Back to School, Catalog Style

Back to school time is approaching and that means the children’s clothing catalogs are piling up in my mailbox.

I don’t know what school the kids in these catalogs go to, but it looks nothing like my own kids’ school, where lunches might easily consist of pizza from the night before and most kids are wearing hand-me-downs from their older siblings.

Still, it’s easy to get sucked into the fantasy world these catalogs and websites are trying to sell us… a world where the children are squeaky clean and stylishly dressed, where meals always include all five food groups (it is five, isn’t it? I don’t even know anymore), and where life is very, very good.

Enter that world for a moment with me, parents, as I show you what back to school would look like if real life was like the catalogs make it out to be…

You’d dress your children warmly for their first day – despite the fact that it’s 88 degrees outside.

 

Your kids would harvest their own lunches every morning before school.

 

 Your son would have a better cut and color than you do.

 

Your kid’s social life would be over the day you mistakenly put a non-organic apple in his lunchbox.

 

Your children would magically teleport to school each morning by holding hands in a vacant field and chanting, “30 percent off. 30 percent off.”

 

Every day would begin with a yoga class and statements of affirmation.

 

“I know what you’re going through!” you’d tell the friend whose son insists on wearing a Minecraft t-shirt every day. “Arturo refuses to wear anything that isn’t Bauhaus-inspired. Try finding that at Target!”

 

The “preteen awkward phase” would look very different from the way you remember it.

 

Homework would be FUN!!! REALLY, REALLY FUN!!!

 

Hoodies would be allowed on campus.

 

When police arrested your son’s preschool teacher for locking the kids in the closet each day while she played Candy Crush, you’d finally figure out how she kept her classroom so spotless.

 

You’d let your daughter wear makeup to school. And your son.

 

You’d devote an entire digital scrapbook page to your son’s first bromance.

 

Your twins, Thurston and Halston, would grow up to be stylists for Restoration Hardware catalog shoots.

 

You’d wonder why your son’s nickname at school was Urkel.

 

You’d actively try to dress your boys like little troublemakers- because that always goes over so well with teachers.

 

Mean rumors would fly about the new kid who showed up without a personalized backpack.

 

This would be totally acceptable behavior.

 

No one would question why that one kid showed up at school every day in a panda suit.

 

Children would communicate via a primitive method known as ‘talking,’ which involves no technology whatsoever!

 

You’d totally let your girls wear tulle ballet skirts to school. It’s not like they’d get any spots or stains on them!

 

Your lunches would look AH-MAZ-ING.
And taste like ass.

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Header image via Pottery Barn Kids