Uniform Cure

Elaine Viets 

Gangs in schools. Students pressured to buy cool clothes. Students divided by social barriers.

School uniforms can cure all these ills and more.

The pro-uniform faction makes these claims. The anti-uniform people – including me – respectfully disagree.

Okay, I’m not respectful. I don’t have kids, but I wore uniforms for twelve lousy years, from first grade through senior year in high school. I’ve heard all the pro-uniform arguments. I’d like to give them a good kick in their navy pleated twill pants. Here are a few:

 (1) Uniforms make students equal. Rich kids dress the same as the poor ones.

Wrong. Uniforms are expensive. A standard teen girl’s uniform of navy cardigan, navy pleated skirt, white blouse, knee socks and shoes costs more than a hundred dollars today.

The rich teen’s family will buy her five white shirts, and three to five navy skirts and two or three cardigans.

The poor teen will get one uniform, possibly a hand-me-down from an older sister. Or Mom bought it secondhand. The poor teen will have two or three blouses, if she’s lucky. Her parents – or the girl – will have to wash those blouses. If not, the poor kid goes to school with spaghetti sauce on her shirt. The rich kid will have a fresh blouse and ironed skirt each day.

By the end of the week, the poor teen’s skirt needs ironing. By the end of the school year, the seat is shiny.

(2) Not all kids are equally neat.

Put two kids in the same uniform – rich or poor – and within an hour, the natural slob will have his shirt tail hanging out. Miss Piggy will have half her hem hanging lose. She won’t notice, since she wasn’t born with fashion radar. Buttons pop off the shirts of young slobs and their socks slide into shoes.

Other children always stay neat. At the end of the day, their blouses are unwrinkled. These children can eat sloppy joes and not get a drop of sauce on their uniforms. Cherry pie never falls off their fork and their milk never spills.

(3) Uniforms fight the peer pressure to buy trendy clothes.

 
Dream on. The cool kids know how to stand out, even in uniforms. They’ll wear trendy watches or the latest hairstyles. They get better haircuts. Their moms don’t trim their bangs at home.

In my school, the cool kids had genuine Bass Weejuns. The rest of us wore cheap knockoffs. Our mothers thought those shoes looked the same. But we could tell. Real Weejuns said "Bass" on the sole.  Prop your feet up on a desk and everyone at school knew.

(4) Uniforms encourage discipline.President Clinton came up with that gem. My Catholic school was orderly, thanks to some terrifying nuns. They whacked kids with rulers. One, who used to work for the CIA, was adept at enforcing discipline by sticking her fingers under a kid’s shoulder blade and pulling up. That hurt, but left no marks.

 The boys got the most discipline. Few parents would tolerate that treatment today.

(5) Uniforms prevent gangs from forming on campus.

This one makes me giggle. No, we didn’t have gangs at my Catholic high school. But gangs already wear uniforms. Even with a school uniform, they can indicate their gang allegiance by the right color ribbon, wrist band, shoe strings, tattoo or hand signal. That’s if they’re still in school.

Let’s not forget the scariest gang of all – the Hitler Youth. They were taught in school that the German "race" was superior and Jewish people were inferior, lazy and evil. The Hitler Youth’s extra-curricular activities included beating up Jewish people and wrecking their businesses.

But, golly, they looked sharp in their uniforms.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[mary alice at mystery lovers bookshop]

I am a uniform lover.......mine were jumpers so you only had to iron the blouse parts that would show. Each year my sox, hair embelishments and sweaters would cause a new rule to be made. As luck would have it, my white bucks dyed with green food coloring along with my now green blond streak would cause a kerfuffle that ended after St Patrick's day with no rule changes.
One think's for sure......I got more early morning sleep than the girls at public schools!

[gaylin in Vancouver]

There were no schools in any of the 3 places I lived in that had uniforms so there never was a chance of that being part of my life. I was probably in Grade 10 or 11 before I had even heard of the concept of school uniforms. Given as how so many pedophiles seem fixated on girls in school uniforms, I say burn them all. (Uniforms, not pedophiles, wait they can burn too.)

[Doc In CA]

My high school not only didn't have uniforms, they abolished the dress code in 1968, the year I started going. Closest I ever came to a uniform in school was jeans, t-shirt & sneakers.

[Josh]

You didn't mention a key benefit to parents: the ease of getting the child dressed in the morning without having to argue about every part of the child's outfit. That was awesome, just pulling out the uniform and putting it on them, and never an argument about which pants to wear, what socks, etc., etc. Mary Alice alluded to this point in her post.

School Uniforms = Hitler Youth? I think that's a little bit overboard.

[Reine]

I liked my school uniforms, especially in upper school. No more jumpers. I went to several high schools. Only two didn't require a uniform, nd one of those required a tie.

My favorite was Newman School where I graduated, finally. I loved my rowing cap and still have it. I wear it whenever I'm in Boston. The best of the uniform gear there is a fantastic pea coat with wide tabs that connect the pairs of buttons.

My husband's school in Pennsylvania had military uniforms, not too bad looking but they never suited him, or his brother or nephews. He transferred to Wayland where they didn't have uniforms. He ran away within two weeks, so I guess uniforms weren't the issue.

[Elaine Viets]

I'm trying to see the good side of uniforms, thanks our back bloggers. I can see Mary Alice with green hair highlights and that makes me laugh.
Doc, I guess t-shirts, jeans and sneakers are another kind of uniform.

[xena]

WE had codes but of course the cool kids (think wealthy) had the "uniform.
Little flowered villager long sleeve button down collar blouses with a navy, burgundy or hunter green matching fitted skirt was the code. The belt had to be villager too and the shoes? Yup! Bass Weejans. They went so far as to have the blouse cuff and the sides of the shoes monogrammed.
Us peasants whose mom's made our extremely stylish clothes looked the same without the labels.
Did I mention gym class was also a matching villager pantie, bra and half slip experience? We all wore the same gym suit (boxy white and cotton) but before and after it may have well been the red carpet competition.

[Deb]

I went through twelve years of Catholic school, and I LIKED wearing a uniform. In grade school, the girls wore navy jumpers and a white blouse. There weren't any restrictions on footwear, and I am really sorry about that, because in 7th grade I was teased mercilessly about the saddleshoes that a shoe salesman told my parents would be "perfect" for my feet(I've had foot problems almost from the day I was born!), and that there were even Catholic schools in the area that required them. Mine did NOT, and up until the saddleshoes, I wore the same shoes as everyone else. In high school, we wore navy skirts, a white blouse, and a navy blazer. We DID have restrictions on footwear, thankfully, so I had to wear what the school wanted us to wear, NOT what a salesman wanted to sell to my folks. Also, the meanest kids from my grammar school - the kids who teased/mocked me about my saddleshoes, were in my high school, and they couldn't make fun of me if I wore the same shoes they were wearing.

We were a poor family and my parents put their money into tuition, NOT into clothing. I think my sisters and brother and I had maybe two blouses/shirts that we wore throughout the week and laundered on the weekend.But really, nobody noticed anything about our blouses/shirts, because they were identical to what everyone else was wearing.

In my high school, we did not need to wear our uniforms on Wednesday. Non-uniform wear had to meet very strict standards, though. I generally wore my uniform on Wednesday, anyway, because I was self-conscious about my meager wardrobe. If anyone asked why I wore my uniform, I tried to change the subject, or at least give the impression that I didn't think my non-uniform clothing would meet the guidelines. Everybody understood that, because we'd actually have to pay a fine if we did not dress according to the dress code!

I grew up in a housing project, so obviously we were not the richest people in town! My neighborhood friends who went to public school constantly had to endure people making fun of their clothing. My best friend's mother would occasionally keep her home from school, rather than send her to school with dirty clothing if she had fallen behind with the laundry, because she didn't want her daughter to be teased about wearing the same things two days in a row. With those of us who wore uniforms, nobody could tell if we were wearing the same blouse as yesterday, or one that looked just like it! I considered myself fortunate that I had to wear a uniform!

[Kerry]

I went both routes with my daughter (a brief stint in Catholic school and the rest of the time in public school). I was lucky; she was not a clothes horse, never fussed about her school clothes when I was selecting them, never fussed about her uniforms when she wore them, and never wanted to wear inappropriate clothes when she was in high school.

That said, I can see both sides of the issue. Yes, the cool and popular kids will always be the cool and popular kids, regardless. No, I don't think discipline is related to clothing. Yes, I think an enforced dress code is a good idea.

And if a school is going to have uniforms, I vote for the unofficial uniform of my high school: well worn jeans, t-shirts, and hiking boots :)

[Elaine Viets]

I like the hiking boots, Kerry --good for stomping bullies. Or maybe not. In school I was usually the stompee, not the stomper.
Jeez, Xena, I forgot about Villager clothes. They were the rick girls' uniforms, right down to the circle pin on the collar.
Deb, your parents definitely made the right investment with their money.

[Karen in Ohio]

Nope, Elaine, I have to differ: The scariest gangs were the nuns and the priests. {{{shiver}}}

Deb, I grew up poor, as well, wearing hand-me-downs from my much bigger cousins. Sheesh. I was so happy to get to high school and wear the uniform--it was brand-new (my freshman year was the last year for the all-girls' high school, so they switched to the new skirts/colors that year), and fit skinny old ME. Never mind they were knife-pleated Black Watch plaid wool with four yards of material in each skirt. They were indestructible, though. I'm pretty sure mine got handed down to my sister, who was/is two years younger. My favorite part of the uniform was the hunter green tailored wool blazer, which only upperclassmen could wear. It was lovely, and suited me to a tee.

My best friend in high school wore saddle shoes proudly, and would still be wearing them, at age 60, if she could find them. She's such a nut.

Elaine, you might not feel so repulsed by uniforms if you'd only worn them a couple of years. But 12? Wow.

My kids went to public schools, but my youngest daughter seemed drawn to every potential uniform-wearing institution: Brownies, Girl Scouts, Civil Air Patrol (they wear the same uniforms as the Air Force), marching band, and then college at the Citadel, where they wear uniforms TO BED. Seriously, there are all kinds of rules, and everyone is supposed to switch from one kind of uniform to another, at different points in the day. Which cracks me up, still, to think of mostly male students (93% male population) that obsessed with what they are wearing.

[Laura (in PA)]

Catholic school here too. My high school uniform was forest green skirt or pants, and any color on top, but we had to dress with "Christian Modesty" (our response: who's he?) and wear two layers on top. The big thing then was Fair Isle sweaters: http://www.scotweb.co.uk/products/authentic-fair-isle-yoke-jumper-madder/

Even though it took me a long time to want to wear forest green again, I agree with Josh - if nothing else, it takes a lot of argument out of the "what to wear to school" ritual.

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

Bravo Mary Alice!

Kate's last year at parochial school, she set out to amend the dress code. When she showed up for mass with a fringe of bright blue hair, that did the trick.

The school adopted the "Sweeney Rule" which prohibits 'non-natural hair color'.

We were so proud.

[Pam aka SisterZip]

My daughter went to a Lutheran school and every year they would put it to a vote for uniforms. I voted yes every time and every year it was voted down. The arguments I had with my daughter over her clothes would have saved us hours a week.

Her uniform in high school was flannel pants, baggy tshirts, and flip flops. Everyone wore the same thing. The more random the tshirt, the better.

Sigh.

[Elaine Viets]

Kathy, Kate is a chip off the old block. Sweeney's Rule, not Sweeney Rule.
Laura, your Christian Modesty comment was hilarious.
Karen, I can see why you loved uniforms. Maybe 12 years was too much for me.

[Elaine Viets]

And that should be Sweeneys Rule. I promise no more wild apostrophes.

[Undine]

I have to respectfully disagree, based upon my own experience. Considering the mind-bogglingly awful clothes my family bought for me when I was too young and tasteless to resist, I would have welcomed a uniform. Any uniform. Including a prison one.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Yeah, I could KIND OF see uniforms. The hierarchy thing happens, you're so right, Elaine, no matter if you're told to wear the same thing or not..some people have the cashmere sweaters, some the acrylic.

As for individuality: My step-brother went to a place with uniforms...he wore his inside out.

[Judith Bandsma]

Our schools have 'uniforms' of a type but definitely not the type described. Elementary schools wear dark blue or black pants or skirts (or shorts when the weather gets too hot...no short shorts, though), white or light blue collared shirts (that can be polo type) and either a leather or sneaker shoe...that MAY NOT be a name brand. Middle and high schools wear khaki pants or skirts (or shorts) red or white collared shirts and the same type of shoe. Shirts must be tucked in and belts worn. No hats.

Until the uniforms, we used to get a lot of kids mugged, serious injured (and a couple deaths) for their name-brand shoes and hats. We just don't hear it during the school year any more.

[Debby]

I never had to wear a uniform growing up, except for the god-aweful gym onesie in jr and sr high.

However, I did have to wear a uniform in college, as I was attending a business school for travel, and they wanted us to look and act the part of the profession. In the travel division, we had either camel colored pants or brown skirt, white or yellow oxford shirt, camel colored vest and brown blazer. And I look hideous in browns. Should have gone into medical, and theirs were blue and gray.

Now, one of the local districts is going to uniforms for elementary age after a few years of a trial run at just one of the schools. Khakis (from any store), oxford or polo shirt in white, blue sweater or vest (not always required, but the only option) along with nice shoes or sneakers (only on gym days). Therefore, nothing is really a uniform as it can all be found at most any store, it is just a set color scheme....

[Mary Stella]

I attended public school until after my sophomore year of high school when I transferred to a prep school. We didn't have uniforms, but had to conform to a strict dress code. No jeans or sneakers. Guys had to wear shirts with collars that tucked into their pants. Girls could wear pant suits or dresses/skirts to classes. For dinner Mon-Thurs and Sunday brunch, guys had to wear jackets and ties and girls had to be in dresses or skirts. One year on April Fool's Day, the girls who boarded wore jackets and ties to dinner. Most of the teachers laughed, including the headmaster, but the Dean of Women tried to give us a hard time about the fact that we'd worn pants. Yeesh. Just couldn't take a good prank.

My only experience with school uniforms came a couple of years ago when my friend was sick. Another friend I volunteered to go buy her three girls' uniforms and school supplies for the upcoming school year. Each girl got multiple outfits from Target (pants, skirts, dresses, "skorts", shirts). That was the easy part.

I've been in the house when she's had to get three girls ready to go somewhere, Uniforms save a lot of time and arguing.

Finding all of the supplies, printed in specific detail on a list from the school's website, almost broke me. Each teacher had her own long list of what her students would need. They were so specific on some of the items that we'd have had a better chance finding sunken treasure in the ocean than we did locating the right thing in the store.

I don't remember which item finally sent me over the edge but I got so frustrated when I couldn't find it that I actually called out to the other mothers in the school supply section: Does anybody here have a child going into Mrs. So and So's class at ThisElementary School who can help me?

I think schools should buy all the supplies and then the kids and parents come the day before school starts, pay their money, and pick what they need.

[Harley]

You're right -- uniforms can be HIDEOUSLY expensive. But in the school my kids used to go to, there was the Used Uniform closet, where they sold stuff dirt cheap. Even the wealthy (very wealthy!) parents went there for the cheap goods.

My kids spent their early years at a wealthy private "uniform" school and the last 2 at a public "anything goes" school. Ask which one they prefer and they'll tell you a little bit of both. Ask what they most miss about their private school and they all say "the uniforms."

Go figure!

[Karen in Ohio]

Other places were uniforms are required: Nursing and medical professions; health aides; food service, at all levels, including the kitchen staff; hotel maids; hotel desk staff; bellmen in nicer hotels; sanitation workers; plumbers; cops; firefighters; chauffeurs; airline personnel, from TSA all the way up to pilots; clergy and nuns; and it goes without saying that the military requires them.

Truthfully, a lot of places have "uniforms", even when it isn't immediately obvious. For instance, when I worked at Merrill Lynch in the mid-1970's, all the men wore the same suit and tie. Some days everyone wore seersucker suits; some days everyone seemed to wear their blue suits on the same day. It was fascinating to see how often that happened. I love the costume critique on Tom & Lorenzo of the show Mad Men; it shows so succinctly how dress telegraphs status of all kinds. While the dress might not be a uniform, per se, it does usually conform, in some way.

Look at joint sessions of Congress: When the camera pans across the assembled Senators and Representatives, very often they are all wearing some version of the same outfit, including either a red tie or a blue one.

[Karen in Ohio]

A friend here in town used to make the Catholic girls' skirts as a business. Now they are all made in China, and are still priced as if they were custom made. Scandalous, and a perfect example of how American businesses have gone kaput.

[Deb]

All of us in my office wish that our employer would require uniforms, and I'm not the only one in the office who had to wear a uniform to school! And Karen, I laughed at your comment on how some employees at Merrill Lynch would wear the same blue suits to work on the same days! We've had similar things happen in our office (where the dress code is "business casual"). We're all around the same age (over 60) and have all worked together for a long time. It seems we have either developed the same taste in clothing over the years or we've picked up each other's clothing preferences!

And that reminds me - one of my sisters (the one who is closest in age to me) and I used to go clothing shopping together when we were in college. (Both of us hate shopping, and needed each other's moral support.) More often than not, we'd meet at the store exit after paying for our purchases, and discover that we'd purchased similar - or even the same - outfits, but in different colors. I was visiting her several months ago and she needed some clothing for work. She asked me to go with her. We went our separate ways and agreed to meet at the cash registers at a certain time. I wasn't buying anything but was just checking things out. I found a dress I really loved, and would have purchased if I'd had the money on me. When I met my sister at the register later on, she was paying for that same dress but in a different color. Since we see each other only about four times a year, it just seemed comical that at our ages we would still be doing the same sort of thing we did 40+ years ago1

[Karen in Ohio]

At a reunion of my grade school the other night, all but two of the women were wearing what amounted to the same outfit: some kind of short-sleeved or sleeveless top over capris. Only two of us were wearing a summer dress (I knew going in that I didn't want to wear the "uniform").

The men had even more conformity: Golf shirts and khaki pants, except for the two who were wearing golf shirts and shorts.

[Diane]

Oh, how I would have loved uniforms! Even now, an "I'm leaving the house" retired person's uniform would be lovely. Some people have such a knack for dressing and others (sigh) do not.

[Carol R]

I'm in the uniforms are cruel group. Or maybe the school is cruel group. We immigrated from Canada, where I was a well adjusted happy child, to California where I never learned to fit in. In an effort to help me, my impoverished, deserted, newly single mother, signed me up for Brownies. The uniform was a problem and like all clothing problems we turned to Goodwill. The thing was that I was and am well below average size. They did not have, or maybe even make, uniforms small enough. Since we were told I could no longer attend unless I wore the uniform we bought one that was two or three sizes too big. So began the humiliation. Not that it lasted long in time. I quit within a month. It was the same with dance class. Ten dollars a week my mom could ill afford. The uniform fit but I did not. For ascetic reasons they felt my eight year old self should be in the four and five year old class. Mom had enough battles to attend to so she never argued for me. I quit again. And so began a habit of social awkwardness that lasts to this day. But I'm comfortable with it now. Or comfortable staying out of social situations. I'm solidly against uniform requirements of any sort.

[Doc In CA]

Every time I see a bunch of kids in school uniforms, I get the urge to have them start marching and singing "Another Brick In The Wall"

"We don't need no education! We don't need no thought control! No dark sarcasms in the class room. Teacher leave them kids alone."

[Storyteller Mary]

The only uniform I wore in school was the gym uniform -- ugliest clothes ever!
My niece's girl scout troop doesn't even wear uniforms -- too expensive . . .
I suppose it would make the dress code easier. As mentioned yesterday, it was hard to keep our students decently clad. The "7 B's" helped, as did keeping the thermostat really low in my room (helped to keep them awake as well). I'd hate to lose the individuality, though. Students in our school ranged from Goth to preppie, with much creativity, sometimes from thrift-store finds . . .

[Marie]

I watched a Navy Seal documentary on the Military Channel last evening and somehow it triggered memories of High School and the "Uniform".
It seems that only twenty-five percent of Navy Seal aspirants make it through the program.
At our school it seemed that a similar percentage would make it through the rigorous scrutiny of obeying the dress code. I failed miserably in my first year because I could not resist wearing a deep pink blouse under my navy blue uniform. A nun signaled with her long pointed finger and told me that she would send me home if I again deemed to break the dress code.
Some blatantly wore hoop earrings and pink lipstick, flaunting their stab at independence. Pink bubblegum snapping a few times could get you expelled.
The ultimate rule was that you could not be seen after school hours wearing your uniform within a mile radius of the school. Security cameras were not prevalent on every street corner so I guess the nuns relied on tattletales.
Since my mom died early on in my high school years I learned to iron, apply starch and hoped that I looked presentable. And somehow some girls seem to be immaculate at all times and now I realize because of you, Elaine, they were rich. Who knew? My uniform might have become shiny but I was awarded a scholarship to attend a fifth year at my high school..a prep class for college.
When I left school I ditched the uniform and became a clotheshorse. So I guess I learned a sense of style in spite of the "Uniform".

[Judith Bandsma]

Carol R, I'm so sorry you had such a lousy Brownie leader. National guidelines for uniforms is...and always has been...that if you are wearing your pin, you are in uniform.

And that your leader never bothered to advise your family that uniform patterns are available, as well as 'official' material for making the same.

[Carol R]

Judith, I've never held my experience against GSA. It is a wonderful experience for most. I'll never know for sure, but my guess is that the Brownie leader got into it for her own daughter, had a very specific idea of what her group should be and I just didn't fit the model.

[Reine]

My parents had other things to spend their money on.

My grndprents, aunts, and uncles paid for my clothes and school. Sometimes my school paid for my clothes and school. Often my clothes were passed along by relatives. When the clothes are classic, you can do tht. That is an advantage.

Looking faded and softened by wear was the preferred look in my schools. Brand new was a bit embarrassing. Mmm . . . show-offy?

[Storyteller Mary]

Carol, I guess I do have a sort of uniform for daily wear -- t-shirts and trousers (shorts in very hot weather). Walking shoes in cool weather, sandals in hot. Once in a great while, a dress . . . Comfort is the main theme, though now that Susan McBride said I could wear pearls with t-shirts if I wanted, I might add those, just for fun . . .

[Laraine]

Way late to the party here, but all the talk of uniforms vs. fashion vs. hand-me-downs caused me to remember an incident in which another girl in the 7th grade came to school in the exact same new plaid jumper that I was proudly wearing in the first week of fall (wool, in September heat, in Texas; go figure). This girl was a little shorter than I, and was not blessed with slenderness nor symmetry. The jumper looked very sadly like a large sack quite full of potatoes, on her. Although I was taller, quite slender, and oblivious to the fact that I'd been gifted with symmetry genes, I couldn't wear my jumper again without feeling that it made me look dumpy, lumpy and poor (even though, in fact, we were not anywhere near well off).

I think even if it had been uniforms instead of our new jumpers, I would have been comparing myself and feeling less than, without the perspective of understanding one's own good points and the diversity of what is 'good and acceptable' all 'round.

I don't know if there is a solution to child/teen self-esteem issues to be found in uniforms or in high fashion or rules against all. I admire those dear characters who dye their hair or wear their uniform inside out or otherwise manage to express their uniqueness despite the pressure.

[Cornelia Read]

I always WANTED to wear a uniform, because I was so bad at dressing myself. Only happened for sports. I loved my little purple kilt and white polo with purple-and-white striped socks for field hockey in high school. Oh, and girl scouts... Was a Junior back when there were still those dopy yellow bowties over a lame mint-green dress. So, okay, I have hated and loved uniformity... hmmmm...

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