I am a firm believer in hand-me-downs; if it were possible, I myself would dress in nothing but cast-offs, thereby eliminating the need for me ever to enter a fluorescently lit dressing room again. Unfortunately, however, most of the people I know have either stopped growing (taller), or are, like me, essentially cheapskates, and will wear their clothing down to the last threads. My children, though, are much luckier in this regard: they are on the receiving end of so many different hand-me-down chains, and receive so many new outfits each month, that frequently I have trouble recognizing them in a crowd. (Or maybe they’re just hiding from me).
Clementine, at nine, is old enough to exercise some discretion in her acceptance of the hand-me-down largesse: she will sort through a newly arrived pile and manage to fling aside anything reeking of pinkness or ruffles quicker than you can say “Laura Ashley.” Clyde, on the other hand, at five, is not so lucky: he has only my (somewhat dormant) powers of discrimination to protect him from sartorial suffering, and oftentimes this is not enough. To me, if the shoe (pants, belt, hat, shirt, pajamas) fits, then wear it: style, color, and whether or not the Disney character on the front is from this decade or the last is immaterial. This, then, would explain how Clyde came to be practically in tears the last time we went swimming in Oak Creek: I had packed him a Speedo.
“But I want a boy swimming suit,” he said, staring aghast at the shiny blue banana hammock I had pulled out of our bag for him.
Knowing that any sign of sympathy would be seen as weakness on my part, and also knowing that displaying that weakness would inevitably put me on the slippery slope to driving him back home for another suit, I took the hard line approach and said, “Well, this is it. It’s either this or naked.” He eyed the various crawdads, minnows and water bugs circling the swimming hole (all of them clearly just waiting to try out Clyde’s wrinkled little pink “lure”), decided that discretion was much the better part of fashion, and wisely opted for the suit, soon forgetting about the horror of it all in the joy of yet another summer’s day spent falling into Oak Creek. I, however, had a much harder time getting over it.
There was just something sad about my little boy getting old enough to know the difference between “girl” suits and “boy suits” (or at least “European” and “American”). I could already see that the day was coming soon when he would no longer let his sister dress him up as a ballerina, or come home all prettied up after a hard afternoon playing “princess” with the little girl down the street. And my hopes for one member of our family to finally start shaving their legs? Dashed.
My husband, of course, did not take nearly so dim a view as I did. Although he was appalled that I had let Clyde walk around Oak Creek in a Speedo (“People will think we’re German!”), he was proud of his boy for putting up some resistance. In fact, I hadn’t seen him that choked up since last Halloween when Clyde decided he wasn’t going to be Dora the Explorer after all; he was going to be Spiderman.
Still, it’s not as if I’ve lost all hope of having a cross-dresser in the family: based on his proclivity to join any party, any time; his ability to regard most injuries (his own and others’) as marks of honor; and his love for all things wet, I’m thinking there’s got to be a career as a Grand Canyon boatman somewhere in his future.
I can’t wait until my husband sees him in his first wraparound skirt.