Young Lady, Those Shorts Are Too Long

Honey, before you race out the door, don’t forget your backpack and your lunch and your—

Wait. Hold on a second. Back yourself right back in here.

Are those Bermuda shorts?

Don’t you lie to me. Those cuffs are at least an inch thick—you think I can’t see how many times you’ve rolled those legs up? You think I don’t know you’re going to roll them right back down to your dimpled knees the second you leave the house? How stupid do you think I am?

Hold your arms by your side.

Ohhh no, don’t bend over and slouch your shoulders so you look like a gorilla with sciatica, trying to make it seem like those shorts land in an appropriately crotch-adjacent location. You and I both know they’re too long, and they’re only going to get longer as you move around. There won’t be a hint of butt cheek in sight. People will think I let you out of the house that way!

I don’t care that you’ve worn them before—why do you think I care whether you’ve been dress-coded? That’s our standard? Whether one of your overworked, underpaid teachers was scandalized enough to yank your overly-clad bottom to the side of the hallway and send you to the principal for public decency?

If you’d been sent to the principal, you would be in so much more trouble than a dress-code violation. If I have to leave work to come and bring you a pair of boyshorts for fourth period, so help me God, I will lose my shit.

Oh, so other kids at school wear stuff that’s even longer? If Gabardine, Persimmon, and Caliper jumped off a bridge wearing pedal pushers, I guess you would, too. That makes sense. Let’s all put on capris and thumb our noses at society’s expectations.

There! Just now! When you leaned over to grab your backpack, I couldn’t begin to even guess what underpants you’re wearing. I don’t know if Victoria’s keeping her secrets or if she’s blabbing all over the place. You could be wearing My Little Pony underoos, for all I know. Oh, don’t you roll your eyes at me. We both know you still have them.

Yes, I know it’s a double standard, and that’s unfair. It’s deplorable how the boys get to let their jeans puddle around their feet all day without so much as a cuff, and girls are the ones who get coded for being distracting. You’re right, it’s wrong, and I’m happy to join you in a stern letter-writing campaign just as soon as you put on an indecent pair of bikini bottoms.

Look, school is supposed to prepare you for many things, and one of those things is to be mindful of the image you present to the world. How do you think it would look if I showed up to an important business meeting in a pair of slacks, and the pressed pleats on the legs landed neatly above the pointed toes of my shoes?

It would look like I didn’t take my work seriously, is how it would look. Like I didn’t know the difference between booty shorts and my own rear end. Yes, I know there’s not much breathing room between booty shorts and my own rear end. That’s exactly my point. People need to know what they’re dealing with. Who knows what kind of blades and nunchucks and brass knuckles I could be packing underneath a neat pair of trousers? Don’t you know that shaking hands—the very foundation of polite introductions—started as a way to show people you weren’t concealing a dagger?

Honey, I promise I understand. I remember having this same fight with my own parents while I stamped my foot in my pegged pants and screamed that they were short enough. You feel like I’m making you a social pariah. I get it.

There’s a solution, though. I don’t like being the kind of parent who’ll threaten to send you to Our Lady of Dallas City, Lord help me. But I’ll tell you what, uniforms mean there are no fights about hot pants five mornings a week. Those kids get in the car with their backpacks and their lunches and don’t worry what the other kids are going to say, because they’ll all be flashing the exact same amount of cheek.

That’s what a uniform does—it lets everyone focus on the day at hand and not worry about which fingers are nearest a hemline. Which, for the record, should be absolutely none of them.

Now march back upstairs to change clothes before you miss the bus, and I start calling Ms. Daisy Duke for tuition rates at Immaculate Heart of Hooters.