Children And Their Oh So Cool Ways

I described a situation in an earlier blog regarding how I usually dress appropriately for the weather and joked about the parental lecture that accompanies the concept of warm clothes in Winter. I spent a great deal of time this past winter trying to instill some solid principles about wearing warm clothes with my 11 year old son. Even to the extent of purchasing "cooler" outer ware to avoid any fashion disasters. He has some pretty good looking stuff to wear. Does he wear it? Hell no! That would make sense. Oh but don't worry Dads he has it in his backpack just in case it gets colder than -45 degrees. Are you kidding me? He has this very nice ski jacket apparently; which was purchased without a zipper, oh no, I was wrong, there it is. He, sadly, has not mastered the art of zipper closure. So he walks around being very cool (who are we kidding he has to be freezing his ass off) with his jacket open exposing the stylish choice of sweater for that day. :) Then of course there is the classic pulling of his hands into his jacket, which would indicate to any sane person that your hands are cold. So how about putting on those mitts you picked out because they were cool? Naaa, this pulling my hands in thing works better and looks cooler. So let me understand this...it is cooler to look like you have no hands, than it is to wear mitts on them? Okay, got it. How about one of the multiple toques he owns? Those are in his bag too, and besides those are for Summer when he is skate boarding, DUH!! The kid wears a toque all Summer long and tucks it away in his bag all Winter long for safe keeping! UGH! Now I will extend a friendly reminder; Hey don't forget your boots, you know the nice ones that look like snow board boots to keep up the cool image. I get thanked (not in a gracious way though) for reminding him. And as we walk through the ankle deep, freshly fallen snow I find as we approach the van that he has remembered his boots; of course they aren't on his feet, they are snuggly tucked up under his arm while he walks through the snow in his runners....oh wait....sorry his skate shoes.

Clearly I have no idea or concept of what it takes to be cool, but as far as I can tell it has a lot to do with being very cold, having wet socks, chapped skin on the hands and let's not forget the unique fashion accessory of winter boots under each arm. But I digress.

All I can say is, I will continue to try and help him understand it is important to dress properly for Winter and hope somewhere in his brain he hears me. At the very least he can pass along all this wisdom to his kids one day.

And of course, we all know that when we were youths we NEVER EVER under dressed for the weather in Winnipeg!

My Two Cents

Jamie