Fashion Bullies?

Last week the Wall Street Journal ran this article about "fashion bullies" in middle and high schools who berate other kids for not wearing the "right" clothes. The saddest part of the article to me is not the bullying aspect but the mom featured in the article--the one who drags her sixth grader to Neiman Marcus to pick out couture clothes, which then don't pass muster with her peers because they're not the "right" designer clothes. Are you kidding me?

To me, far more alarming than the bullying is the idea that parents are actually willing to buy couture clothes for kids--which designers are "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. It's bad enough when one of my kids comes home with a stain on their clothes from Target or the consignment store; I'd have to slit my wrists if the shirt or pair of pants had cost $150.

Meanwhile, every other day you read about the housing crisis and how droves of people are having to foreclose on their houses, or how the average American has something like $10,000 of credit card debt. Why are parents--at least some of whom fall into the group who are carrying $10,000 (and many times, well beyond that) willing to "shop their families broke"?

How about instead of (or at least in addition to) programs that teach girls to navigate peer pressure to dress a certain way or be a certain size, someone offer programs to teach girls about money and how trying to "keep up with the Joneses" can seriously ruin your life? Someone other than Suze Orman, that is, who schools could actually afford to hire as a speaker.

Just reading about this couple would be enough to scare me straight!