kids these days
How The Wall Street Journal’s Tina Gaudoin Turned Her Teenage Sons Into Designer-Loving ‘Monsters’
In her latest column for The Wall Street Journal, Tina Gaudoin lists the perils of being a fashion-worshipping mother to two boys. First off, somewhat oddly, is her low weight, which she defends as genetic but infers to be related to her job (as if all naturally thin people are automatically drawn to the fashion industry?):
I will concede that it was never going to be easy being the sons of a mother interested in fashion. My boys were certainly not backward in coming forward on the matter. When children are in junior school, I suppose it is inevitable that they would draw comparisons between their own mother and others at the school gates. I never imagined, though, that I might hear the question: "Mum, why are you thinner than everyone else?" (Answer: "It's my body type, sweetie." Rejoinder: "Well, it's not very nice.")
Less surprising is her sons' disapproval of her fashion-forward wardrobe, which is quite different from that of the other moms picking up their kids from school.
And then there's the comparative clothing conversation: "You can't come into school wearing that [a Marni bubble dress in a garish cerise print]. Stay in the car"; or alternatively, "When you come to parents' evening, could you try to look normal, like everyone else?"
But perhaps most surprising of all is that her sons' resistance eventually morphs into embrace. They not only begin to appreciate Gaudoin's extensive designer wardrobe, they start actually borrowing from it.
The first indication was finding my 13-year-old thumbing through my closet in search of a black jacket and seizing upon a vintage unisex Helmut Lang number. "This will do," he said triumphantly, "I need it for a party." My unisex Prada and Armani, vintage Camden parka and Belstaff motorcycle jacket all met the same fate. "It's your own fault," my husband said unsympathetically when I complained about losing all my favorite pieces to a teenager. "You have created a monster."
What could be worse than having a designer-clothes-loving monster for a son? Having two of them! And then having both of them demand a shopping trip for their birthday! The story, as you can imagine, ends expensively. Among the birthday spoils is a Marni shirt for Gaudoin's 15-year-old son and a pair of McQueen sneakers for the 12-year-old. Clearly, designer tastes run in the family genes (like thinness, of course).
