It's Gotta Be Here Somewhere: They're my pants and I'll wear them if I want to

Please, let me point out that I don't care what YOU wear. If you want to dress up and strap on your heels everyday and get the most use of your make-up, that's your right to do so. If you like it, you wear it. And I'll be over here doing the same thing.

Fashion.
There are so many opinions on fashion in the world, on TV and online.
Trends come in and just as quickly go out.
Kids steal the best kicks off of other kids.
Designer bags are in such demand that there are 5 year wait lists.
Or you can buy the knock-off because you just HAVE to carry that bag to be in the cool crowd.

I don't get into trends much. Why should I? It's called a trend... it won't last.
And then what do you do with the bag? Donate it? Sell it even though everyone lists it as 'so last season'?
I like classic.
Give me a pair of jeans and a classic, plain shirt and I'm good to go. (Old Navy is where you'll find me buying shirts.)
And yes, I DO wear designer jeans. But I wear them for one reason only... they make my ass look good. I was not blessed with junk in the trunk. I was not blessed with a shapely rear end. And no matter how many squats and lunges I kill myself with, my rear is still not one to write home about at all. (Yes, I've tried less expensive jeans. They don't look good. And luckily, I'm not the only one that believes this about jeans. Have you met Rachel? She wants you to have the butt of your dreams.)

But there are days when jeans annoy me.
I don't feel the need to wear a great pair of jeans every single time I leave the house.
What do I wear?
YOGA PANTS.

And I'm not alone.

A couple of weeks, Amy over at Motherhood and Miscellany posted about being a Yoga-Pants-Wearing-Mom. And I found myself nodding at so much of what she said.
I, too, wear yoga pants in public. They look better than what I wear at home (sweatpants).
And they don't make my rear look totally flat.

But then about a week later, Amy followed up with another yoga pants post, More on Yoga Pants. And Kindness. And Being Judgmental.
As soon as I saw the title of the post in my feed, I knew I would be upset by the time I finished reading it. Because I just knew, somehow, that the opinionated Judgy Janes were out in full force.

And I was right.
She got the typical responses on BlogHer. You know... "you're a slob" and "you don't have respect for yourself" and even "you're husband is offended and ashamed".
Wait, how many husbands pay one bit of attention to their wives clothes?
The husbands I know only care what their wives wear if they get a bill in the mail from Macy's or Neiman Marcus that has a total due that rivals a down payment on a home. (Or if their wives are revealing a little too much skin on a daily basis. Then, they tend to care.)

But the worst was the responses that Amy was somehow "setting a bad example for her kids".
Wait. WHAT?!
How in the WORLD do you get to that?

Please, go and read the second blog post about this and then come back.
I'll wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Intermission~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome back!

So, yes, I was not happy.
And I couldn't get it out of my head.

I have 2 daughters and I wear yoga pants.
And I am NOT setting a bad example for my kids.

I totally agree with Amy that children should be taught that what is inside a person matters far more than what clothing they choose to wear. That's where it starts.

If you raise your kids with a judgmental attitude toward things like that, they'll be the adults in 10-20 years judging a whole new crop of people for what they're wearing.
THAT is setting a bad example.
Teach your kids to be who they are, not what the world expects them to be.

My oldest has already shown signs of trying to be like other people instead of being herself.
So when I found a shirt in her size that said 'Be True Be You', I bought it. And I made sure she understood what the words meant.

Amy's post came right after we saw a group of girls at Target right after school let out one Friday and 3 out of the 4 had the same brand of backpack, Vera Bradley.
Vera Bradley is a little over priced, in my experience. $12 for a CHANGE purse? Most people don't keep 12 bucks IN a change purse.
(The 4th girl had a sports pack. Either her parents cannot afford the other backpack or she chose to get what she wanted. I hope the latter is true.)
I pointed the pack out to my daughters and told them that it's more important to be you, not like your friends.

My girls' bio mom was a chameleon. When I first met her, she was dating a guy that listened to Insane Clown Posse and wore those jeans. You know the ones... family of 5 can fit in them and they're covered in chains?
Yeah, well bio mom dressed just like him for about a year.
And then she must have gotten tired of pretending because she started dressing like she used to before she met him. And of course, he was totally confused.
He thought she had changed.
What he didn't understand was that he had been dating a fictional character all that time and she was in costume. And when the show ran too long, she got tired of it and retired.
They didn't last another month after that.

My girls LOVE their cozy pants. Peanut would wear them all year if we let her, but of course, we don't. (Mainly because she'd burn up in the summer.)
They don't see me judging people day in and day out. (Sure, I do it a little in my head but I try very hard not to ever let them hear it. And even then, it's usually someone dressed a little risque for a school event.)

Celebrities wear expensive clothing and they are always up on the latest styles.
But what do we all flock to see?
Why, the pictures in US Weekly and People showing us the stars in their sweats, with no make-up, of course. I think it's US Weekly that shouts "Stars! They're just like us!" and then they show the women wearing YOGA pants to lunch with friends.
Celebrities dress up when they have to... but most of them refuse to wear any make-up outside of work.
I follow a lot of my favorite celebs on Twitter and Instagram. And I see what they wear when they have a day off.
Hey, they dress just like Amy and me!

I know that a lot of fashion trends are actually started by celebrities. And I'll admit that I've bought some things in the past after seeing a celeb wear it.
But let me be clear... I bought those things because I liked them, not due to the fact that a celeb was wearing them. I couldn't care less what a celeb thinks is cool... if I don't like it, I don't look twice.
And I'll be damned if I will go out and go broke buying what celebs and fashion mags claim to be 'must haves'.

And to answer at least one question, no.
I do not wear yoga pants every single day.
When I go to weddings, I dress up. If it's a black tie affair, I do it up.
If I had a meeting at my girls old school, I wore jeans and a decent top.
During our wedding planning, I always dressed nicely to attend vendor meetings.

Because sometimes, yes, you should dress better.
But most of the time? No one at Target gives a crap what I am wearing.

I ran all of this past my own husband to make sure he wasn't 'offended' or 'ashamed' of me.
He said: ''You do wear yoga pants a lot. But you aren't a slob. You shower, you brush your teeth, pluck the eyebrows, and you don't stink. It's not like you are a mess walking around and have let yourself go. And you even put on mascara sometimes if you feel like it.''

So, if my husband doesn't have a problem with my attire, and my children don't have a problem with my attire, and my friends don't have a problem with my attire... why does the rest of the world care?

I am who I am.
Always have been.
Always will be.

This is my life, my time on this planet.
I will go to the store, travel, shop, and see the world.... dressed the way that I want to dress.