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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be irritated by people with clean, smartly dressed children

82 replies

mrsruffallo · 22/09/2010 12:17

So annoying.Ttoddlers in new catalogue clothes and hair pulled tightly back.
So controlled, I can't bear seeing kids like that

OP posts:
Alouiseg · 22/09/2010 19:36

2 ds' here. Ds 1 aged 13, has a knack of making every piece of clothing look as if he has been styled to perfection, he loves a shower but often has muddy knees.

Ds 2 manages to hoik his jeans up too high, has penchant for supermarket t shirts with transfers, wears white socks with black trousers, wears his hair too long and has to have a shower suggested to him.

I have a style aficionado and a style nightmare. What can you do?

LynetteScavo · 22/09/2010 19:46

DS1 and DD collect dirt. DS2 with his golden hair somehow manages to stay spotless.

I put my children's grubyness/crazy hair down to being middle class. Oh yes.

The ohter morning DD was going into school with breakfast smeard on her cardigan sleeve. "Oh well", I thought. Then it was very kindly pointed out to me by the father of a poor immigrant family, whose child is always spotless. I pretended I'd only just noticed and feebly attempted to remove the crusted food stuff.

While picking at crusted Weetabix I was thinking of DS2 in his odd socks under his school trousers (one spider-man, one bat-man), and pondering that this family would never contemplate such a thing!

taffetacat · 22/09/2010 19:53

Lol

DD (4) had porridge on her top by 8am. I scrubbed it off, sort of, with her toothbrush . She also had mahoosive bedhead all day. She looked lovely.

DS (6) has a permanent grass/mud stain on his knee from football, which despite daily scrubbing (NB not with toothbrush) magically reappears with alarming regularity, at least thrice daily.

Children that look too neat and tidy generally have parents who scare me.

letsblowthistacostand · 22/09/2010 20:05

My DDs are dressed in varying levels of scruff, but their hair always looks perfect no matter how filthy or unbrushed it is! Don't know how they got so lucky, mine is completely unmanageable!! Can see someone thinking I've spent hours with a blowdryer on DD1 when in reality it's been 10 secs with the hairbrush and a bobble if there's time.

Shoshe · 22/09/2010 20:26

You would have thought that I had urchins with me today.

I changed them into clean logo'd t shirts and sweatshirts before we went out honest!

We went to the Farm, played in the wet sand, then eldest mindee stood in the wet smelly mud? by the pig pen,

Then we had lunch, sausage casserole from the flask....... Forgot bibs.

Then we played in the hay barn....... think half of it was down youngest mindees nappy..... how, he had a all in one vest on!!

They were clean honest....................... well they were by time I had changed them back into their own T shirts and Mums picked them up again Grin

LynetteScavo · 22/09/2010 20:36

But shoshe, I would pay someone good money to get my DC that dirty! Grin

Shoshe · 22/09/2010 21:02

We went to the beach once ( well we go often, but you know what I mean)

The oldest schoolies, made a slide down a small hill.......................... from water on clay............................ I had to scrape it off them all and take them home in their knickers and coats!

Mucky kids are happy kids Grin

superv1xen · 22/09/2010 21:48

the OP has described exactly how i aim for my kids to look whenever possible! i say "aim"

i am the opposite, i cant stand to see scruffy, dirty kids. sorry. [oops]

superv1xen · 22/09/2010 21:56

just realised my [oops] was meant to be a Blush - "blush" is [oops] on another forum i use :o

spiderlight · 22/09/2010 21:57

We encountered a little girl at a playground recently, immacculate in a pale blue and cream outfit, everything gleaming and beautifully co-ordinated. She got a really quite insignificant muddy mark on the hem of her jacket, and her mum took one horrified look at it and said 'Right - we'd better go home then!' and marched her off. Poor little lass.

My DS, on the other hand, starts the day as close to gleaming as I can get him, is a bit frayed round the edges by lunchtime and looks like a total urchin by bedtime. If he's not had at least one catastrophic spillage and three changes of clothes, he considers the day a failure.

piscesmoon · 22/09/2010 22:01

Unless they are going to a wedding or similar, it is sad to have to worry about clothes. I saw 2 little girls on a muddy path in the Lake District in pale pink embroidered coats!

nikki1978 · 22/09/2010 22:14

My two are incredibly scruffy but I am happy with that Grin

DD looks pristine in the morning but comes out of school with food all over her tshirt, holes in her tights and paint on her arms. Her hair which I normally tie back will have been pulled out of it's hairband because "I want it long Mummu". Sadly DDs hair looks exactly like this www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article1086671.ece even when washed and brushed. I am honestly not exaggerating. The hairdressers never know what to do with it!

DS loves playing with mud and water so generally will not last long looking clean.

Both cannot eat without spilling most of it down their tops.

I don't even bother trying anymore.....

Easywriter · 22/09/2010 22:15

Inappropriate clothing for the activity is the best! I love it when DD's stray from convention and pull some crazy arsed being-a-childness on me!

My personal favorites? Hiking in a Snow White costume and walking boots (them not me), skinny dipping if so much as a shimmer of water catches their eye and the eccentric dress styles when they're left to dress themselves for parties (i.e. Monsoon dresses with dodgy knitted cardigans).

Priceless!

Fizrim · 23/09/2010 01:09

I'm still laughing at the 'oven mitts' comment - classic!

DD can easily get through 2 or 3 outfits a day - she either gets them dirty in the garden or get them wet playing with water. Or paint. Or whatever else she goes near. I try and get her to eat her breakfast in her pyjamas to reduce the load on the t-shirt. It's rare that I can wash her clothes without having to soak them first to remove stains.

I can't stand having sticky hands but this gene seems to have skipped DD's genetic makeup. Which is probably why she came in from the garden singing 'wiggly woo' and put a worm on the windowsill. Wiggly was quickly repatriated.

sunnydelight · 23/09/2010 06:34

YABU. My kids are far better dressed and presented than I am. They stay cleaner for longer too.

gtamom · 23/09/2010 06:59

I really don't like to see hair pulled back tightly, with lot's of bows and clips, it looks painful, and prissy. I do think cornrow type styles look cute and not painful though.

Kids should look clean, but wouldn't take them home from a playground because they got dirty. If a kids outfit isn't able to handle playground dirt and a washing machine, then what use is it?

marenmj · 23/09/2010 07:11

DD is adorable for the five minutes she is clean.

The rest of the time I make her EARN her baths!

thumbwitch · 23/09/2010 07:17

I hate seeing little girls with their hair scraped into tight pony tails. My mum always did that to me and it hurt a fair bit until I had managed to loosen it off. Ditto plaits or any other tied back variation.

I don't mind seeing DC all clean and neat, quite like it, but can't bear prissy types who won't let them play for fear of messing their clothes.

Sushiqueen · 23/09/2010 07:28

Ds has always had her hair pulled back - a) because brushing her hair is a nightmare, so if I plait it, i can leave it in for several days without doing anything (blush) and b) because it gets less mud in it that way.

She is the girl who comes out of school covered in mud (and she is year 4). She hates wearing skirts and anything involving mud and getting dirty is a favourite. She has just taken up football at school and loves it as she gets covered in mud without getting any comments.

Mind you I was the same. We are clean at the start of a day but staying that way seems to be a problem is our house :)

Morloth · 23/09/2010 08:19

The DS'a start the day looking nice, it lasts about an hour (on a good day) then there is dirt and baby sick and snot and rumples etc.

I figure as long as we start out clean and tidy each day that is about as good as it gets.

Cracks me up that DS2 can puke all over DS1 and he just wipes it off with a baby wipe and continues playing with him.

jumpingbeans · 23/09/2010 08:26

I really think it depends on the child, take two dgd, both treated exactly the same in terms of clothing, washing, hair brushing, one looks perfectly turned out 99% of the time, the other one looks like she has slept in her her clothes in the shed all night :o

echt · 23/09/2010 08:32

My DD was the filthiest child in the world when little.

When she wasn't begrimed, she dressed with an utter determination to combine all colours at once. One nursery worker said: "Here comes MissEcht in her mad clothes".

I was Envy that her cousin was always turned out with such chic. SIL kindly pointed out that the said DD was totally supine when it came to clothes, so mummy ruled.

I felt vindicated in my dirty, headstrong girl. ;)

dearprudence · 23/09/2010 08:35

I like to see a child start the day all clean and 'well turned out'. But I'd never stop them getting dirty/messy - it's a sign they've had fun.

I get a bit judgy when I see children leaving for school with food-stained clothes and crusty snot on their noses, but there you go.

I used to hate it when DS was at nursery and they didn't wipe the food off his face after a meal. I'm happy for them to get dirty, but it can't feel nice to have dried food on your face, and it looks horrid.

marenmj · 23/09/2010 08:55

aw, echt, I have a headstrong girl too. I just tell myself whenever she is acting precocious that hopefully if she won't listen to me now about what to wear and how to think, this means that she won't listen to her friends when she is a teenager! [hopeful emoticon]

mamatomany · 23/09/2010 08:58

I am still recovering from the school run now, it nearly kills me but they go in looking immaculate, what they come out like is a whole different matter.