BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids A minor thing: Wardrobes, bodies and kids

I work with kids.

If you didn't know that before, you know it now.

Oddly enough I decided to work with them AND not to have my own about the same time!
AND working with them put me off even MORE!
Doesn't mean I'm not nice to them.
Doesn't mean I don't LIKE kids (not that there's anything wrong with that!)
Doesn't mean I don't do a good job.
BUT working with kids DOES help me see a bit of the reality of parenthood.
Starting with......
My wardrobe.
I can't wear heels at work.
Maybe I could but it'd be risky.
You see, I work with LITTLE kids.
I spend some time every day OUTSIDE with them, as a rule. Sometimes I even have to spend most of the morning outside.
Where kids can run and fall and fight (not often but on the odd occasion)
AND I HAVE TO RUN to sort things out.
I could TRIP on heels.
We have even been told it's not a good idea to wear them!
So I have to wear flats. Usually I wear sports shoes. I'm SICK of it. I WISH I could have pretty shoes!
Sure I could wear stilettoes OUTSIDE of work and probably STILL trip cause of the stupid uneven flagstones! BUT I COULD PRACTICE. And i WOULDN'T have to RUN!
There there is my CLOTHES.
Short skirts?
Are you having a LAUGH?
If I bend over - which I often have to, to get to child level, they could see my knickers!
In fact, I once got told the parents didn't like my clothes thought they were too sexy so I had to dress more conservative! (I wasn't even wearing anything that bad, in fact, I had worn a short skirt, like in the photo and a top that said "sexy" to a staff only meeting and for some reason that was too much! No parents or kids were even THERE!
Another time I got a LOOK cause I braided my hair - different school - and it was a school with POSH parents!

Jeans?
Yes I live in them at work.
And EVERY SINGLE working DAY I get milk spilled on them by the kids. EVERY DAY. And usually on my chair AND the carpet too! (I know, why have carpet AND kids? NOT MY decision!!)

And then there are my nails.
OK so I bite my nails.
But once when I was getting my training I started to grow them and they were looking pretty and getting long (in a GOOD way!)
AND THEN I was told I should cut them that I couldn't have long nails and work with kids I might scratch them!
Some of my colleagues do have long nails and manicures. (I do manicure them at home.)
But I like to be quite hands on and can be clumsy.
But even if I DID grow and then manicure my nails, an accident could happen.

There's a POINT to all this ranting - At least when I go out I can dress up right, on evenings, weekends, or else slob round in my pjs and dressing gown.
But if I was a mother I would have to spend a LOT longer time in my sports shoes, short nails and milk smeared jeans than I do now. Or if I did a different kind of work, spend my weekends like that.

(And when I had a baby - did you know that I love having long hair and babies LOVE to pull on long hair and dangly earrings which can HURT AND their fingers and hands can be quite grubby?!) (I know, cause I've BEEN there!)
I hope to change careers in the future for various reasons.
And work with ADULTS again (although there ARE GOOD things about working with kids too!)

But if I was a mother could I ever change THAT?
Not likely!
On the subject of wardrobes and bodies.
I don't have the perfect body.
But I HAVE lost a lot of weight recently and I'd like to KEEP it that way NOT put on lots of pregnancy pounds!
Cause I've struggled ENOUGH with my weight over my lifetime thus far and I've read WAY too many stories about women who struggled with their weight only to have it get MUCH worse when they got pregnant! Horrendously so!
I DO have a wonderfully small waist and uh, I'd like to KEEP it that way!
So yet again I say Thanks but NO thanks!
If after all this I have kids I will NEVER get to dress up glam as much as I want to. A minor thing sure but still worth a mention!

Cheers!!! I agree with you all the way!

Have you ever seen the episode of Sex and The City when Carrie's pricey shoes got stolen at her gf's kid's baby shower?

I mean, people always judge childfree women who choose to have nice shoes and clothes. It's the same selfish accusation. But then they cheer mothers who dress well cslling the yummy mummies. How any women �re truly that? And how many are those who simply pass their kids to the tailing nannies.

Touch�!

Athena - I totally understand. Since I coach gymnastics for kids I have to keep my nails short so I don't accidentally scratch them. And I remember always babysitting in grubby clothes so that I wouldn't get paint, etc. on my good jeans.

I'm sure that what you wear to work is fine. I can't believe that you would be told that you should dress more conservatively.

I've been thinking more recently about the clothing/weight and kids thing. See, I haven't been looking as good as I could, and I feel I owe it to the childfree fra.. er... sisterhood to look better. So, I've had my eyebrows waxed, I've french manicured my nails, Hubby is dyeing my hair today and starting in the new year I'm doing some fitness classes.

Mostly just because I can.

I totally agree. I have always loved to dress nicely, and I nearly have an addiction to shoes. After spending the day with small children, I begin to miss my heels.

I'm not really into clothes/shoes as much as I was 15 yrs ago (I am now "40-something") and I tend to carry some extra weight. But at breakfast this morning with DH's extended family, his cousin - who has a 4yr old and 6mo old - got up from the table and her shirt pulled up to show some of her stomach. She's usually thin but post-2nd baby, she's still carrying some of the weight and her stomach looks about the same size as mine...except it's really flabby and COVERED in stretch marks. DH was like "ewww". That's just one of many reasons I'm glad to be CF.... I might not be so thin but at least my skin is still firm and smooth.

Ewww. I'm going to sound super vain here, but this is the truth: I'm completely grossed out by stretch marks. I know a lot of moms think of them as battle scars, but seeing them on moms makes me wonder why their hubbies still touch them. They bother me that much.

In my first 2 years after my injury, I put on quite a bit of weight, simply because I couldn't be active. I ended up with a faint stretch mark on the side of each thigh, just below what my bikini covers. Now that I'm small enough to once again fit into said bikini, I'm still trying to get up the guts to show those icky stretch marks in public. Even my own gross me out.

Sorry. Little side rant there. Couldn't help it.

I figure if I think my cellulite is disgusting, what would it be like to have stretch marks AND cellulite? Eww.

I couldn't care less about shoes. I think I missed that gene.

I keep thinking that I should care more about how I look, but it just takes so long. But I clean up really nice. :-) Maybe that will be one of my resolutions this year!

I don't even own a pair of high heels. I'm tall enough thanks very much! But I still would be very sad to have a jello stomach. A few stretch marks I could handle, but a ton would be very depressing.

I've always carried about 10-15 extra pounds, and although I can usually accomplish what I set out to do, for some reason I could never lose that weight. I exercised but not consistently enough. I kind of knew that maybe it was partly psychological, plus, I love food.

Since I've decided (somewhat) not to have a child, I made the decision to get more consistent about exercising and really put my mind to getting down to a better weight. To my amazement, over the past year it's worked. I think part of it was I always felt in the back of my mind that eventually I'd be getting pregnant, so why bother working on my body if it would all get destroyed when I got pregnant? Now I feel much better about myself, and am relieved to not have that future-body-ruining pregnancy hanging over me. Yeah, maybe it's shallow, but still I feel better and I know it's healthier.

Also, we did start going to a fertility clinic last year (before I found this forum and got my head straight) and I observed that all the women I saw there were extremely thin. I don't why that struck me, but it was very noticeable...even my DH noticed. I'm not sure what it meant, but maybe that they are very high achievers in many ways, and now they're working on their next achievement which is getting pregnant.

I am a pretty petite person, and a small size, but due to weight loss and gain over the years I have stretch marks and cellulite It stinks. But I know it could be much worse. I look good in clothes, but I think most people would be surprised by my cellulite. I know I need to exercise more, and I will, I just haven't started it up yet.

But, you are right. It's hard to have nice clothes, or even a nice home, things, with kids. I think a lot of men miss the way their wives used to dress up when they were dating or whatever. And then Moms get that Mom look. Some Moms manage to keep it all together. I don't know if it's genes, exercise, or both. I don't know how people keep their career, their kids, their house, and their bodies in shape at once. It's a lot to take on.