It started out like any other Monday morning.  Showered, got dressed, made coffee and breakfast.  Carmen had an omelet and grits.  She washed it down with some apple juice (a special treat in our house, we don’t do sugary drinks).  She watched Sesame Street as she does most mornings. Terri and I drank our coffee as we got ourselves caught up on Twitter, Facebook and blogs we frequent.

It was like any other morning until the tears started to flow.

Carmen’s always been a girly-girl.  She likes wearing skirts and dresses.  Every outfit needs to have pink somewhere in it.  It has always been a struggle to put jeans on her, but never like this.

The very nanosecond the whimpering started, I was asking her what was wrong and why she was crying.  She finally told me after some prying.

*Sob*Sniffle* [Lucy] doesn’t like it when I wear jeans. *Sniffle*

Oh, really? Needless to say, there was a conversation about how we shouldn’t care what Lucy likes.  It didn’t matter.  She was in her mother’s lap in 3 seconds flat, sobbing on her shoulder.  Terri went on and on about how that’s not a true friend.  She asked her if any of her other friends made fun of her about her clothes.  Not a one.

We’re talking about skinny and bootcut jeans here.  Not sweatpants and ragged t-shirts.  The other girls wear the same thing she does, but Lucy doesn’t and Lucy doesn’t like that Carmen doesn’t follow suit.  And let’s call a spade a spade here.  Some of those children are under subsidized care.  We’ve observed Carmen’s class.  She plays with all the children in her class without reservation.  Lucy, however, well… from what we saw, none of the children go out of their way to play with her.  Carmen is the only one who does, simply because she does with all the other kids in her class.  Since she is the only one paying attention to her, she wants to hold onto her and in doing so she becomes a bully.

Terri said she used to get made fun of because of her clothes when she was a child.  I was one of those subsidized kids when I was in preschool (Head Start) and elementary school.  While my parents and grandparents made sure I was dressed appropriately, my clothes were clearly less expensive than the clothes of the other kids in my class.  It didn’t matter.  Clothes were never a thing.  I got teased for things like my glasses and weight (I was huuuuge!).  I never got teased for what I was wearing.  Maybe the clothes teasing is just a girl thing.  [Shrug]

I didn’t see that type of teasing until middle school in the 90′s when sneakers were all the rage.  Even so, I would tell them I didn’t care what sneakers I was wearing.  That statement was true.  To me, sneakers, like I feel about cars now, are just to serve a function.  I didn’t like how basketball sneakers felt.  I would rather have good jeans, t-shirts, etc. than spend $100+ on a pair of sneakers.  I had nice sneakers.  I just didn’t have the same sneakers as everyone else.

I was irritated.  I was irritated that Carmen let herself be influenced by another child that much.  I was irritated that because of the pressure she felt from that child, it put a blemish on what otherwise would’ve been a perfectly fine Monday morning.  But most of all… I was extremely irritated, because we’ll eventually have to go to that kid’s birthday party.