School Shopping

Well, I survived another year of back to school shopping. What a huge marketing ploy for retailers, and what a huge way for the average consumer to just kiss their hard-earned money goodbye. We stick to Target, because they generally have everything that we need, minus the People of Wal-Mart. My older daughter loves Justice, so after Target, we hit the mall to buy one or two outrageously overpriced outfits because I remember being a kid, and I remember wanting just a couple of really cool outfits. While the clothes are McMansion expensive, I will say they are good quality clothes, and if I work really hard to get the Cheetos and Oreo stains out of the them, they'll be great hand-me-downs for the younger daughter. Of course, the younger daughter is young enough that she doesn't really realize that they are hand-me-downs. She just thinks those are the super cool outfits that her older sister and mean ass mommy wouldn't let her share.

We had some slight drama in Target, though. Because this was the year that I told the older daughter that she could get a training bra. I'm really halfway pissed with myself about that, too, but I gave my damn word. We had a couple of little girls over last fall, about the same ages of my girls, and they both had training bras. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's the training for? What kind tricks do they learn? So on and so forth. So my older daughter asked then if she could get a bra and I foolishly said, "We'll wait til second grade", thinking, like the complete moron that I am, that she would forget about that and we could just push it back until, I don't know, fifth grade. I mean, the child is only seven. I will say, though, something is a buddin' there. Is it training bra worthy? Hell no, but I'm only as good as my word. And since The Ex has explained to the children numerous times since the separation (I know this because the children have told me so), Mommy can't keep her promises, so don't believe anything she tells you. Mommy makes promises that she can't keep, because she promised to stay married to Daddy forever and now look what happened. Yeah, no shit, he's really told the children this stuff. I just can't believe that five and seven year old could make this up and pull it out of nowhere.

This is the bullshit I'm dealing with. I have to be the bigger person, I have to be the grown-up, once again. It's at times like this that I really don't want to be the grown-up, so when I am, it's really not that satisfying. If my children were, oh, I don't know, grown friends, I would explain to them like this. "Well, Daddy says things that he doesn't mean either, like that he can fuck all night. Daddy said that he would love, honor and cherish Mommy when we got married, but he forgot what cherish meant when he was lecturing me about why don't I have a better job (when I already made more money than him with better benefits). Daddy didn't know that honor meant he shouldn't leave crumpled up, used tissues out next to the computer keyboard, or that hacking into someone's email and obsessively sneaking into their phone was demonstrating good honor, or even, that calling your wife a stupid redneck bitch every so often in front of other people is not really the way to emote love." But it's all good. So every word I give the children HAS to be good now. I have to force myself to make sure that what I say is going to happen, by God. Because otherwise, what Daddy says is true.

This is how the drama went down at Target:
Older daughter: Look, Mommy, they have a bra section here. Can we look at the bras?
Mommy: Uh, yeah, we can look here.
Younger daughter: *Screams in laughter* Sissy's getting a bra? What? You don't have boobies, Sissy!
Older daughter: *Immediately starts crying* I do too have boobies! I do need a bra, right, Mommy?
Mommy: *Looking for knife to slit my own throat* Well, I told her she could get a bra. I mean, she is in second grade. *Thinking, why did I fucking agree to this last year?*
Older daughter: Look, here are the bras. They look like the kind you have, Mommy.
Mommy: You don't need that kind. Those are for older girls. *Thinking, like way overdeveloped third graders. What the fuck was in the formula I fed her when she was little? Why am I going through this now?*
Younger daughter: I want a bra, too.
Mommy: You are definitely not old enough. You're only five. You have to wait til second grade. *Fuck me running*
Younger daughter: *Immediately starts crying*
Older daughter: *Sticks out tongue and starts laughing*
Mommy: Jesus Christ, stop it. I will put all the school supplies back and you guys will go home and have to watch the news if you can't start behaving.
Finally pick out the smallest of the training bras, which really just looks like a one-quarter tank top with elastic around the bottom of it.
Mommy: *Desperate to get out of this* I'm pretty sure you won't like wearing them. They're pretty uncomfortable.
Older daughter: Then why do you wear them every day, Mommy?
Mommy: Because it's polite but I don't enjoy it. *Because I have D cups and these bitches hurt if they hang long enough, is what I was thinking* Okay, so let's go try them on.
Younger daughter: I want to go. I want to see Sissy's boobies.
Older daughter: *whining* Noooooooo, I don't want her looking at my boobies. I don't want her to go, Mommy, pleeeeeaaaaase..... Please don't let her look at my bras.
Mommy: *I need a drink* Okay, okay, okay. She won't go in the dressing room. She can sit right outside and she won't look at your freaking boobies. Okay?  *Thinking, oh my God, make this stop*.

Yeah, so that was the drama. We came home with four training bras, and I will give my older daughter credit. She has worn them every day. She's proud of those bras. I am not so proud, because I feel like I got rooked into my child growing up too fast in a society that makes it okay to sexualize children, a society that thinks co-ed slumber parties are okay (I won't even mention lipstick parties because that might just be a moral media panic driven by ratings), a society that shows teenage girls that if they want to be loved, they can just have a baby. I have made a solemn promise to myself, and a silent promise to my kids, one that they will never know, because if they do, then they'll just run to The Ex and he'll accommodate just to be a dick. THIS IS IT. My first and last foray into making some stupid ass statement to my daughters about something that I am not okay with because they are too young and I foolishly agreed, thinking they would forget. This bra thing IS IT. I'll get the younger daughter her bras when she gets ready for second grade, like I fucking promised, but that's it. I mean, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And I don't want to be that kind of parent.