by Michael Coren
My 13-year-old daughter recently started high school, and for the first time in her little educational life is not required to wear a uniform. She and her friends text one another each morning to find out what they are wearing, and make sure nobody is committing “social suicide.” It’s largely harmless, but should be totally unnecessary. Only a prude or an extremist would deprive kids of having fun and choice at school, but children have more than enough to think about beyond clothes. Anyway, at that age they’re not expressing individual choice, but replicating favourite teen celebrities.
It’s one of those great, gaping ironies that the people who pushed the hardest for the elimination of school uniforms in the 1960s were those who prided themselves on being progressive, and caring about rights and freedom. As is so often the case, there are none so out-of-touch and elitist as those who think themselves in-touch and egalitarian. The thing is, nothing guarantees equality more than reasonable uniformity, and nothing establishes freedom in school more readily than uniforms.
The argument that it’s expensive, because parents have to buy uniforms only to be worn in school, is supremely fatuous. Of course uniforms are only worn in school, meaning that they will be the most worn and cost-effective clothes a parent will ever buy. Compare this to most fashion items, by their nature out-of-date within a month or two, and likely to cost a lot of money, and be quickly discarded. Clothes are rapidly “so yesterday,” whereas uniforms are boringly and wonderfully perennial.
The financial argument simply doesn’t run. Because of the cost of modern clothes, a child from a less wealthy home will soon be apparent, will soon feel deprived, soon be known as the one who doesn’t dress trendily. So much for equality. As for freedom, children function at their freest and best when unshackled by the chains of what is not important, and primarily the cosmetics of the culture. Let them be children, not walking commercials for super-wealthy fashion designers and clothes companies.
Kids have to deal with puberty, changing feelings, the opposite gender, homework, weekend or night jobs, a sometimes less than ideal home life, the realization that the world can be challenging, and that one day you have to get a job. Added to these are the pressures of the ever-expanding electronic culture, and being part of a western world that claims to love children but often seems intent on destroying childhood.
Obviously, girls in particular will try to sexualise uniforms, roll up skirts, and so on. But this is a criticism of parental influence and school authority, not uniforms. Girls, as it were, will be girls, but uniforms will always be uniforms. Oh, and anyone who thinks that the opposite of uniforms is individual expression has never spent time in a school, where every second teen dresses in one way, every other one in another.
It’s really not that difficult, if you think about it. If you think outside of the box, think beyond the usual – well – uniform way.
Comments
Women's Post was dropped at my door last week, it was my first exposure to this mag and I must admit I almost trashed it but alias I began to read it and after completing it I concluded it is not just for women. The article "A Case for School Uniforms" is a case in point and would be a good read for any dad or man interested in more than the daily sports page. Well done Women's Post, keep up the good work.
I agree with the viewpoints you have discussed in your blog. I prefer that the high school students should wear a uniform because, its less expensive to buy a uniform. Most of the time teenagers are being bullied by their schoolmates because of what they wear. Parents are being pressured too by their teenagers to buy clothes that will be accepted by their peers. personal statement example
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