Rebecca Eckler

My daughter’s school had twin day last week, when you pick a friend and dress in the exact same clothing. This is at a school where the girls all wear uniforms, and thus, look the same every single day. Nevertheless, twin day was supposed to be a fun thing and my daughter was super excited about it.

Of course, she only mentioned twin day to me the day before as I drove her to school. Now, you’d think it would be easy for girls to put on a pair of jeans, discuss what colour top they both have, and voila – twins! But, oh no!

My daughter mentioned, quite clearly, that “all the mothers were going out and buying their daughters and their twins matching outfits.” Personally, theme days bother me. Seriously, do I really have clothes for my daughter for fifties day? And, seriously, do any children born after the millennium even know, or care, what the fifties were about? But back to twin day.

Because my daughter told me so last minute about all the other girls whose mothers were going out and buying their kids new matching outfits, I had to do the same thing. Not because I was jumping on the bandwagon, or not entirely, but I couldn’t reach the mother of my daughter’s “twin” so I had no way of figuring out if they had matching clothes in their closets or not. So I raced to Winners and bought two matching outfits, grumpy that I was spending my time going through racks when I should have been working.

The same week, my friend’s daughter had pajama day at her school. “Well, at least that’s easier than twin day,” I told my friend. Actually, not so much. All the girls in her daughter’s class had decided to wear one-piece pajamas, so my friend too had to race out and find pajamas for her 9-year-old that were one-piece. “It just pisses me off,” my friend ranted, “that we already send them to a private school and then we have to end up paying for things like this.”

I completely agree. However, these theme days are a way to raise money. Each student has to contribute $2 to participate, and of course all the girls want to participate. For a moment, I couldn't help but think that I' rather pay ten dollars if they don’t have any more theme days where I end up paying $70 for new outfits.

But then I saw the joy of my daughter and her twin wearing the same outfits, and they did look cute. Oh, the things us mothers have to do. The list just gets longer and longer, doesn’t it?

Do you like theme days at school? Share!

Follow me at @rebeccaeckler.

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