat Easter – who am I to stifle her creativity?
I wonder if a career in fashion is on the cards – the next Stella McCartney perhaps?
But then I notice she’s wearing woollen tights that don’t cover her bottom with an size two Elsa t-shirt and think probably not.
Written by Emma Mackley of Squashed Raisins.
Emma is a part-time freelance PR manager and full-time mother of two small people with the ability to leave squashed raisins everywhere possible and lose every pair of socks they own. She is heading too quickly towards 40 and still believes she is 30.
