In case you’ve lost track, we have six children.

Our sixth child, our youngest son, at five, has been lately addicted to a pair of shoes we purchased at the last minute for a wedding he was in.  A pair of black slip on shoes that are not my personal style for my child and are not anyone’s personal style to be worn with camo shorts.

And yet.

He does.

Nearly every departure from our home will find Otto Fox in an ensemble that includes comfort clothes and black fake leather slip on shoes.

He calls them his “inside shoes”.  His inside shoes that he insists on wearing outside all of the time.

The funny thing is – if five year old Riley or five year old London had trooped out of her room wearing un-coordinating shoes and wildly mismatched clothing,  I would have made her change.

I’m not talking about inappropriate clothing choices here.  I’m talking about merely unfashionable clothing choices.  Clothes that look silly when paired together.  Goggles for the grocery store.  An orange t-shirt over a bright red Sunday dress.  Inside shoes with gym shorts.  A dress shirt with pajama pants.

I would have had little London or little Riley change those clothes before we left the house where real people could see my children and real people could judge me based upon said clothing.

And that’s just what I’m talking about here.

Nowadays I do not instruct Otto to go change his shoes.  I don’t ask him to take off the camo hat with his dress shirt.  I don’t mind if he wears a favorite Christmas t-shirt in the middle of summer.

And it has nothing to do with lazy parenting or exhausted parenting or unaware parenting.

I’m not oblivious to the clothing choices my son has made.  

It isn’t because I do not care what my son wears.

No.

That isn’t it at all.

It is, instead, because – finally – at child number six – I realize that I do not actually care what other people think about what my son is wearing.

I do not care if people do, in fact, judge me or my parenting abilities based upon my child’s outfit choices.

I just don’t care.

I know that the way my child looks and the state of his matching-ness or trendy-ness does not, in any manner, reflect my parenting abilities.

And I know that I have so many more important concerns to teach my child.  So many more important concerns to consume my thoughts and my days in general.

And slip on shoes with camo shorts is just not one of them.

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