Getting Dressed: How One Girl Found Confidence and Herself

Before my youngest daughter could put together a complete sentence, she was adamant about choosing her own clothes. She didn’t need words to tell me how she felt about any given outfit. She was skilled at letting me know. Especially when she didn’t like something, which was almost always. She’d pull off sweaters and leggings, march over to her closet, and point adamantly at something else. Confidence certainly didn’t seem to be an issue.

In the beginning, I thought it was endearing and cute that someone so small could be so particular. But as she went from chubby baby to obstinate toddler, the process of her getting dressed became far less precious. And tilted closer to maddening.

She spent a lot of time, plopped in the middle of a pile of discarded outfits, face scarlet with fury, her mouth opened in a shriek. The mornings that she had preschool could be agonizing. Rationalizing with her was out of the question. I did everything from setting a timer to picking out clothes the night before to limiting her choices. And of course, bribes.

There was no magic solution.

This was not a battle I wanted to fight.

I half-heartedly chalked it up to a phase. Mostly because I was afraid that if it wasn’t, it would never end. This “phase” went on for years. It’s probably not surprising that she often wore a leotard and rainboots to the grocery store and her outfits rarely matched. So much of parenting is learning when to pick your battles. This was not a battle I wanted to fight. It was clear that this meant something to her, that what she wore was a way of expressing herself.

However, you can be as easy-breezy as it comes to what your kid wears, but eventually you’re going to have to explain to your child that, no, they may not wear the skirt that they’ve turned into a strapless “gown” to church, that, yes, we have to leave the house right now so fortheloveofGod just put on something, and that, no, underwear is not optional.

As parents, we’re so inclined to slap a label on our kids… thinking that their childhood behavior will give us a glimpse into who they’ll become. I was no different. I often theorized that her quirks and confidence about clothing meant she was destined to make this her life’s work. She even called herself Fashion Girl.

I imagined all of us watching her on Project Runway one day. We’d watch her, chuckle, and say, “Remember when she spent hours trying to decide what to wear when she was two?” I talked about this often. We bought her a sewing, sent her to sewing camp, talked about careers in fashion.

Sometimes wish I’d spent less time trying to put her into this box. Just let her live!, I want to yell at my younger self. But it helped me to make sense of a situation. Getting ready for the day could be completely unmanageable. I needed some sort of cosmic reassurance that this was all going to be worth it one day. That she wasn’t a psychopath, just a genius who would eventually find her outlet during New York’s Fashion Week.   

It really had nothing to do with fashion.

But the path from toddlerhood to adult person is rarely a straight line. The core of who Kate is was certainly evident in those difficult mornings. But it had so little to do with the clothes. It said more about her strength of will and determination than whether she would be making a gown for the Oscars one day.

Kate has always been the kind of kid who knows exactly what she wants. And she’ll do anything to make it happen. She’s just as determined and relentless now as she was all those years ago. But her focus has long shifted to doing well in school, getting into college, and being true to herself.

That same three-year-old who was furious until she found the right thing to wear is the same seventeen-year-old who stays in on weekends studying for AP exams. She has been watching YouTube videos on how to get into college since she was in sixth grade. And has a deep sense of integrity.  

So often, it’s the things about our kids that make them the most difficult to parent that are the very things that make them the most exceptional humans. I’m often reassured by the idea that enduring all those getting-dressed-related-tantrums has been (mostly) worth it. That it brought us full circle, that it brought us here, and that it brought is this young woman, brimming with confidence, who is still so fiercely clear about what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it.