A recent article in Northwest Indiana Times reported that a principal in a local high school had suspended 128 students for violation of the dress code on the very first day of school. Having two teenage sons, one graduated in 2005 and one will graduate in 2008, and 12 school age neices and nephews, some of whom attend parochial schools that require uniforms, I can tell you that a dress code really don't do a whole lot in terms of helping a child to learn. In fact, I would argue that it's counterproductive because it takes the focus off of education and puts it on something superficial: what you're wearing.

When I was a child, I went to a Catholic grade school. We had a dress code: girls had to wear dresses or pants suits— no jeans or T-shirts. If a girl wore pants, they had to be a matching set. I was from a family of seven kids: the first five were born within about 7 years. So once I was in the sixth grade, my parents had five kids to buy school clothes for. I often got hand-me-downs from relatives who were older, although they were often years out of date. I remember getting made fun of for what I was wearing, even though I was within the dress code.

When I was in the last few months of the seventh grade, we moved. It was out of the parish where I'd been going to school and so all us kids were enrolled in the local public school. There was a minimal dress code: your clothes had to be clean, contain no profanity and couldn't reveal private body parts. I really caught a lot of flack in the public schools those last few months because the only clothes I had were dresses and skirts I'd worn to the private school. I was able to finally convince my mother over the summer before eighth grade to let me wear pant suits to school: but the catch was that I had to make them myself. I sewed virtually my entire eighth grade wardrobe and while I still didn't quite "fit in", I didn't get near the same amount of teasing as I had the year before.

When I went to high school, my mother allowed me to wear pants, but not jeans. I didn't wear a skirt or dress again until my senior year. And when I walked into school that first day of my senior year, I wore a skirt. And everyone I hung out with noticed and made some sort of comment. Nothing derogatory: things like "I don't think I've ever seen you in a skirt!" or "Wow! You're not wearing pants today!" For the three years prior to my senior year, I had put myself in a box and when I stepped out of that box, I got noticed.

Fast forward to my own kids going to school. When my oldest son was nine, he wanted to get his ear pierced. I asked him who among his friends had his ear pierced and my son said, "No one. I just like how it looks." And sure enough, none of his friends had their ear pierced. I let my son get his pierced because I knew it was what he wanted rather than him trying to fit into some group by doing what they were doing. As he grew older, he began to develop his own style of clothing. He settled on the sagging pants look, which I absolutely detested. Again, none of his friends dressed like that, so he wasn't dressing like that to "fit in": he simply liked the way it looked. Eventually, he took to wearing only black clothes. Every T-shirt in his wardrobe was black. All his pants, shorts and shoes were black. His sweatshirts were black and baggy as well. But again, it wasn't to "fit in" because none of his friends dressed the way he did.

By the time he graduated, my son's hair— now dyed black— was down below his shoulders on the top— shaved to his head from about the top of his ears down. He had not only pierced his other ear, but had gaged them as well. You could stick a pencil through the opening of the spool earrings he wore. He had also pierced the top of both ears and his tongue, gaging it as well until he had a bar with balls on the end almost the size of marbles. He'd been wearing a mustache and beard since he started growing facial hair and when he graduated, he had a goatee that was about three or four inches long: dyed flaming red. He wore belts and wrist bands that had lots of metal studs and a wallet on a long chain. He also got his first tattoo when he turned eighteen during his senior year.

My son caught a lot of flack for the way he dressed. He missed out on several well-paying jobs because of it and was categorized as a "thug" or "punk" by people who didn't know him. As a result, he didn't have the kind of spending money his friends had and that was a consequence he had to live with because of his choice of dress. We had several conversations where we discussed how he might be afraid to get out of the box he'd put himself in: afraid of what others might say if he went into school in jeans that fit him or in colors other than black. But he insisted he simply liked the way it looked. I don't think he got a taste of how good he could look in clothes that fit him until he went to prom. Then he landed a job at a steel fabrication shop that didn't require him to do anything other than wear jeans that didn't sag. From that day on, he rarely wore his baggy jeans anymore, although he still worse the baggy shorts. Only difference was he also wore a belt that didn't allow them to sag as much as they had in high school. There was a part of me that admired my son for dressing how he felt comfortable even when it cost him the chance at a job. And there was another part of me that was worried that he'd be afraid to ever change how he'd dress and he'd end up struggling to find work for people who didn't care what he looked like.

So what's my point?

I think there's too much stress put on what kids wear. What kids wear is one of the ways they rebel against their parents. Rebelling is a normal part of growing up. It's part of how they find out who they are. It's a way to differentiate themselves from their parents. To prove that they're not simply miniature reproductions of their parents. The kids who get made fun of are the kids who stand out. The kids whose parents refuse to let them wear jeans or insist they always wear a dress shirt. Yes, kids can take it to an extreme, but part of the reason they seek that extreme is because they know it's pissing off their parents and their teachers! Remember back to when you were a kid and your mother said "Don't touch that!" What's the first thing you did as soon as her back was turned? You touched it!

We didn't have a dress code per se in my high school. The focus wasn't on what the kids wore. And we didn't have a problem with kids coming into school in skimpy clothing. By placing so much emphasis on what kids are wearing, we're taking that much emphasis away from what kids are learning. Additionally, forcing girls to "cover up" in longer skirts, etc. to prevent distraction sounds a lot like the reasoning used to force women to wear a burqa in places like Afghanistan and Iran. (Note: I realize that not all women are forced to wear a burqa and many choose to do so for the power it gives them over who sees their body. I'm referring here only to places where women are or were forced to wear a burqa under penalty of law.) And finally, forcing girls to "cover up" isn't going to stop boys from thinking about sex. The testosterone that is flowing through male bodies during puberty is something like 1500 times what normally flows through the male body. And there's quite a few adult men, long out of puberty, who can't stop thinking about sex.

So what happened to my son? He joined the US Air Force. Now he doesn't have much choice on what to wear on any given day. My youngest son learned a few lessons from watching his brother grow up. While he's been known to cut his hair in a mohawk or wear a smart-ass T-shirt, he's learned that if he wants to avoid the lable of "punk" or "thug" and wants to get a job without much hassle, he has to dress a certain way. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing. When will we stop judging people on the way they dress and take the time to find out what kind of a person they are inside?

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