Did your parents take you shopping for a new outfit for the first day of school?
In my house the first day of school outfit was practically a religious ritual. Head to toe newness. No compromises. No wearing the shoes the week before to break them in. Perhaps this is why I still associate blisters with the first day of school. Small price to pay however, for the thrill of making yourself over on a yearly basis.
The outfit was more that just clothing. It was representative of who you were going to be that year. It was your one chance to break out of the mold, reset the clock, emerge fresh and anew as a preppie, a punk or a bohemian free spirit. Even if you’d been a card carrying member of the geek club for the last three years.
So much happens over the summer. New kids move to town. Growth spurts change you from pudgy to lanky. Braces are put on, or removed. You go to camp. You dance with a boy. You discover eyeshadow. You cannot remain unchanged.
A new school year is a blank notebook, a fresh start. The new outfit therefore, made perfect sense. The first day of school, as they say in reality tv talk, was the “Big Reveal”.
My own girls love to shop for their mom mandated outfits but it’s not quite the same as when I was their age. Constant connectivity via computers and cell phones have made the shopping experience more of a group exercise, rather than one you’d share with your mom and a close friend or two. The reinvention of self loses some of it’s impact when a few hundred of your friends all see your outfit choices on Facebook and place their votes on punk vs retro before you’ve even left the dressing room. This is where too much information is not necessarily a good thing!
I’m a little nostalgic for that fresh sense of possibility that existed for me as a kid each new school year, which is why I’m urging my kids to stay offline a little bit more than usual at the end of summer. Start the year fresh that way, I say. Give yourself a little space to surprise your friends.
Who knows, you may just surprise yourself as well!
Question for Parents: Do you sometimes feel the New Year New You phenomenon hit you with the new school year, even though you’re not the one going back to school? Is this the year you become the room mom? The class photographer? The party mom who bakes the cupcakes? It’s never too late to reinvent yourself, is it?
Originally posted as part of VolunteerSpot’s Views on Back to School Series. VolunteerSpot’s free online sign up sheets save time, eliminate reply-all email, and make it easy for more parents to get involved at school. Register at VolunteerSpot before October 1st, 2010 using promotion code “TeachersSave” for a chance to win $100 in free classroom supplies for the teacher of your choice from ClassWish.
At the start of the school year, I feel the renewed zest for making my kids breakfast rather than sending them off with a belly full of cold cereal or instant breakfast. French toast, banana pancakes, eggs and toast…my effort to be a good mom is usually only appreciated by the child who doesn’t primp (yet) and has more than two teeth, my six-year-old.