Frivolous retail therapy poll.

[rivka]

Our finances, which have been tight for the last year and a half, are suddenly about to ease up. A lot. With more discretionary income on the near horizon, it's time to revisit the link folder where I've been storing up adorable toddler-sized sloganed T-shirts.[1]

I feel a little ambivalent about putting slogans on my kid. As I've said before:

I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line when it comes to ascribing my own political opinions to my child. On the one hand, I generally think it's distasteful when parents treat their young child as a political signboard, or put words in the child's mouth that they're too young to understand. My kid is not my mini-me. On the other hand, I think it's important to communicate our values from the very beginning, and to make political involvement and social justice work part of our family's everyday lives.

So, where does the line fall in T-shirt form? I welcome comments, personal philosophies, and of course, votes in my retail therapy poll.

[Poll #1138454]


[1] Yes, at some point I'll spend some of the extra disposable income on things for myself. It's just a lot more fun to buy clothes for Alex. Buying clothes for myself is work, and not pleasant work.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

We have a picture of Molly, at two months old, sporting a "Women for Gore and Lieberman" sticker, despite my own mixed feelings about using my child as a political billboard. I'll note that now, at seven, she is a fervent Clinton supporter....despite the fact that Ed and I are supporting Obama. Alas, I haven't seen a "Girls for Hillary" button or t-shirt anywhere. I did filch a Clinton sign from the Caucus so that she could put it up in her bedroom. I love that she's got her own opinions that differ from mine (even if it's all because she's an unashamed one-issue candidate-picker and Clinton is the GIRL so that's who Molly wants in office).

I really like the "Teach Evolution" one and the "Cute As All Get-Out" one. I like "President Not Princess" for an older kid (Molly has said that she wants to be president when she grows up; if they made it in her size, I'd be tempted) but I am mildly irritated by any t-shirt that declares some future goal for a child too young to really have any ambitions of their own, and I don't think I'd put one on my kid. I also think that a shirt that says "President Not Princess" on a toddler is tempting fate to give you a three-year-old with an even more obsessive interest in the Disney Princesses than is typical.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Besides, who knows, you might reinstate the monarchy by the time those girls are old enough.

I can imagine a universe where "Princesses Not Presidents" is a monarchist slogan, though perhaps not in the US.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I went surfing through CafePress to see if I could find anything "Girls for Hillary" related - searching first for "Hillary Clinton," and then for children's sizes. And wow, there's an enormous nasty cesspool of disgusting anti-Clinton shirts out there. Which people have felt called to create in baby sizes.

Yuck.

I know that the mean-spirited streak runs deep in American politics, but an open search for "Barack Obama" shirts brings up nothing like that. It's got to be sheer misogyny.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

He didn't have as much time to work them up into a froth of hate. You just wait. :-(

I think any way you dress your baby is in a way a political statement: if you dress them in blue/pink, if you don't, if you put frilly dress on them, if you don't... you might as well add the words!