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!?!?

I don't ever remember bags being a thing and still don't

Nor do I

At 14 we had khaki canvas bags from millets that were about £2 and we used to write band names and stick badges on them.
Mine wants a £120 Ted Baker bag that's all shiny (wanting not being the same as getting obviously)

Can she get at least 6 a4 size exercise books plus a pencil case in it? If yes, suitable. If not no.
I get a lot of girls refusing to take books home (for their homework/revision) because it doesn't fit. Their make up bag always does though

I would let her have one, and when they ask her in school why she doesn't have "insert item here" she should say, well miss/sir this is the only weight I can manage to carry as I'm not a friggin Ass, so get some lockers for us, then I could have everything I need and not carry it around all day"
But yes I would let her have one, at that age it's important to fit in.

I had a hand Norman carrier bag for pe! Boys had a JD drawstring bag. If you were lucky you got a proper Jane Norman bag for school.
I also carried my books in a canvas carrier bag, it was fine and honestly easier than a rucksack because so much quicker to put books in and take books out.

We had leather topshop messenger bags with he straps as loose as possible so they were around ankles, boys (and girls who commuted the social suicide of a rucksack ) had rucksack as low as possible, like around their knees, on one shoulder. Boys had Superdry or gola bags really high up on their backs as we got older.

This will be fine, it's really not that impractical, I had similar for uni and it carried all my folders and stuff.

itsalldyingout we were using the army and navy bags in the late 70s / early 80s. The boys' rucksacks were a bit like the khaki and blue ones of these.

I can remember that a Tammy drawstring plastic bag was 'de rigueur' for PE kit.

From year 8 onwards many girls in my school had little impractical handbags as if they were adults in a nightclub. It looked ridiculous and of course they couldn’t carry many things around with them in such bags so regularly got a bollocking for not having books with them. Many boys used the JD sports bags .

It’s just a teenage trend. Go along with it but tell her you won’t replace it for something more practical when she realises that really isn’t.

Thankfully in year 10 my DD bucked the trend and uses a black leather satchel she found in a charity shop.PE bags are another story.

Ah bag related memories :D

I had forgotten I had a black rucksack with the words to 'Across the Universe' written in a spiral pattern in tippex pen (circa '96).

Have told DD she can have her tote bag, she can similarly reminisce in 20 years time :D

I carry my laptop, day book and loads of other shite around from meeting to meeting all day in a tote bag. I’m surviving .

Altho tbf I have been looking at some posh leather laptop rucksacks.

At my d's high school tote bags are banned. Part of their uniform policy includes bags & the only bags allowed are rucksack or a small hold all. I'm glad because as a parent it makes my life easier! Totes are a ridiculous idea for school!

We had to have record bags when we were that age. I remember carrying around a "jungliest posse" one with a massive marijuana leaf on it as a very weedy middle class kid who hadn't the vaguest idea what marijuana was. DH had a "fuck the system" rucksack (with all his other favourite bands tippexed onto it) which he diligently hid whenever he walked past a teacher because he didn't want to get in trouble!

I think with school uniform school bags are the only medium teenagers have to announce their immaturity to the work .

These were a fad when I was about 14. They were crap - everything fell out of them and the contents got soaked when it rained

I'm battling the same. For me it's the way the girls carry their dolly bags on their elbow, elbow bent with the palm of their hand kind of stuck facing upwards. For some reason this really irritates me.

But I know full well I'm going to give in this year because as PP have said, pick your battles.

Also, they do have lockers.

I was in year 9 two decades ago and i had a leather tote - come on mum, be cool!

This was the sort of bags we had late 1970s

Judging by the comments I've read (only part of the thread), I'd be a mean mother. Some years ago I'd noticed the ridiculous tote bags older girls at a local private school were carrying around and thought, if my daughter ever goes there she's definitely having a proper bag! (she's not gone there and does indeed have a rucksack!)

I can barely remember my bags. I know mum made me have backpacks though. I was the ultimate rebel and had a South Park one in year 8 :o not that I ever watched South Park.

Is it the norm now not to have lockers? We all had them when I started secondary in 1998, but my DSCs didn’t and I was quite shocked at the time but maybe it was my school that was unusual.

We still had shitloads of books to carry all the time though. I’ll never forget a little year seven putting on her school backpack. Yes they actually had school backpacks, ugly great green things with the massive logo on, but thankfully most parents had the foresight not to make their daughters use them as they were optional. Anyway, this poor little girl slung her backpack on, and it was so full of heavy books that the poor thing had to trug home (no online homework portal back then) that she tipped right over onto her back always reminded me of a tortoise on its shell, poor thing

We had to have a proper wicker basket for Home Ec.

Together with official school games bag

The haversack was the business in the 80s! In petrol blue of course. Wouldn't have been seen dead in khaki

Trends are a pain in the arse but having said that, I can remember desperately wanting a pair of legwarmers in the 80s. I always seemed to be the last person in my year to get whatever the cool item was - as soon as I got it, it was instantly replaced by some other must have item. I can sympathize with your DD but also with you. Tote bags really aren't designed for carrying a load of school books. And in two months time they'll be replaced by some other fad. I steer well clear of fads now - been there, done that, worn the legwarmers

“Head” bags were THE bag for high school...carried with the two handles clasped in one hand and slung over one shoulder...like some 80s footballer. NEVER use the shoulder strap.

It was all about record bags when I was in secondary.

I can’t even remember what shop now but I had to be a certain one and came in Black with either silver or gold.

Then it was Kookäi that it had to be. My mum wouldn’t let me get one as I’d just begged for the previous “must have” so I had a Kookäi pencil case instead.