I’ve enjoyed reading the furore about parents in pyjamas taking their children to school. What a range of opinions!
“The head is quite right and it shouldn’t be allowed” at one extreme to “What does it matter as long as the children are taken to school?” at the other. Added to this, I’ve heard several debates on morning dress code. Is there one?
I know that Cleo Moon, the deputy head in ‘A Jarful of Moondreams’, would not want to antagonise the parents of her pupils by dictating what to wear in the morning but she might be given the job of speaking to one or two culprits by her boss, Teflon ( nothing sticks to him) Telford.
I was head of an inner city school and know how hard it is to get the children into school and how absence is often due to parents who can’t organise their life well enough to send their offspring out of the door in the morning. I’d have been happy to have the pupils arriving in school clothes and would not have felt responsible for the parents garb.
How can a headteacher decide when to draw the line? Isn’t it acceptable to expect a dress code for your pupils in school but sheer bossiness to extend it to parents? To send an open letter to all parents is sledgehammer to a nut tactics. If it was a handful of parents, a quiet friendly word would either do the trick or put you in your place by telling you to mind your school’s business and not theirs. Is the head going to ban parents from showing body art, piercings and unusual hair colours next?
I was interested to discover that the wearing of pyjamas during the day became fashionable in Juan-les-Pins when Coco Channel started the trend in the 1920s. This present trend is not new. I’d prefer Coco pyjamas to a onesie any day but if other adults want to dress like big toddlers it doesn’t concern me.
In an interview about entertaining, Nigella, of the great-tasting food, admitted that she often served her guests in her nightwear. I do hope they’re of the Coco Chanel elegant but comfortable style and not fleecy onesie style but, whatever they are I wouldn’t refuse a Nigella dinner.
It’s all down to personal choice. I feel sluggish if I’m in my nightwear until lunch time. I wouldn’t eat dinner in a dressing gown either because these garments signal bedtime to me. There are other comfy loungewear clothes with the same cut and comfort of pyjamas that I would wear so I’m sure it’s all in the name.
Who remembers the shell suit? Worse than a onesie or not?
One bonus of wearing pyjamas morning until evening is that it would save that walk of shame when you have to leave somewhere early in the morning in a party dress and killer heels. That’s a look that won’t go down well at the school gates either.
