Don't Label Me

A long, long time ago, when the girls were squalling babies, we had many discussions about parenting, values, and general "how are we going to raise the perfect children?" ideas. One of the biggies was our vow to not bow to the corporate marketing giants when dealing with things like clothing and toys. Faithfully and somewhat smugly we only bought toys that were generic and designed to stimulate their little brains..like brightly painted wooden things and non-character dolls and teddies. We were sure we would never cave to the advertising on tv or the mass-marketed big-name hypes every holiday season. None of our hard-earned cash was going to be lining the corporate fat cat pockets, no sirree!

Then, as the girls began growing and becoming more independant, reality started asserting itself. Disney princesses, My Little Ponies, Barbie, and Littlest Pet Shop toys starting creeping into our home. We hated buying the stuff but we were helpless against their pleading eyes and looks of wonder whenever we went to a mall or toy store. We graciously caved a little bit more every year until we finally gave up the toy battle entirely but we still held firm to our principles when it came to branded clothing. There was no way our girls were going to grow up as mindless advertising clones, no sirree!

Fast forward to yesterday. We did a quick day trip down to Washington State to visit the stores for some good deals on back to school clothing. We hit places that we don't have here in Canada like Target, JC Penny, and the outlet malls. We literally shopped until we dropped (fortunately we only do this twice a year) and this is what we came back with:

Sigh.

There was also Nike shoes, more Gap stuff, more Aeropostale and anything with Paul Frank on it. They would not even consider anything "generic" except basic pants and even those had to come from an "approved" store. Its official..I'm going to bad-parent hell.

For the record, though, I'm starting a Pilates class next month and I refuse flat out to buy any clothing from Lululemon even though every single mom in this neighborhood seems to have a closet full of it. My workout wear came from Target, thank you very much, so maybe there is hope after all....