So Lent started this week. I like the idea of mindfulness in these weeks before Easter. Sometimes I even think of preposterous things like, “I should give up sarcasm for 40 days!” But then I remember that would require sedation or a lobotomy. Instead, I’m working on gratefulness to counter the sarcasm.
Nothing prepared me for the onslaught of sarcasm and gratefulness that happened Friday morning. 7:15 I got a call from my oldest daughter who is twelve. “Mom, the principal dresscoded me for pants without pockets. I need you to bring me a change of clothes.”
Wha? Pockets? And dress code became a verb yesterday?
My blood pressure picked up. I don’t even BUY clothes that cannot be worn to school. I read the policy BEFORE we bought clothes, because some battles are better won before they start. A few questions later, I determined that she was wearing fleece pant leggings (like she does every other day and has all school year), and I told her I would drive 45 minutes up to school. LOADED WITH A COPY OF THE DRESS CODE POLICY THAT NO WHERE STATES THAT LEGGINGS CANNOT BE WORN AND A TEN POINT LOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST BLANKET POLICIES BANNING ASININE THINGS LIKE LEGGINGS. Oh and grace. Of course…*ahem* grace.
Four hundred deep breaths later, I arrived and had her called to the office. She was wearing a pair of black fleece leggings that did not touch her skin until they reached the calf area. Her t-shirt covered her behind. I looked incredulously at the secretary, handed my daughter the jeans, and sent her back to class. Then we had a little conversation about the policy which was apparently changed clarified MONDAY because six whole 6th grade girls wore see-through leggings with shorty shorts to school. *GASP* BAN THE LEGGINGS! Good heavens. In case you were wondering, the definition of leggings is “pants without pockets.” So the skinny jeans these kids wear so tight I can see the blood pumping through the veins in their legs are more modest because… POCKETS. Don’t even get me started on announcing policy changes clarifications mid-year without notification of parents on an island where there are approximately four pairs of pants with pockets available for purchase in my daughter’s size—none of which she would wear because she is twelve and shopping is a master course in patience and futility.
Middle school is not a rational land.
As I drove home thinking of all sorts of devious ways to use leggings in a subversive counter-attack, a real sadness washed over me. Not because sewing pockets onto all my daughter’s leggings isn’t a brilliant idea or because a newspaper article with the heading “Mass Legging Shake Down at Lester Middle!” wouldn’t sell papers. No, it was because I realized again that this kind of blanket-policy legalism never inspires relationship or loyalty or confidence. It only inspires rebellion. And too often, I am a little too legalistic myself. (See all statements above in caps for evidence.)
I’m not against rules, but rules are simply the fences—we have to build and tend them carefully and with real purpose if we want them to be respected. Boundaries only work when we develop trust over time. I have to remember that in my relationships with my kids and their schools. So often I hold these lines of “DO NOT CROSS” so tightly that I forget I’m supposed to be carrying my cross to follow Christ. It’s harder to be critical under the cross. Darn it.
So today, I’m thankful for leggings, for asinine school policies on leggings, and for grace. Lent must be off to a good start.