DAY 142
Shortly after school started for the year, my eldest showed up for breakfast dressed like this.
If you have kids that haven’t embraced this trend, feel free to show them this photo.
Somewhere during the morning melee of packing lunches and running through our “Do you have…” checklist, I looked down. Trying to be helpful, I said, “Kayla, honey, I can find you a matching pair of socks.”
She countered, “This is the style, you’re supposed to wear them like this.”
In my head I screamed, THAT’S AWESOME!
But, I needed to approach this carefully, like one would draw near a wild animal. I didn’t want her to know my heart was singing, it might scare her away from the mismatched sock trend. Oh so casually, I said, “That’s nice sweetie, uhm, so, are lots of the kids doing this, or a few, uh just you…?”
She shrugged and said, “lots”.
“OK, honey, go brush your teeth.” “Uh, Kayla?”
“Yeah Mom?”
“You should probably tell your sister about that sock thing too.”
And so it has been for the last few weeks in my house. We have gone through a few fashion trends in our household, but this is by far the best. The last time I did the laundry, I didn’t even have to make pairs with the kids socks. I just stacked them haphazardly in their drawer. If they lose one, we can still use the other. It’s a fashion trend custom made for The Simple Year. I’m hoping it will become a “timeless classic” like the little black dress, Although, I suppose it’s more likely it will eventually go the way of shoulder pads and pleated pants, but in the meantime we are taking full advantage.
On a final note, I don’t know specifically who started this trend, I am guessing it was one FREAKING BRILLIANT parent that had one too many single socks congregating in their laundry room. In any case, I would love to meet them so I could shake their hand– or buy them a drink.
I went through a mismatched sock phase! Now I’m all anal retentive about matching socks, so enjoy it while you have it 🙂
I am enjoying it
Love your little blog. I live in Colorado too – are you guys in the mountain towns? Keep the posts coming – enjoy seeing how you’re making it without buying anything new.
http://positivelymomstreet.blogspot.com/
There is a store dedicated to mismatched socks (and other items like flip flops). Highly popular with my teen, http://www.littlemissmatched.com.
I remember seeing one in Florida once years ago. At the time I thought, “that little store will never make it, what a silly concept.” What do I know?
It works for Converse All Stars too.
This is a trend that my daughters have been participating in for a couple of years, I LOVE IT! Like you said no more mismatched have to throw away a single etc. I even have an adult friend who still wears her socks that way! I on the other hand am not comfortable doing that. 🙂 It’s all good though!
This post was so fun to read. Thank you!
Molly’s been doing that for quite awhile. The older dance girls were doing it with knee socks, so Molly started. Now in the past couple months Sam has even gotten on the bandwagon! I’m with u…. A freaking genius came up with that idea…. And a rich one since now there is a line of clothing called, ‘little mis mismatched’
My 7 year old introduced me to that trend last summer. My kiddos wear a uniform to school, including boring, white socks. (I always get the same socks so I don’t have to worry about the matching issue.) Sometimes she tries to skate by this uniform requirement by claiming she doesn’t have any clean uniform socks and wearing the mismatched colorful ones. (It doesn’t work, but she tries.)
All I know is that my mother-in-law took my 13 year old daughter shopping for clothes before school started, and they came home with a package of neon-colored mismatched socks…someone is making a fortune!
Amen
As the mother of boys, it tickles me to see this as a trend. In our house it was the method employed by pre-adolescent males when faced with sorting and folding laundry-pairing socks that matched was not highly valued. Add in the half awake state on school mornings, and mis-matched socks was the norm. Granted, palette was limited.
Yes, this is the comment I was looking for! My 2 sons now 24 and 21 began doing this in Jr. High because they began doing their own laundry and they really didn’t care. Yes, it was just with twenty different types of “white” ankle socks, but I think they are still doing it today.
my daughter has been doing this for at least 4 or 5 years…she especially likes to mix striped and polka dots lol she is in the 11th grade and hasnt matched her socks since elementary school 😉
Both of my girls do this too. I love it, their socks are just tossed in the sock drawer, no more spending way too much time on matching the darn things up. I would love to do the same thing but being a slightly ” older” mom I’m afraid people would just think I was having self dressing & memory issues!
Funny, but I think all moms regardless of age have memory issues, it’s comes with the territory. I say go for it.
Someone is watching Criminal Minds 😉 Dr. Reed wears mismatched socks