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AUGUST 31, 2009

Uniform fashion

It’s school time again! Most children began school last week or will start this week. For weeks now we’ve been seeing the back-to-school advertisements and sales in stores which means lots of new clothes for many children.

I was surprised to learn a few weeks ago that the middle school of the neighboring community now requires its students to wear uniforms. This is a public school, hence my surprise, but many public schools are beginning to implement uniforms. I attended private Catholic schools for both junior high and high school and so had many years of wearing uniforms. I can’t say that I was happy about this but by my last few years of school, I had begun to appreciate the benefits of wearing a uniform.

For children, wearing a uniform evens the playing field, if you will. There can be little competition in your manner of dress when you’re all wearing the same thing. Wearing a uniform can disguise a lack of means – perhaps your parents can’t afford to buy you an entire wardrobe of fancy brand names. This is going to be much less obvious when wearing a uniform. Being a girl, there is a whole let less time worrying about how you look and what you’re going to wear each day. All of this can really help with the self-consciousness teenagers suffer from.

As a parent, I can really see the beauty of uniforms in the amount of money one saves on clothes. Unless your child is going into a new size, you only really need to purchase a few items each year, and some of the less-used items perhaps only need to be purchased. My school blazer, only worn for certain events, was purchased my freshman year of high school and worn through graduation.

Certainly wearing uniforms can be boring and doesn’t allow for much creativity, so accessories help. The library has many books on making your own accessories from knitting, to jewelry, to duct-tape wallets, so check out one today!

Add a comment (1 comment)

posted by MercedesT

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Comments

Rae said, on Sep. 10 at 4:44PM
I would love for my town's public schools to switch to uniforms. I too wore a uniform during high school and I remember loving it. No need to worry what to wear or if it would be "just right". Slap it on and off you went! Not only a time saver but a money saver. Half of our BOE is up for re-election this year. This might be a great time for me to voice my opinion on uniforms!