More is DD BU? A flipping tote bag??? For School???

[thatcoldfeeling]

DD is starting year 9. She has just showed me the bag she wants for next year. A flipping leather look tote bag.

Apparently "everyone has them in year 9".

Seriously, what the actual fuck is this nonsense?

Her school does not have lockers and she walks to after school sports several days a week. She really wants to carry all her books and sports stuff in a tote bag!? AIBU to be entirely baffled, generally wtf, and completely reluctant to go along with this!?

*Note - Have just had a flashback to the fashion at school when I was a teen for wearing a rucksack on one shoulder only. That was shit. Maybe I am BU and carrying your stuff around with self induced difficulty is a feature of being a teen!?!?

Introduce your daughter to this website.

Let her be the trendsetter.

www.fjallraven.com/

@MrsFezziwig - we must be about the same age! We had those baskets too! I used to have to get a bus home from school as we lived about 5 miles away. I remember once getting on the bus to go home one Friday evening with a guinea pig hutch, a guinea pig, her 4 babies and my basket with my "DS tin" placed strategically on the top. Those were the days! .......😀

Year 9 tote bag carrier here too - and somehow she manages to fit her Pe kit in it too. Not that I can say much - I still lug a rucksack to work on one shoulder as I used to at school and I’m nearly 50 .

In my school we had head bags and this beauty - the Benneton duffle bag. And yes, those little ropes did chafe like hell

kaitlinktm so she wasn’t the only smooth operator strutting her stuff with her swanky briefcase

I was odd. Still am, I suppose

I shunned every fashion going and did it my way. My fave look was army surplus as I was into shooting (targets, not living things). My allowance went a long way as army surplus was pretty cheap.

I didn't just wear it as it was part of my hobby, though. I liked breaking rules and being different. It was the punk era but I didn't fancy the safety pins or like the music.

I was never one for peer pressure but can imagine peer pressure is probably harder than being deliberately different.

My daughter follows me so I also got off lightly money-wise when it came to expensive fads and fashions. She got bullied more than I did, but we both got through it.

I do feel for parents that see their kids having to go through the sometimes brutal pressure to conform in order to belong. Not to mention the financial pressures they endure.

Not quite in the same vein, but remember being 11 and going up to secondary school, so I needed a satchel for my books. My uncle's well-worn brown leather one was produced. Cue a massive tantrum (and I was not a tantrummy child) that "everyone else" would have new satchels and I would be a laughing stock. I think my mum was so startled by this unaccustomed behaviour that she went out & bought me a brand new, shiny dark brown leather satchel (which I suspect we could ill afford).

Come the first day of school, and off I went, obviously to find that all the "cool girls" had second hand satchels

I see girls with those and wonder how they fit their stuff in there. At my dd's school they have lockers but need to bring home a lot of stuff every night to do homework so everyone has very practical backpack style bags!

My day to day work handback is pretty heavy first thing (with lunch etc.) so I couldn’t begrudge letting a DD use something the same. Although I don’t think it’s as “geeky” to wear 2 straps on your backpack now tbh

Oh, Mrs Fezziwig has found a picture! Actually gondola baskets were a better fit for carrying home the offerings made in domestic science, yes girls it is a proper subject, not just cookery..... overbaked rock buns did not travel well in a satchel .

Whatever happened to rock buns? DId they reinvent themselves as muffins?

Jane Norman bags were all the rage at my school in year 10. Impractical but she'll change her own mind after she finds it impractical and harder than a good old fashioned back pack.

"The tote will be gone by the end of first term."

So what-Op should then buy something else or not bother with the tote fro the outset?

@Rarfy you called a yr7s bag a 'big girl school bag'? Is she 6?

Icequeen01 - yes, I remember going home with the product of my domestic science lesson (Lancashire Hotpot) in the basket. The pan leaked and my gaberdine, the basket and the bus seat were all covered in gravy

if your PE kit wasn't in a River Island bag you were basically not even a real person!

Op we must be the same sort of age. I BEGGED my mum to buy something, anything from RI just so I can take my kit in in it - we had fucking Netto carrier bags! The shame...

My first teaching post the girls used to have clutch bags! Weren’t bothered that they couldn’t fit anything in them apart from their pen, cigarettes and lipstick! I’m not even kidding!

Telling that to the interviewer got me a job at RI through uni

When I was 14 it was all about the Jansport rucksack with as many band badges and patches as you could fit on there to show how cool you were

Ha ha. I've just bought DD a tote bag! She's moving school and starting in year 9 and is quite worried about moving, so I'm happy for her to have whatever "everyone else" is having on this occasion, if it will lessen her anxiety. I really remember that need to fit in.

However, I've also told her that I won't be buying her any other bag if this one proves to be unsuitable/uncomfortable/unfashionable and that she'll just have to put up with it until this time next year!

My DD carries a massive rucksack and insists she needs it for all her stuff. But I've seen other friends who just have tiny handbags and wonder what my DD is doing wrong (or, more likely, what these other girls aren't taking to school!)

@LongSummerDays I had those bags! Oh the memories 😊

DD did have a tote bag from yr 7 but it was big and strong. She had a separate bag for PE and that lived in her locker. She moved onto a Fjallraven bag in year 12 and still uses that now for uni.

Really @Cynderella? All of the top, extension-set achievers at my school had totes....

It’s a right of passage for teenagers to have impractical bags

When I was at high school (late 90s) we used backpacks but only ever on one shoulder. And refused to wear coats even in the depths of winter. At least our shoes were practical! Kickers or Pod were mire expensive than ballet pump styles of today, but they were sturdy and lasted well.

I had a tote bag at school for heavy books

now have one for laptop and everything else

my mum still tells me I'll damage my shoulder but 30 years later I still prefer a tote!

My first yearned for bag was my blue head bag with a detachable end pocket... I briefly had a leather courier bag from ravel but that didn’t last long! By 6th form I had a canvas rucksack from the army surplus store with felt tip notes avec quotes, sew on badges and pin badges... first week at uni (1997) i bought an eastpak rucksack my mum told me it was a waste of money blah blah blah ... we used that bag to lug stuff agiund camp bestival a couple of weeks ago!