Baa Baa. Black sheep?
NS December 13th, 2009
The Noble Child’s pre-school had its Christmas play on Friday and in the days leading up to it, while I was trying to put together a reindeer costume for her to wear, The Noble Husband and I had some rather interesting discussions about it. I wanted to put her in a homemade costume, the one recommded by the school (brown shirt, trousers and slippers with an antler headband) but when I mentioned that I remembered the children from last year’s play wearing matching, store-bought outfits, TNH immediately insisted that if all of the other kids who were playing reindeers would be in store-bought costumes, TNC should be too. I sort of laughed it off and thought he must be joking. These are 3 and 4-year olds, after all! Surely people do the bare minimum for their costumes, seeing as there’s not even a guarantee they won’t pull them off, irreperably damage or refuse to wear them on the day.
But alas, he was not joking. Turns out he has strong feelings about kids (in general but especially our own) not standing out from the crowd, especially when it’s something their parents have chosen or done for them. He thinks our job is to make sure she fits in and is as like the other children as possible, especially in these crucial early years when she is learning how to socialise and make friends. The anti-conformity rebel in me reared her head and countered with, “Yeah, but don’t we also want to teach her that buying things that we can easily make or already have is a waste of resources and money, not to mention what it says about doing what everyone else is doing and being overly concerned with others’ opinions?” We went back and forth a few times, with him calling me a “hippie” (not really an insult in my book!) and me bleating “Baa! Baa!” at him.
Did I ever mention that we’re polar opposites on certain issues? It’s a barrel of laughs at times, let me tell you.
After our somewhat heated exchange I thought about it some more and the next day I buckled when I walked past the party supply store and saw a child’s reindeer costume in the window for £10.99. Surely 11 quid is a small price to pay if my daughter is happy and fits in with the other kids, right? I’d hate to be so stubborn and smug in my personal convictions that I would ignore her wishes or make her upset. So I bought it and then, on the morning of her play, we laid the costumes out and asked her which she wanted to wear. She chose the original, homemade outfit, mainly because the store-bought one was “too itchy” and “fell off her head lots.” I was remarkably mature and refrained from gloating (or bleating) in front of TNH. All we both wanted was for her to make her own decision and be happy with it and that’s exactly what she did. And as it turned out, most of the reindeers were in similar outfits and if she’d been in her store-bought costume she’d have stood out more.
The whole thing got me thinking, though, about how to handle situations like this in the future. Right now she’s only 3 and so it’s not really going to crop up that often, but it will, sooner than I think. She starts ‘big school’ in September and it’s only a matter of time before the next opportunity for assimilation. It’s going to be quite a balancing act, helping her to fit in without encouraging her to be a mindless herd-follower, or at least building enough of a foundation of individuality that her confidence in going it alone or against the grain isn’t compromised later in life, after she is free from the intense peer pressure that the school years brings.
What are your thoughts and experiences on how to achieve the right balance?
