Childcare and Clothes

“I went to Ireland ten years ago and because my clothes were so worn out, I looked like I had shopped at the thrift store,” I lamented to Edith St. Louis, the principal of our school.

She gave me her usual disenchanted look that said, “And it hasn’t gotten any better since, but it’s OK, we love you anyway.”

“I’m trying,” I insisted.

“You’re very trying,” it was a sweet sister whisper.

Style is not my bailiwick. If I could buy seven pairs of jeans all the same and seven shirts all the same, I’d go for it and be as happy as a clam. I once thought that cassocks for everyone would be just wonderful. It was not a readily accepted idea. Miss Rachel, our unusually beautiful first grade teacher sighed. “Yours can be sleeveless, very short and made of gauzy bright colored material.”

“Sounds like an idea,” she laughed.

I’m glad the fashion show quirk has never taken hold at the Garden School, because life at school is dirty for everyone. There’s not a morning that goes by that all of our teachers are not up to our elbows in some kind of messy thing. I think I spend half my day shoveling something. Lately it’s been the garden. It’s always the pet room, moving gravel on the playground, burying one of our animals that died. Sometimes it’s time to repot plant or move a tray of paints or clay or make paper mache. Mostly my mess involves cooking.

This is where personality comes in and you can see it in children. Some children can go out to play in the pea gravel and come in like they just got dressed; they are clean from head to foot including their faces.

Some children can’t breathe deeply without looking like Miss Judy. I relate to these kids and they find a special place in my heart. That’s why washing is so important. I am always pleased when a dirty child informs me that the soap box in the bathroom is empty.

We have a schedule for washing – every time you come in the building, before you eat, after you use the bathroom or scratch some unmentionable part. Washing hands to the elbows helps stave off all kinds of nasty childhood viruses.

But what about their clothes? We really think the best scenario for a parent of a child who gets really dirty is to buy school clothes at the thrift store. Five outfits can’t cost more than $15.00. Keep nice things for home, especially shoes. Pea gravel does a real job on shoes. Then, if a parent needs a child to look nice after school, he should send an outfit in a plastic bag with note. It’s a compromise.

A child’s clothes should be comfortable, big enough to move freely in, but not so big a child can’t climb a slide. We have a dress code that says boys’ shorts must come to or above the knee. What we are forbidding are those “do nothing – loafer” pants where the crotch hangs down to the knees so the child can literally “do nothing.” When the child walks, it’s as if he’s wearing a dirty diaper. These clothes are a detriment to play. No child is safe wearing these pants to a playground. He can’t climb. In fact, he can’t get up the bus steps to go to the playground without pulling half a ton of fabric off the ground. These pants wear the child, and the child is a prisoner of his clothes for the sake of fashion.

Children’s clothing needs to compliment the activities. One of Miss Rachel’s all time favorite morning exercises is to take her class over to the big pond. The kids come back needing to be hosed down, but they’ve learned so much, seen so much, and have had a brilliant morning, dirt on good clothes simply can’t be a deterrent to learning.

Learning is rarely clean when you’re a pre-reader. Learning is a try on experience. Making and doing will teach more than someone telling you about something. Kids need to touch especially. You can read a story about rabbits, but until a giant rabbit like Carl hops through circle time, and you can reach out and pet him, the rabbit translation is lacking.

Look at a single day in a really busy childcare: Chocolate chip muffins for breakfast followed by a session of finger painting followed by digging in the pea gravel to find crinoids and other fossils. Spaghetti for lunch, popsicles on the playground for treats, clay or glue as an afternoon project that compliments a history discovery, and an ice cream cup. In the summer add water to play.

But dirt mostly washes out of clothes. There is a wonderful laundry product called De solv it. It takes most dirt, grease and paint stains out. It’s a pre wash treatment that goes with bleach.

Then there is balance of dirt; there’s Mrs. St. Louis. She has never had a spot on any piece of clothing that someone else didn’t spill on her - like me. She can cook for an hour and she’s spotless, but you should see the kitchen! It takes three weeks to clean up Mrs. St. Louis’s paper mache.

It’s a matter of personality. Know your child and make allowances for him as he is.