My kids hate wearing shorts. I have no idea why. Today, Jakob asked if he could wear pants, and I said yes, but his pants are being cleaned as I type. So, instead of wearing shorts, of which he has ample amounts in his drawer, he opted to wait for his jeans to be cleaned, and is now sitting on the couch in his undies. Whatever, dude.
Although, I have never really been a shorts wearer, either. But I have some really good reasons:
-I don't shave my legs as often as I should during shorts weather (I'm usually in a hurry or I forget until I'm drying off after my shower).
-I'm cold, like, all the time
-My shorts, until this year, have been baggy and weirdly-shaped, so that I look frumpy(er) and short(er). (I bought some new ones this year, thank goodness.)
-My legs are so white they make snow look gray
But my kids? They don't need to shave their legs (in fact, that would be weird). They're little furnaces. They have these skinny little cute bodies. And they tan easily (I have no idea where they got that from). So, what's the problem? Not a clue. They get really hot outside in their pants, too, yet they refuse the shorts.
Not that I haven't tried to get them into shorts for the two-ish months of "summer" that we experience in Idaho. I've tried many forms of coercion:
1. Concealment. Hiding the pants, so their only choice is shorts or the one pair of pants that has massive holes in the knees. Obviously, today that hasn't worked.
2. Reasoning. "There's only two months of summer. And you'll overheat if you wear pants outside."
3. Persuasion. "You want to wear shorts. You need to wear shorts. Listen to the sound of my voice..." (Hey, maybe I should try hypnotism.)
4. Threats. "You'd better wear shorts today, or I'll cut off all your pants at the knee and you'll have to wear shorts year round!"
5. Bribery. "If you wear shorts today, I'll give you some chocolate."
6. Reverse psychology (with some sarcasm). "Wear pants. It will probably get cold today, like 85 degrees out."
7. Peer pressure. "All the other kids are wearing shorts today."
8. Passive aggressiveness. "Fine. See if I care. I'm only the one who birthed you. My opinion as your mother shouldn't carry any weight."
All to no avail. But, the battle will be over soon, as school starts in 5 days, and then it will get very cold very soon. And maybe next year, I'll come up with some new tactics that will work. After all, I'll have 10 or so months to come up with something.
7 comments:
Those are all great tatics, but I am not a short wearer either. At least when you don't shave you don't have dark black hair poking out to make your white legs look like an exfoliating devise! Shaving is totally over-rated. PS Your blog is the most rocking ever!!
Hahaha! Oh, Jake... And he's also Mr. Hoody-in-90-degree-heat. So hilarious. I don't wear tons of shorts, either, just because all of mine are too big now. And I'm too poor to buy some cute new ones like you have. Someday...
That is so funny! I have found that sometimes it is not worth the fight. For some reason Mitchel insists on wearing the same ugly shorts and the same ugly white t-shirt every day. Even though he has a closet full of cute clothes. I usually just let him, unless we are going somewhere that I might be embarrassed of his ugly clothes. It is so funny how stubborn they can be.
Goober used to be that way until he saw daddy wearing shorts. now it's all good :)
I'll be pulling the shorts away and hiding them when it gets cold around here. Ethan has no problem wearing shorts when it's snowing. Luckily, he is old enough to be reasoned with. Although that will probably disappear somewhere in the teenage years.
Very interesting....Kids preferences are the weirdest things some times.
And I am loving your tactics. I might just print them out and use them as a fun example when my commuications class learns about conflict managment styles :)
LOL My boys love their shorts, but they do have preferences some days! Kids are just funny.
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