I have no idea why this has come up in conversation so much in the past few days, but it has. What is up with people thinking it's a good idea to wear pajamas wherever they go? I'm not saying everybody needs to dress for a cocktail party to drop their kid off at school or run to the grocery store, but I really didn't know that it is considered effort to put on a pair of jeans and a shirt.
In case anyone didn't know, the rest of the world thinks we Americans are a bunch of lazy bastards. Wearing pajamas everywhere, and actually thinking that is a defensible thing to do, only feeds into that. I know that most Americans really aren't lazy. I'm sure you do, too. That's not the impression the rest of the world has of us, though, and maybe our lax approach to clothing has some hand in that. You know, jeans used to be considered as slacker-like as pajamas are considered today. Now they are considered normal, the standard, I guess. Like, if you're not dressed up, but you are dressed, you're in jeans. They're like, the American uniform. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that! I love jeans, and am wearing some right now. Even so, our current American uniform used to be considered really overly casual, and a little bit slacker-like even, so if the same pattern continues, will we expect pajamas to become the new American uniform, as jeans are now, in 20 years? Will it actually become socially acceptable to just not bother getting dressed in the morning?
If a lot of people have their way, it will become acceptable to do just that. It has already gotten to the point that if you say anything about it being less than acceptable to go out in town in your pajamas, you're the jerk, not the person who couldn't be bothered to get dressed in the morning. It's taken as acceptable behavior for a busy mom.
However, I offer this perspective. I am a busy mom. I have a husband who works constantly, and is soon to be working constantly in another state, maybe another country. I have pretty much raised my kids by myself between his long hours, his deployments, and all that. I have three kids. One of them is learning disabled, and pretty much incapable of following anything but the simplest instructions, so getting her ready in the morning is work. She also goes to a school with very rigid dress code standards, so when she gets dressed, it's got to be right, and she tries to get one over on the system pretty much every day. My next kid is a young preschool age boy who pitches a fit every morning when we have to leave, and absolutely cannot stand it when any of the other kids gets any attention at all. My final kid is a baby, whom I am breastfeeding. He wakes up at 4 every morning, and nurses for three hours. Erin also goes to a school in a different part of the city than where we live, so we have to get out the door earlier than the people whose kids go to the schools in their neighborhoods (this comprises easily 95% of the population of El Paso). I have never once left the house in pajamas, and Erin has never been late to school because I had to get dressed. Erin has been late to school because of a wreck on the freeway that backed up traffic. She has been late to school because of her own terrible attitude and refusal to move fast enough to get out the door on time. She has been late because some idiot in the drop-off line wouldn't move out of the way fast enough for me to drop her off before the bell rang. She has NEVER been late because I took the required two seconds to put on a pair of jeans.
I don't know, you guys... It just seems ridiculous to me that so many people are now trying to defend the position of wearing pajamas in public. There are some things that will never be socially acceptable, no matter how busy or tired you are.
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