As a kid, did your mom ever make you wear an article of clothing that you absolutely hated?

One Halloween my parents waited to long to get me a costume and I had to wear a Laurel and Hardy costume. Yes, a plastic mask with both faces and a costume with ½ a character on each side. That was awful and humiliating. I don’t remember how old I was, maybe 2nd or third grade.
Both my parents are dead now so I can’t ask them what the heck they were thinking.
After a devastating experience like that it’s no wonder you hated that shirt!

@Judi I think we both came from a time when adults didn’t think very deeply when it came to the kids. Kid’s problems were usually brushed aside.

@Dutchess_III , I wish I had a picture. It would make awkward family photos for sure!

You poor kid! I’m so sorry.

The mini suits I had to wear on Easter were unfun to say the least. They were always hand-me -downs from my cousins that never fit right either.

Yes. There was a little pleated brown skirt that I loathed. I didn’t want to wear anything brown. I thought it was hideous. I had to wear that to school often during fourth or fifth grade, and I probably made a fuss every time.

A few years later, I’d have loved it, but by then it was too small.

A gimp suit every time I was naughty.

When I was maybe age 14 or 15, my mother gave me a hideous summer dress. It was baby-blue with white polka dots, and it had a dropped waistline and pleated skirt. The thing was so hideous, strangers would make insulting comments. Mom forced me to wear it everywhere.

I finally ripped the skirt from the rest of the dress and claimed that, aw gee, I’d caught it in a car door. That was the end of the dress.

The following summer, she bought me an even uglier dress, again in baby blue. Every time I was going anywhere, Mom would order me to “Wear your new blue dress.” I was smarter this time; I cut the fabric so that the entire thing was ruined and said that, what a shame, I’d caught it on a sharp piece of metal.

I was very young and the local shoe store only had two pairs of shoes that fit my flat, wide, feet. I protested against them. My mom decided which pair to buy, and I continued to cry and tell her they were ugly and I hated them. I was probably around 4 or 5 years old. I remember wearing them out of the store and crying as we walked down the street. In my mind, as I think about it, I really hated them. I wasn’t just whining to get my way, or trying to test my mom, I was simply miserable.

I don’t remember if I continued to wear them, or if they wound up sitting in the closet. I want to call my mom and see if she remembers. We had very little money when I was young. If I got away with not wearing them it would have been a little bit of a hardship on my parents.

Update: My mom doesn’t remember it at all. A serious trauma in my life and nothing. No effect.

Oh @JLeslie , I don’t even want to think about shoes! At the beginning of the school year I was allowed to get one new pair of shoes. I had to find something that I could wear with pants but wouldn’t look hideous with a dress as girls HAD to wear dresses to school (Pants weren’t allowed, I’m that old.) It was always a struggle.
I remember one time my big brother took my best friend and I to K-Mart (It had just opened, now that store is town down) and bought my best friend and I some new running shoes. (Although we called them all tennis shoes back then.) I felt so very special!

Wow. I have the same kind of tragic shoe story. I was in 3rd grade. We were heading to Oklahoma to stay with some relatives in at their cabin on the lake. Apparently I didn’t have appropriate shoes, so we stopped by TG&Y on the way out. Mom picked out these hideous orange tennis shoes. I begged her for white ones, but she put her foot down and made me wear the orange ones. I wore them for that trip, feeling like a clown the whole time, and after that I think they got lost.

We had to wear dresses to school too. I guess the boys trying to look up our dresses wasn’t an issue with the schools or the parents.

@Love_my_doggie…. your story almost sounds like your mom was actually malicious about the dresses…was she? Or was she just ditsy, like my mom?

@Judi I didn’t grow up so poor that I only had one pair of shoes, but shoes are a really big deal I know. I remember having one pair of sandals in the summer, some years it was really cheap flip flops, a pair of sneakers all year, and a pair of baby dolls or dress shoes for colder weather. I don’t think I always had boots for the winter. Not that I remember. I also had ballet slippers from the age of 2. Actual ballet slippers for ballet class.

Shoes are not something a parent can easily sew themselves, or get a hand-me-down.

I remember a friend of my mom’s at one time her mom wrapped her feet in something like butcher paper to send her to school. Someone came through and gave her shoes.

My dad and my uncle (one of my dad’s best friends from childhood) tell a story of buying pink suede shoes for $2 and dying them blue. They barely had shoes on their feet as kids. The suede shoes were when they were teens and my dad had been earning some money as doing odd jobs.

We were far from poor, but I didn’t have a ton of shoes either. And I never wore shoes in the summer.

I don’t have kids, but I would guess most children don’t have a lot of shoes. They grow right out of everything anyway, and shoes need to fit.

@Dutchess_III ”…. your story almost sounds like your mom was actually malicious about the dresses…was she? Or was she just ditsy, like my mom?”

Most likely a combination of both. She thought that the dresses were truly adorable (ditzy), but she also ignored the fact that I hated them (malicious).

There was certainly some malice in the way that she made me wear them so often. She had decided that I WOULD wear those dresses, and she refused to accept otherwise.

The worst part – after an entire summer of Dress #1, I figured out how to destroy it without hurt feelings or an ugly fight. It was finally gone. Then, the following summer, I had to deal with Dress #2.

@JLeslie I have a similar story to tell. I got real sick with the flu at 10 years old and was confined to bed rest for 6 months while I recovered. I had to learn how to walk all over again and in the process became badly pigeon toed. I had to wear these orthotic corrective shoes called Thomas heels which were the dorkiest looking black leather dress shoe. I had to wear them all the time for 2 years even outdoors when playing sports. I got teased non stop for those shoes.

Six months, @Cruiser?? WTH? You sure it wasn’t polio or something?!

@Love_my_doggie was she, by chance, raised by parents who immigrated here? That was a lot of my Mom’s deal. Her parents came from Holland and they were tough. Kids didn’t have a voice and complaints were just ignored.

My Mom used to sew. Once, when I was 14 she made me a halter top. It’s just a shirt with almost no back, and it tied around the neck. You couldn’t wear a bra with it. She made me wear it a few times. I was SO uncomfortable. At 14 I was fully bloomed, at a size 36C. I’d been fending boys and full grown-assed men off for about 2 years at that point, and wearing things like that didn’t help.
When I was 15 she made me a jumpsuit with a plunging neckline. She KNEW how uncomfortable I would be. I mean, when I was 7 I begged her to somehow fix the top of my bathing suit because “When I dive you can see everything.” Thing is, I’d put my hands in a diving position, then scrunch my elbows together, which caused the top of the suit to billow out…and sure enough, when I looked down I could see everything! Which was nothing. She sewed some lace in it for me, and I was happy.
She knew how shy I was about my body, and to this day I don’t understand why she’d make me wear something that made me so uncomfortable, and that, as a women, she knew would attract so much attention. (She was beautiful, btw.)
I wore it one day when I walked in to town. On the way home, as I was cutting across a field, this one car full of guys kept circling around and around the field. I was SO scared to get to the street…..I never wore it again after that.

@Cruiser I think you had mono not the flu.

Aw, how awful about the shoes and the teasing :(. Your story beats mine.

@Dutchess_III I think it was the Hong Kong flu of 1969 and I suffered renal failure/sever kidney infection. I got read last rites as the Doc did not think I would make the night. So it was a long healing process to get my kidneys functioning again.

@JLeslie I don’t think you piss blood when you have mono.

Oh, @Cruiser. That is horrible. I’m so glad you made it to be here with us! And I’m glad it missed me. We didn’t have flu shots then.

I got a flu around that time, too. It was pretty bad. I couldn’t stand up. Maybe it was a weakened strain. Anyway, my Mom left me home home alone during the day for the 3 days I had it. She had social things to do. The phone would ring and I’d try to jump up, and almost fainted. I was pretty sick.

Short pants when I was 6 and a bow tie for my 8th grade graduation She said there would be no trouble finding me in photos, and she’s right.

I have chronic pain too this day due to the fact that, as a young child, I was forced to wear shoes that were too small for my feet.

They never allowed my to choose clothing to buy. I used to get hand me downs from the foster kids who lived with my grandmother.

Let that sink in.

Junior high was greeeat, with my purple sweatpants and 1980s t-shirts.

@Cruiser Well, dark urine is not uncommon at all for mono, because hepatitis secondary to mono is common. I don’t know if hep can cause blood in urine too, I don’t know enough about hep.

I’m pretty sure he had a particularly virulent strain of the flu. Even back in ‘68 doctors knew the difference between mono and the flu.

Damn it @Seek! I just want to go back in time and adopt you. Or even just steal you.

My grandmother used to buy me saddle shoes. I actually didn’t mind them, as she talked them up and made me confident about them. Other kids made fun of them, though, calling them baby shoes.

I was a really passive kid.
I was dressed in bolo ties every week for church.
Although I don’t remember wearing them, I remember there being an outgrown pair of lederhosen in the dresser drawer.
I remember wearing red and white plaid wool pants in Jr. High.

Yeah, I just didn’t get excited about much.

@Dutchess_III Yes, the doctor would know. His mom might have used flu to describe every illness like half the people I know, but I’m going to assume it was actually a bad flu and not continue to question it. I’ve never heard of a flu being so bad for so many months. It’s interesting actually from a infectious disease perspective. I need to google about it.

@JLeslie I am more than a little read up on this topic partly because the flu nearly killed me. The flu beats down your immune system to where secondary infections such as pneumonia and renal problems are not uncommon. When you are pissing blood as in red blood not brown things are bad…real bad and why I got last rites. It doesn’t take many google searches to see just how long recovery from secondary infections can be. I had to get blood draws for over a year and a ½ just to make sure the infection was eradicated and my kidneys would support my young body. Plus my mom was a nurse and was open with me about what I was going through as imagine trying to keep a bored 10 yr old in bed for 6 months straight when there was next to nothing on TV. They put my bed in the kitchen bay window so I could watch my sibs and neighbors play outside.

@Cruiser I believe you. :). I know secondary infections can occur during the flu, people die from the flu every year, so I take the illness seriously, but I had never heard a story as extreme and long lasting as your from the flu. Don’t get me wrong, I know illnesses like the flu and pneumonia can leave your whole body systems weekend for months, even years. I know people who once they had pneumonia, forever after they seemed more susceptible to it than the average person.

Your mom must have been terrified! It sounds just awful. Awful for you and your family.

Edit: I wonder if it was the Hong Kong flu? I don’t remember how old you are? I think that flu was pandemic around the time I was born and quite severe.

My mum seems to have only quite recently started to understand what things I like. I have worn some horribly embarrassing clothes, some of these used to be my brother’s, and, well, just dont dress girls in guys clothing. Please.

I was made to wear my cousin’s outfit all the time because I reminded the family of her. She died while wearing this outfit…

Not that I can recall.

Thanks, parents.

By the way, the shirt is fine.
It is the hairstyle and the glasses that are upsetting.

LOL!! I worked HARD to get that dork look @ragingloli! I thought the shirt was fine, too, until boys started trying to unzip it in the hall way.

@Dutchess_III You must have been a late bloomer, because you grew into a very pretty lady.

Thank you @Love_my_doggie.

Here is me 3 years later. I think it’s my Jr. year. My braces and freckles were gone. And thank goodness for the 70’s where just letting your hair be natural was all the rage. I didn’t have to tape it to my face anymore like I did in the dork picture!

the glasses got worse, though

@Dutchess_III
OMG. I had that shirt. In 1997.

I wonder how old it was…

MOM! Raggy is being mean to me!!

Did you hate that shirt too, @Seek?

Yes. Immensely. I had the same problem as you, actually. More “easy access” jokes than actual assault, but one or two attempted unzips happened.

@Devilishtreat how morbid! Were you in the Adams Family? You poor thing!

Superman was my idol when I was 9 or so. I put together a costume consisting of a bath towel for a cape, red shorts over some kind of long pants, and red socks. I was on the way out the door when my mother made me put on shoes. Boy, I hated that.

Yes. I was a consummate tomboy and one day in 3rd grade I came home from school to find my mother bought me like 6 new, fru fru, girly dresses. I was devastated! haha
This was the 60’s and girls still had to wear dresses to school but these dresses were just too much. I was so upset but didn’t want to hurt my mothers feelings.

It was a great day in 6th grade when girls could finally wear jeans and pants to school.

I remember that, @Coloma! The first pants I ever wore to school were green bell bottoms that Mom had made for me! I felt so groovy.

Groovy man, far out. :-p

@Judi I wish I were in the Adams Family.