ParentingJUL 11, 2024

Moms Locked In Grand Debate About The Appropriate Dress Code For Picking Up Your Kids

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It was only when my daughters got older that I fully realized what a blessing it was to live next to their school. So, you can literally walk a couple hundred feet - and here it is, the building where many parents and kids have to drive to, wasting precious minutes every morning!

I usually take my daughters to school in our family, so I don’t have any answer to the question from the user lattekim23, the author of our story today. But, judging by the abundance of comments under the original post, it has sparked some lively debate. So why not join in the discussion here, too?

More info: mumsnet

The author of the post is a mom herself and she usually takes her kid (or kids) to school. And she's perhaps a curious person as well

Image credits: Adrienn (not the actual photo)

Seeing other moms on their school run, the author got curious whether other mothers prefer to wear makeup or not before driving to school

Image credits: lattekim23

The author herself claims that she doesn't wear makeup while prefers to dress up neatly, but some other moms do not

So now meet the Original Poster (OP), a mom who regularly takes her child (or children) to school and, in her own words, still tries to find some time to dress neatly and take a shower before the school run.

However, the author does not consider it necessary to do makeup and dress up as impressively as possible - after all, if we are not talking about going to some kind of business or personal meeting after school, then you will still end up at home. So the OP usually wears her leggings or jeans and a T-shirt for the school run. And no makeup by default.

And what surprises our heroine are actually these two things. Either moms who come to school like for a fashion show or the Met Gala, or moms who don’t bother with any dress code at all. Some of them, as the OP says, show up in their PJs or in dressing gowns and slippers.

The original poster emphasized several times, both in the text of the post and in the comments, that she was not going to judge anyone or ridicule anyone for their “inappropriate” outfit. She was just wondering what other moms thought about this, and how they usually dress when they take their own kids to school in the morning.

Image credits: Hadi Slash (not the actual photo)

Well, before turning to the comments to the original post, I would like to note that our contemporary world (or rather, a significant part of it) provides people with a unique opportunity to do as they please, without really caring about (within reasonable limits, of course) what others think of them. And this, by and large, is one of the main achievements of modern society.

So, whether to wear makeup or not - and it doesn’t matter whether to school or work - is everyone’s personal choice. As well as what clothes to wear (unless, of course, your job requires a strict dress code - and the school certainly doesn't regulate parents in any way). But the modern world is also damn fast, so sometimes there really isn’t enough time for many, many things. Including makeup.

"Time rockets by at a supersonic rate in the mornings. Every hour zooms by like twenty minutes," the contributor Sharyn Hayden writes in this dedicated article for Her Family. "If I get up at 7am and need to leave at 9am, there is approximately 12 minutes in that entire two-hour period that can be spent just on me."

"Does anyone in my house care if I need to apply half a ton of concealer to hide the dark rings under my eyes? Hell, no. They care about locating their new Peppa Pig sunglasses right now." At the end of the day, these are children and we made this choice ourselves.

"The next time you see a lady putting their makeup on in a public place, before you go all 'tsk, tsk, shouldn't she get up a little bit earlier and spare us having to see that?' ask yourself the following; Could she be someone's mam?", Sharyn Hayden summarizes, and it’s really hard to disagree with this.

As for the commenters on the original post, the author still could not avoid some criticism from many responders. "Why does it matter to you? Getting dressed and wearing makeup makes me feel ready for the day, even if I'm not working or going out. Fine if you would rather not, I couldn't care less," one of the commenters wrote quite angrily.

And yes, most moms, judging by the comments to the post, really prefer not to wear makeup for the school run. However, if someone prefers to do the opposite, that is their right, people emphasize in the comments. "Her makeup probably makes her feel confident and put together," another commenter replied. "Do you judge the dads for shaving in the mornings to do the school run too?" And what would you, our dear readers, reply to the original poster?