There are things about being a kid that make me think to myself that I wouldn’t mind going back 35 years or so and reliving my younger years all over again.  One of the things that is truly amazing about being a kid is there seems to be little to no restriction on what a kid is required to wear, regardless of the setting.  As a parent I have attempted to make my children presentable when attending day care or preschool but it has come to the point that that is a fight that isn’t even worth engaging in any longer.  So, since the kids were running low on sweatpants I made a trip to the Tanger Outlet Mall to try and find a screaming deal on some weenie benders (sweat pants).

It was a gold mine and I was able to come away with bags full of sweat pants for both kids, I even managed to locate a pair of cargo sweat pants that are truly amazing.  I would imagine someone somewhere has managed to develop cargo sweatpants for adults, but I can’t even begin to fathom how incredible it would be to own a pair of cargo sweatpants.  Unbridled comfort coupled with maximum storage, no need for a fanny pack because you have side pockets, do they come in camouflage? because that’s the only way they could be even better.

The reality is that when you see people in sweat pants out in public it likely means one of two things.  They are so fat they can’t wear regular pants, not even jeans with an elastic waste band, or they are in a laundry cycle that has resulted in sweat pants being the only thing that isn’t unwearable due to it’s over all filth.   One of the truly nice things about sweat pants, unless you are a fat bastard, is that they are loose fitting and don’t get dirty as quickly as say a pair of jeans.  Farting, sweating, farting and sweating don’t seem to as significant of a toll on sweat pants as they do on jeans.

My question is this, why doe we wear anything but sweat pants?  Just think of how much more happy people would be if sweat pants were the only thing people wore in non warm weather months.  (I suppose a line of sweat shorts could be rolled out for summer and warm weather purposes)  On top of that, think of the money that we would save if we did away with all other clothing.  Bye bye business casual hello business sweat pants!   We already allow doctors to wear a much less comfortable version of sweat pants, scrubs, why not let everyone enjoy their seemingly endless comfort and convert current fashion entirely into sweat pants?  (Does anyone else have a problem with the doctor’s who wear their scrubs everywhere so that the entire world knows they have a medical degree?  Almost as bad as the guy I saw at a first grade basketball game on a Saturday at 2pm wearing a full suit and tie, you must be really important!)

Imagine an attorney addressing a jury for closing arguments in a full blown sweat suit.   Cubicle upon cubicle of  office workers wearing weenie benders as they sip on their Starbucks.   On top of saving an amazing amount of money on clothing, it would do away with one of the biggest scams of the modern time, dry cleaning.  Do they even really do anything with your clothes other than press them? Even the most minimal stain is nearly impossible for a dry cleaner to remove.  Ring around the collar, forget about it, I’ve never met a dry cleaner capable of hurdling that obstacle.  Donald Trump debating Hillary Clinton both wearing sweat pants, I’d pay money to see that, and sweat pants would likely hide Hillary’s kankles quite well.

Unfortunately, sweat pants is the epitome of my parenting style.  My children have worn me down to the point that I no longer fight with them about what they may or may not wear, “you want to wear an elsa costume to day care?  Sure no problem.”  Am I to the parenting equivalent of wearing sweat pants in public? (meaning I have given up all hope of being a presentable parent), not quite, but sometimes I feel like my lack of involvement and inconsistent parenting leads to the wrong message for my children.  That, on top of the fact that my oldest has shown up for pre-school in regular clothing when there has been a costume day, pajama day, and various other themed days.  On top of that he’s missed show and tell at his day care roughly 14 times and is probably sick of using one of his sneakers for show and tell.

It would be one thing if everything else was going splendidly for him, inattentive parents who 90 percent of the time don’t have their shit together would be surmountable, but he doesn’t.  Today they were celebrating Valentines day and for some reason Shirley decided to play Mario Party 9 last night with Aiden instead of preparing his 16 valentine cards to be given to his classmates.  First of all, it’s a miracle we even knew about this event and that he didn’t show up empty handed.  Part of me wants to have this conversation with whoever is in charge at his school “Yeah, if you want Aiden to participate in all of these frivolous and unnecessary events (Pajama day?  the kid wears sweat pants every day, do we really need a pajama day?)  I’m going to have to have you send me an invite via Microsoft office for every specific event, I don’t read the newspaper let alone school newsletters, who do I need to give my email address to? you or the lady who sits at the front desk and doesn’t seem to do a whole lot?”

So, anyway this morning as I was wrangling the kids to get them off to school and bible study with my sister and I needed to get Winston to sign (illegibly write his name) on all 16 of his Valentine’s day cards.  I brought out the first card and presented him with a pen, he had absolutely no idea what to do with it and was completely clueless.  I managed to get him to attempt to write his name and it became painfully clear that it would take until Valentine’s Day actually arrived for him to get his name on all 16 cards.  So, I decided to try to write like a 5 year old (which Winston can’t do) on the first card and then said fuck it and just wrote his name in my actual writing on the remaining 15 cards.  If one of his six teachers (I may be exaggerating, but they seem to have a lot of adults running around his classroom for there only being 17 kids) sees his V-day cards they will realize it wasn’t him who did his cards but so what I’m pretty sure they are well aware of my parental deficiencies.

One last anecdote to fully drive home my two pronged approach to parenting.  Upon completion by me of the V-day cards we were ready to roll on out except for the fact that Shirley had tried to Fluff dry the kids coats in the dryer and they were still soaking wet.  Ultimately, I had to coax them into wearing their coats from last year, not sure why that was so objectionable, unless they were just trying to screw with me, but they wanted no part of their old coats and claimed to be willing to wear their old coats.  I had no time for winter coat roulette and had to make a decision.  The first prong of my parenting approach, bribery, was necessary to get them out the door.  I gave them each a small cup of chocolate chips in exchange for them not complaining about having to wear their old winter coats.

Had I not been quick enough on my feet to realize bribery was my best option, I likely would have had to resort to the second prong of my parenting approach, a hybrid of yelling and punishment.  Due to my lack of time there was no way I would have been able to adequately punish them for being such dickheads (unless I was willing to double down and bungie cord them in my truck bed on the way to pre-school as punishment for their unruly behavior) so I would have had to resort to yelling at them, and in turn feeling bad about all of the terrible things I couldn’t take back, until ultimately I realized they are 5 and 3.  The reality is, and I need to realize this every time I feel bad for losing my shit when they drive me crazy, as long as I give them chocolate chips and candy on a fairly regular basis they will love me regardless of the terrible, yet true, things I say to and about them.