Back to school

My oldest, Bean started Kindergarten this year.  I can't believe that he is already old enough to be going to school.  He went to preschool at Grace Community Church, which is wonderful by the way, but Kindergarten is just....well...heartbreaking.  It's facing the fact that your child is officially growing up.  I don't know why our tendency as parents is to want them to stay little forever because let's face it, young kids are hard work.  I definitely don't want this time in my life to last forever, but once you see it slipping away, it's also really hard to face.  Back to school time got me pondering about something.

There is so much hype in our society about "back to school".  It all circles around one thing...money.  People are given the feeling that they need to go out and buy their child brand new clothes and really cute or cool school supplies in order to go to school.  Yes, there are obviously clothing needs that need to be met and school supplies to be bought, but don't you ever think that it's all a little overboard?  I really hadn't put a ton of thought in to it until Bean's first day of school.  I realized that I hadn't bought him ANY new school clothes.  I am not kidding.  Honestly I never even thought about it until the day of.  He started getting ready for school and my husband started asking me about what he was going to wear.  I just put Bean in some clean clothes and old flip flops and sent him to school.  That outfit happened to be a pair of shorts he's had for two years and a muscle shirt he tie-dyed at Aunt Sarah's house.  So what?

A few days later I really started thinking about this whole ordeal.  What kind of message would I have been sending to my son if I would have told him that his outfit was not appropriate?  If I would have told him that he needed to wear this brand new outfit that I had bought for him, even if he didn't want to.  We all know that what we wear doesn't make us who we are, but is that the message that we are portraying to our kids?  Please don't take offense.  I am not trying to diss parents who buy their kids new, really cute clothes.  Please understand that my kids and our family just aren't that way.  If my kids wanted new, cute clothes, I would probably consider buying them a couple outfits, but they just don't care and either do I.  I understand that all families are different and I am not trying to be the judge of anyone. 

I really hope that my kids grow up knowing that they are who they are, regardless of what they are wearing or what kind of backpack and binder they have.  Some of those material things can be fun, but when they begin to define us it becomes a serious problem.  It's a balance that us parents have to handle or our children will pay the price.  Ah, America.  It's a great place, but we have a lot of priorities misplaced.

I know that there will come a point in time where my children will challenge me on this issue.  I am not looking forward to that, however I have a choice right now.  I can plant the seeds now and hope for the best!  I am sure that there are some of you out there shouting "good luck"!  All we can do is the best we can.

Bean just finished his first week of school today.  He did great.  And yes, his teacher and the kids are referring to him as Bean and he and I are both very, very happy about that.  I love that kid.