Law as mirror

The real reason to dress modestly is not to smother another's lust, which is impossible, but to cover one's own pride. That's why the notion makes ladies angry.  

Family makeout photography

I don't think a straight man thought of it.

God has spoken by his prophets

It says, "thy belly is like an heap of wheat," not "thy belly is like an slab of marble."

Cuddle up!

Plaid to the bone

The LL Bean catalog (aka Mom's Guide to Coveting) came today. I liked the cover redesign thingy they're doing for their 100th anniversary.

Here's a cover from 1956:

Here's how a photographer reproduced it:

Naturally I was just interested in the chick. Her body type seems to have gotten more realistic over the years, but she's not quite as buttoned as she used to be. :D

Most Christianest headcovering ever

There was also a pair of R2D2 socks in the hand-me-down bag that brought me this treasure.

Uncool

People cite many reasons for not choosing the big family life. The reason few people are honest enough to cite is what I guess we must call "style" or "popularity" or "anti-loserishness".

Because, let's face it, big family people are dorks. They look like they just came from the last hour of a garage sale on Doublewide Drive, or the super weird ones even dress up like they're Amish or something. They can't shut up about homeschooling and &$*% breastfeeding and #$^&@%#$#$@ homebirth. The wives always end up looking like heaps of hairy blubber and the husbands are just creepy hagbait with giant guts (must be all those kids, ha ha ha ha ha). They have to drive those Baptist church vans to fit all their spawn in, how is that Lutheran, ha ha ha ha ha? It's fine that some people have a lot of kids, but . . . dorks!

It would sound pretty shallow to engineer one's family on the basis of coolness, though, and the myriad other reasons couched in terms of responsibility and stewardship sound downright mature. But the truth is that skinny jeans and makeup and generally not being a loser are a surprisingly big deal to a lot of people who ostensibly left high school a long time ago.

Little children, grow up. We know very well that all that cruel snobbery we can just say was a joke if we get cornered is a spiteful caricature we have based on a few people we didn't like. Coolness is the extremely silly wealth of a too-wealthy people, and our Lord has nothing but warnings for the rich man.

Of course we'd all totally die for Jesus no prob, but of most of us he does not make so straightforward a request. Most of us he asks merely to be despised and rejected even as he was. Which is to say, among other things, uncool; renouncing in large part the clothing, entertainment, demeanor, speech, and camaraderie of the World around us. Would I give up my edgy hipness for a meek and quiet spirit? Would I stop making a point of denouncing badly dressed weirdness to make sure everybody knows I'm not one of those losers even if we do all go to the same church? Would I risk appearing to be allied with (or at least refuse to speak ill of) that annoying hippie and her annoying hippie friends* who happen to be my sisters in Christ? Would I give up the ax I've been grinding so long on the backs of badly dressed weirdos to do right by the husband, the baby, the children, the church, the neighbors God has given or would give me?

I don't like being a weirdo. I have, idiotically, been jealous of the cool people since the time I was old enough to perceive their exclusivity. Although I'm getting pretty old and crusty, there are times when I hate knowing that I, with my six kids and my pragmatically determined appearance and my six-kid-centric lifestyle and my boring hangup on the same, am the loser the cool people are still sneering at. Little child, grow up.

*And this one is really dangerous, as I have been terribly embarrassed to find the hippies much kinder, humbler, and more accepting of others than I am. Organic jerks, making me feel all bad and stuff . . . .

Skirts

 OK shapes for skirts:

Not OK shapes for skirts:

A skirt, like a woman, should be at least slightly longer than it's wide.

OK. But, why?

Baby clothes with words on them. Words like, "cutie pie," or "Daddy's biggest fan," or "Mommy's perfect pumpkin." Perhaps these little epithets are necessary because I would not otherwise notice how very like pie, or how windy, or how gourd-shaped the wearer is. Or perhaps they are prophecies? Or imperatives! Yes! Go! Pie!

I just know these are things I am expected to understand in order to be a good mother. Alas, I have the dumb.

Except the ones I'm wearing, of course.

This is how we treat our friends?

Nothing about the contemporary wedding has ever made sense or appealed to me. I find its demands shallow and inconsiderate, its conventions frivolous and absurd*, and its caricaturing of certain divine mysteries nauseating. But what really stands out to me from all the madness is the gross insensitivity of putting a group of random, normal women on display for 45 minutes of gawking, especially if they're all expected to wear the same dress.

(I realize this is silly of me and virtually no contemporary women consider themselves the least bit un-gawkworthy in any state of dress or undress.)

You stay classy, America.

*Symptomatic of my non-decorative inclination, probably. I'm sure everybody else's wedding was beautiful.

Addendum

Did you know that there aren't any good maternity clothes? That everything affordable is too loose, too tight, too short, or too flummoxingly sexy for any self-respecting old pregnant lady to wear? Of course you knew this. Everyone knows this.

So I done took my problem by the bobbin and built myself a maternity skirt. Leah, you're an inspiration to us all. And it turns out the Internet is a sufficient sewing instructor. If anyone out there is interested in building herself a winter-ready maternity skirt, here are a couple of linked tutorials for you:

Make the skirt. I used an old pair of jeans that fit pre-pregnancy, but which were too high waisted for my pre-pregnancy tastes. For the skirt panels, I used a pair of Dad's old jeans, which he had long ago destroyed doing dad things. The tutorial to which I've linked here suggests putting in only a front panel, but I wanted more A-line, less pencil, so I added an extra-wide panel in the back.

Add a maternity panel. Each of us has a stretchy T-shirt languishing away in the back of her drawer. You know, from those days when we were confused and wore stretchy T-shirts? This sucker longs to be given a more respectable role in your wardrobe. Cut it up.

And then you're done. If you make the skirt long enough, it has enough gumption to keep out the cold. Wear a pair of those long socks Rebekah mentioned a post back, and you'll be happier than a denning polar bear. Without the sleep. So, maybe, not happier, but at least as warm.

The warming of legs

Three things happened recently.

1. I came to terms with the fact that my corduroys were too short and the baby hole in my jeans is starting to grow up.

2. I felt again a delusional urge to get beyond sewing flat square things.

3. My husband told me I looked cute in skirts.

And really, wouldn't 3. have been enough? :P

So it turns out skirts are easy to sew*, and you can find these extra long bolts of some kind of plain, heavy fabric at a reasonable price at Walmart. I am sure there is some explanation for their extra longness, but I'll leave that to the real sewing people to understand.

The trouble is that I hate being cold. Really hate it. I also hate tights or any other kind of sartorial crowding. This led me to do what any reasonable person would: I complained about it on somebody else's blog. And behold, the gentle hostess of that blog berated me not, but guided me to a warm place of wonderment, which sent me a pair of leg warmers--are you ready for this?--forty inches long! There wasn't even a shipping charge, but I'll leave that to the real leg warmer people to understand.

It was a false, misleading dream that these leg warmers would not fall down. But I did some surgery on an item facing retirement and I now have reliably warm legs with a tolerable amount of hiking during a day of normal use.

I've mentioned before how the skirt wars make my eyes glaze over, but that there's the story of how I landed on Team Skirt for the time being. I'm confident I'm the warmest member who isn't all bunched up around the middle.

Having gotten a size- and season- appropriate wardrobe figured out for the 34,792th time, I can only wonder if I'll soon have blessed occasion to grow out of it.

*ha ha ha ha ha

Fountain of youth

I know 60 is the new 20 or something like that, but there's also a cultural inclination to start "feeling old" in one's fourth decade of life. I think this is when we're supposed to start worrying about wrinkles and gray hair and whatever other horrible things are out there in Oldlandia.

Well, I don't feel old. This here decade appears more than adequately longitudinous, and the one after that (DV) is . . . well, we just don't talk about that. Wrinkles and gray hairs are the least of my worries*. I feel young, young, young.

No wrinkles here!

*However, I spoke with a friend who, finding herself pregnant in the unspeakable decade, was unable to find suitable maternity clothes. Where, she wanted to know, were the maternity clothes for grandmas?

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The Clemency Coalition

Influencing likabililty, whether you like it or not.

The Clemency Coalition exists to hunt down the undersocialized to release them from social poverty. We support the rights of every child to be shaped, if not controlled, by a group of his or her peers. The Clemency Coalition especially targets homeschoolers.

The Clemency Coalition is dedicated to working to protect the undersocialized from THAT OUTFIT. Our members and staff maintain and model the most recent fashions, voice inflections, bravado, and underwear. We are cool. We are outgoing. We are the friends of every undersocialized kid everywhere.

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An undersocialized girl, before and after

When you contribute to The Clemency Coalition, your dollars are purposed toward building friendships between the undersocialized and members of normal society. Once sponsored, your undersocialized child is given . . .

• a complete makeover, including the most currently fashionable hairstyle, clothes, and shoes;

• one or more subscriptions to normal, necessary magazines, insuring that he or she will learn information vital to scoring dates;

• the tools he or she needs to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube his or her way into the hearts of normal people.

Most effectively, your undersocialized child is connected to a local, normally-socialized peer, who is then paid very well to include your child in social activities and to be your child’s BFF, if not his or her date to the big dance.

Cost of sponsorship changes every day; contact us at our home office to learn more. And remember: the sooner you cut that check, the sooner The Clemency Coalition can get to work purging the world of weird.

For the children, folks. Seriously.

Contemporary philosophers on cultural dress

I should have known Flight of the Conchords could handle the issue addressed a few posts south far better than I.

A modest proposal

Modest clothing covers both nakedness and the thought thereof. Immodest clothing draws attention to what is beneath it and calls nakedness to mind. And let me also say that less the notable exceptions of hard-won weight loss or true anorexia recovery, no one earns her body, and thus it is a very silly thing to show off.

Right up front I'll tell you I haven't kept all these rules. Metanoio. Further analysis below.

Immodest:

--Cleavage, except on busty society matrons at formal events. I'm pretty sure you have to be at least 60 to qualify for this.

--Clothing which appears to have been painted, pasted, or spackled onto the body or a part of the body, no matter how much skin is covered in fabric. It is very possible for a turtleneck, layered tops, or a floor length dress to be immodest, as my beautiful associate notes below.

--Tops cut so low that everybody gets an eyeful when you bend over

--Ill-fitting clothing resulting in gappage and overhang

--Exhibitionist undergarments (vanity or peekaboo straps)

--Clothing through which undergarments are visible

--Midriff exposure (unless you're dressed traditionally in India--yes, culture is also a part of this discussion. But let's stay focused.)

--Skirts or shorts shorter than low to mid-thigh (please note, a skirt's length is measured from the highest point of its slit, not its lowest point on the leg).

--Clothing which makes it obvious that the wearer is wearing a thong or is lacking one of the two standard female undergarments (sorry, hippies).

--Clothing with detailing which draws attention to the places where everyone already pays attention without the helpful direction of seams, sequins, or stripes.

--Clothing with "cute" expressions like "Eye Candy," "You Wish," "Please Mentally Rape Me," etc.

Time for another episode of Good Idea, Bad Idea

--Unlined skirts or dresses without a slip

--Also, athletic events are not an excuse for cleavage or cling. You can wear a t-shirt. It will not kill you.

Inappropriate for church includes all of the above plus:

--Cleavage, ever. This includes bridal parties. I cannot believe this needs to be spelled out. A bride can still look absolutely beautiful in a wedding dress that shows she belongs to her husband alone rather than everyone. If you must cleave, save it for the reception. And then ask yourself, especially if you're the blushing bride, why must I cleave? Why do I want a whole bunch of people looking at my boobs?

--Clothing requiring specialty underclothing (halter, criss-cross, asymmetrical, or no straps or a low back: all these call attention to what's under your dress, since it obviously isn't standard). This excludes by definition spaghetti straps and strapless or backless tops/dresses. Save all these "cute" items for garden parties.

--Scoop necks, deep Vs, and loose collars of any kind. Kneeling, folks. Think about it.

--Skirts shorter than knee length. Bowing, ditto.

--Heels so high that you can't walk in them without wiggling

--Anything clingy or tight on any part of the body

--Also, dresses or tops with buttons must be checked for gapping. If two-sided tape can't take care of it, retire that piece or buy the next size up.

"Style" is one of the falsest aspirations of humanity. No female has a right to wear any particular article of clothing, even if she looks great in it, even if it's what everybody is wearing, even if it's so cute and she really really likes it. Also, for maternal types, they're not "my clothes" if they don't fit me. Get some that do for early pregnancy, postpartum transition, nursing, and whatever else throws off your measurements--that's what thrift stores are for. My wardrobe is a mile wide in sizes and an inch deep in any given size. Sigh.

Now, I realize that it is very difficult to buy clothes for your exceptionally unique body, for someone your age, etc. Girls, deal with it. There are certain styles which simply cannot be worn modestly on certain body types, and certain styles which are immodest, period. I'm sorry. Your body may also be proportioned such that you have to select certain styles of clothing to modestly fit your largest measurement rather than your smallest one. I'm sorry about that too. I don't like it either. I'm fully aware that it often doesn't look as good as we all want to look, and the misery of having a size that big in your closet.

The shame!

There is someone for whom every woman gets to look great and dress as strappily, clingily, or minimally as she wants, and that's her husband. Save it for him.

Social Duds

Mostly speculative, assuredly crazy

Interesting discussion here.

A few months back, I was bulldogging an overfull cart through the grocery store when I walked by a middle-aged mother happily discussing the merits of some brand of something with her three older daughters. All four women were dressed in denim jumpers and loose T-shirts, and they wore their hair up in simple ponytails. The simplicity and uniformity of their clothes startled me (we don't get a lot of that around here), and as I looked them over the oldest daughter noticed me and gave me a warm smile.

I smiled back, of course, but as I lugged my stuff away I wondered, “Why do they do that? They’re communicating ‘weird’ by dressing that way.”

Then: “Oh. That’s why they do that.”

Then: “Ack! No! That’s why they do that!”

Then: “But I LIKE wearing jeans!”

That brief encounter with such unobtrusive modesty made a deep impression on me. Those women were different, and they wore their difference on their sleeves. Their clothes sent a clear message to any onlooker: We aren’t like you; we belong to someone else; we know something you don’t know.

Yet they were not snooty broads, those women. They didn’t seem to be conceited legalists. Their ponytails hinted that they weren’t members of some woman-hating cult. Their cartful of products boasted of normal tastes and a normal life (unlike my cartful of wheat flour and raw beans). They smiled at me kindly when I passed. They laughed easily. They were typically human, but they were modestly dressed and, therefore, set apart.

I have committed various crimes against modesty over the years. I confess I used to wear the girl uniform Father Curtis lambastes in his post. I still own a few tighty-Ts, given to me as gifts, which I have worn. I am heartily sorry and sincerely repent of my tighty-Ts, because I now see that wearing such clothes, clothes that invite the world to appraise my frame, is disrespectful to my confession, my marriage, my children, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and myself. I am a woman, and can hardly disguise it. I am not ashamed of being a woman; I look the way I was designed to look. But there are limits, and looking like a woman needn’t translate into everyone looking.

What is more, I am responsible for the dress of three little girls. The type of woman I am now heavily influences—if not directly predicts—the type of woman my daughters will become. What I wear and how I comport myself communicates consequentially, and my little ones are paying attention. Shape up, self. Lose your vanity and kick the world out of your closet.

The problem: there is precious little available to the sewing-impaired on humble incomes who wish to dress themselves and their daughters modestly. The blousiest blouse is too low cut, the highest turtle neck is corset tight, the loosest pants are much, much too “juicy” or “go team” or “take a good long stare.” Modesty is especially difficult to affect when nursing, for obvious and "I hope it's not so obvious" reasons.

Sure . . . I'll get right on that.

So . . . the most apparent answer: Maternity clothes from the 1980s. The second most apparent answer: Denim jumpers. Aaaaaa! :D

In reality, I’m not about to give up my beloved blue jeans and sweatshirts. Neither am I going to force my daughters into Mennonite garb* anytime soon. We’re weird enough already, and I’m not sure I’m as brave as those grocery store ladies who wore their confession (whatever it was) outright. Instead, I’ve started budgeting to buy my girls' church clothes from providers like Hanna Andersson and April Cornell, whose products are less influenced by Disney, and competitively priced on the sales racks. And I purchase our play clothes from uncool bargain bins at Goodwill. Overall, I’ve started thinking more carefully about what our clothing communicates to outsiders. Does that skirt scream “Everyone, lookit here”? Or does it confess that, finally, we belong to someone else, that we know something the world can’t understand? Our clothes are the first and, sometimes, the only thing people know about us. I think it’s worth considering what our clothes confess, and being sure that our clothes don’t betray us and our children to our enemies.

Goodbye tighty-T. Sure, I was saved by the efficacious blood of Christ while I wore you, but you didn't do me any favors. I’m sorry I ever knew you.

*Though, consider this: I grew up in capped Mennonite country. All the Mennonite girls and women wore tea-length, home-sewn dresses in calico fabrics. The married women wore their hair coiled in buns and covered in black caps. But knock on a Mennonite family’s door in the middle of the day, and you’d likely find the girls and women in jeans with their hair flying loose. Their “capped Mennonite” uniform was for social purposes only . . . which I think very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Maybe there is such a thing as bad publicity

One nice thing about the small, traditional, "non-growing" parish I attend is that it's never turned any part of my body into ad space.

"Wow, nice . . . worship."

A similar garment with a flattering scoop neck, fitted sleeves, and trim cut reading "Trinity" would be somewhat less clear anyway, I guess.

More on hats

The Blackbirds have been talking about hats (thanks for the tip, Rev. BTB--your girls look great, as always).

Here's the scaffolding for characterization if I were going to write it into a book:

--Husband wants wife to wear dresses and a hat or other head covering to church. First, he thinks she looks nice this way. Second, he thinks it would set a good example. What example? Well, looking nice--decent--which a lot of females obviously don't understand. And frankly, there's that whole 1 Cor. 11 business which on the one hand we say is to be interpreted culturally and on the other hand says "every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head." Come on. Anyway, she looks nice in a dress and hat. Churchy. Husband observes wifely balking on these topics. Well, he's not a tyrant. She's the one who has to get everyone to church by herself every week. But, ok: what's the big deal? Would it kill her?

--Wife imagines walking across parking lot trying to keep hat from blowing away while holding heavy baby and hand of toddler. Wife imagines having yet another item on the list of "weird things Pastor's wife does" maintained by church members. Wife prefers not to draw attention to herself by means of fashion since she is extremely unfashionable. Wife does not want to spend money on hat--which will become hats since she would need at least one winter hat and one summer hat. Where is she supposed to keep all these blasted hats? Wife just wants to be warm in the winter for crying out loud. Wife knows husband thinks she complains all the time when in fact she never does succumb to that urge she feels four times a week to hold explosive and exhaustive informative session for his benefit. But then . . . he wants her to wear a hat and a dress. And what does that mean, anyway, "every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head"? Wife wants to be a good wife and a good Christian.

(She's eventually going to get a hat. Not sure how long it will take. It doesn't come up again in the book anyway; this is just a verisimilitudinous narrative excursus. Also the book does not exist.)

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? Does nature itself teach us this? I think most of us have missed it. Is this indicative of the depravity of our culture? Probably, considering what we know of our culture. My sense of natural law has certainly failed me before.

Maybe if you told her she looked skinny in hats?

Hazards of marrying a liturgically fastidious type

--Whenever you see a guy in a stole and what you used to call an alb but now call a "cassock-alb" with a note of pity in your voice, you think, That looks weird. How LCMS. Wait, maybe he's a DP.

--Your husband keeps getting fancy new togs while you've been trotting out your high school graduation dress for 12 Easters (except the ones you were too pregnant or postpartum).

Ninety six! Ninety six! Nine nine nine nine ninety six!

I don't know, it might really be time to retire this old girl.

Hot and haute, hwat?

Hey, Mom . . .

Are you frustrated with today’s maternity fashions?

Are you angry about that dress that looked so promising, but no longer conceals your immense Baby Boulder?

Would you prefer to avoid what many know as the Belly Creep?

How embarrassing. And on the red carpet, too.

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