Confession time: When I was in Junior High (which consisted of 7th, 8th, and 9th Grades, if that helps understand the now-foreign term), my father was not only a teacher at my school, but head of the Art Department. He was also my mother’s boss, since she was the art teacher for our town’s five (!) elementary schools. So, virtually everyone I knew had either my mother or father – or both – as an art teacher. And I had my dad, in 9th Grade. So did my boyfriend. Fun times.
Dad, for some reason, had a horror of what I might do once I entered his domain, even though he engineered it (another story for another time). I don’t know why he felt this way: I was always a good student and the only comments on my report card were “Allison is a little too chatty”. But he convinced himself that I would embarrass and humiliate him in the eyes of his friends and colleagues. So, his first salvo in the war against the Allison Front was to completely control what I wore to school. Jeans were strictly verboten. Jeans! In the 70s!
Now, my dad had very good taste and was always up on the latest fashions: When I was in elementary school, Mary Quant Mods, Twiggy, and the London Invasion were THE trendsetters, and I had A-line block-print mini dresses, white Gogo boots, fishnet stockings, and a chic pixie cut. Thus, when I entered 7th Grade, I had no end of maxi coats, peasant blouses, high-waisted bell bottoms, fabulous chunky heels, and Love’s Baby Soft. Still, the jeans thing was devastating, and I looked like a well-dressed weirdo, a Little Lord Fauntleroy amongst the shitkicker set.
Solution? On the days I didn’t have my dad as a teacher, I stashed a few pairs of jeans, a couple of tops, and a pair of borrowed work boots at a friend’s house and changed there before the bus came.
It wasn’t a flawless plan. Although it was tricky but do-able avoiding my dad’s classroom (plus, his administrative office was near the gym and the teachers’ lounge – easy to not go anywhere near either), he had eager informants everywhere, and they delighted in ratting me out: “Bob, Allison’s wearing denim, AND she gave me a dirty look in the cafeteria!”
This went on all through 7th Grade, until I finally had a complete melt down, locked myself in my bathroom, and refused to come out until the ‘rents promised to give me sartorial freedom. My dad even took me to a head shop in Hartford so I could get the requisite-for-coolness UFO farmer jeans and striped tank tops that conferred non-weirdo status on suspected NARCs like me.
I’m happy to report that the ensuing Jr. High years were largely fun (for me, not for my parents, alas confirming the self-fulfilling prophecy theory). So, the clothing conspiracy in this series, while largely sweet and benign, has some angsty roots. Doesn’t every joke, though? Look at the poor bastard below the strips. Anyway, here’s the happy resolution, and amen!
My sisters and I attended Catholic schools until grade 12. For the most part school uniforms were required. However, on weekends, my sisters and parents engaged in hand to hand combat primarily about hemlines and teased hair. They still have vivid memories of these skirmishes although they occurred in the 1960’s. Men usually don’t have these memories. All I remember is my Mom occasionally pulling me close so she could sniff what I was wearing. If I didn’t smell bad I was dressed appropriately. Your brief stories and illustrations certainly bring back memories.