High school bans expensive jacket so poor kids don't feel bad

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Unruhestifter

Inside the school, you are still under the guardianship of the parent. I don't surrender my legal rights just because I drop my kid off to learn there for a chunk of the day. I don't surrender my legal rights just because the law compels my child to be educated either.

This is where US and UK schools may differ.

UK parents will sign a contract with school saying they and their children will abide by the schools code of conduct.
If they dont like the schools policy they are free to find another school or home school.

originally posted by: ketsuko

You truly sound like someone who resents the fact that some people can and will buy expensive toys that you can't (or won't)

Wrong on all accounts.

I had upper middle class parents, I drive a sports car and have a bank account in high 6 figures.

I just see the poor kids getting all the tough breaks and the Rich kids walking through easy, therefor if a "tough" break for ONCE falls on the rich kid I don't really care. UK school have uniform codes, if the uniform code means you can bring a £1000 jacket into school, so what?
No ones taking that jacket away or redistributing it which I do vehemently disagree with.

a reply to: poncho1982

I don't ever remember getting picked on for not having a name brand, but then again, my parents never bought me obvious look-alikes like that either.

If I was going to have a brand, then I had the brand even if it wasn't the cool item. My parents did start buying me Nike and Reebok shoes for athletics when I hit high school because I was good enough I needed solid competition shoes, but I didn't have things like Air Jordans. I just had solid, serviceable Nikes for basketball or Reeboks for track, and they were worn only for those sports, not everyday because that would have worn them out. But shoes were the extent of my name brandiness.

a reply to: Unruhestifter

So basically, you're getting all offended on someone else's behalf?

That makes you worse then. You don't actually know a thing about it.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Unruhestifter

So basically, you're getting all offended on someone else's behalf?

That makes you worse then. You don't actually know a thing about it.

Nope just defending school policy.

Almost all UK schools have a uniform policy. School makes the rules. Not parents, not children, not the government.

UK is not the USA. We have uniforms rather than mass shootings

originally posted by: Unruhestifter
UK is not the USA. We have uniforms rather than mass shootings

I like how you have to get a dig in, it certainly doesn't make you appear petty.

a reply to: Unruhestifter

And how many times have I mentioned that if the school wants a uniform policy, it should have one?

Oh, I'm sorry, you must have been more interested in ranting on your soapbox than addressing that.

And of course you guys don't have mass shootings, you just have mass car attacks and mass stabbings. Silly me, that, of course, makes you superior.

a reply to: RMFX1

Here in canada, only pretentious pricks in Vancouver wear canada goose jackets. No idea why.

My seven year old Grandson has some nice clothes, some would consider them expensive.

He doesn't wear them for school or on school trips etc.

His uniform is standard, his shoes are decent and durable and his coats do the job they are supposed to do.

He only wears some of the designer clothes at family do's and sometimes if his mother or I am taking him anywhere - there's a time and place.

When I was at school we always found ways to circumvent uniform regulations....Doc Martens, sta-prest, Black Harrington jacket.

Should they be banned?
Truthfully, I don't know - I can see both sides of the argument.

Perhaps parents should just apply a bit of the not too common common sense!

a reply to: Freeborn
There was no circumnavigating uniform for my son, business suits and overcoats had to be bought from the school. They all looked the same, but everyone knew who the poor kids were though regardless of uniform clothing.

a reply to: JAGStorm
Its coming little by little. The globalist Marxist agenda. They are patient and the majority of the populace unaware of what really is going on. I am an older guy and when I look around me when out in public I see more soy boys than real rough around the edge men. We are doomed to the Marxist fate unless more families of all types raise children to love God , country , constitution and family. A lot of people on this site knock good old family moral fiber as outdated but it was those generations that fought off tyranny in WW2. It was that generation that put us into space and on the moon. The only thing being done now is development of more social media so face to face personal interaction becomes a thing further in the past. Just glad and honored to have grown up in the late 50's and 60's.

Isn't this the same country that has Royals as their figure heads? I mean some on.. LOL

I remember kids with monkey boots getting made fun of because they were then the pale imitations of doc martens.

I can remember kids making fun of others for having cheapo footy boots with moulded soles rather than screw in studs...All that stuff. Didn't like it then and I don't now.


Hell, if you had turned up at my school in a thousand quid coat, you damn sure wouldn't have been going home in it.



School is a workplace really and as long as their rules are generally sensible (And banning odious, extravagant displays of wealth seems pretty reasonable) then what's the problem? The kids who's parents can afford this stuff aren't gonna be missing out on much really, are they? Except the chance to belittle some other kid in a Tesco parka.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: JAGStorm

One of my biggest motivators to work way back when was because there were things I thought were cool at the time and wanted. I suppose that is still true today.

More to the point IMO, I am unclear how sheltering children from the realities of economic inequality helps them in anyway?

However they choose to feel about, cheated by life? Come to believe things like that are not important in the scheme of life? Decide to work hard so they may one day own a status-symbol-coat? Or a hundred other views that evolve.

My instincts tell me those are questions children should be able to work out and not be sheltered from if the aim is preparing them for the world.

It seems as if we as a society keep only putting band aids on things instead of the bigger issues, IMO, like try to not raise assholes, from both sides of the tracks, who judge people based on who have a financially better situation (they are NOT all stuck up and jerks) and folks who are not as well off (they are NOT all dead beats). Why do even adults do this? I judge a person on character and merit and have friends from all financial levels.

I agree with Ketsuko on the issue of value/fit etc and my children were in a position to be able to afford what we wanted, for the most part, however if I would have gotten wind (and I am fairly certain they never did) that they were "bullying" or "making fun of someone" for not having whatever be it lunch money, nicer clothes, they would be in big trouble with me.

My youngest daughter has bought many a lunch for her friends who were either out of money on their lunch account or the "free lunch" that day just sucked.

Let's start a new movement of #dontraiseassholes

originally posted by: SprocketUK
The kids who's parents can afford this stuff aren't gonna be missing out on much really, are they? Except the chance to belittle some other kid in a Tesco parka.

Right, but the kids who parents can't afford to buy junior a $1000 coat or choose not to, will miss out on the opportunity to have a good conversation with their children about what money is, why working for it matters, what it means to different people and what other things in life are more important.

IMO the ban pre-supposes those aren't good conversations to have with your children.

a reply to: SprocketUK

The point many of us have been making is where do you draw the line?

Today it's the expensive coat, tomorrow it might be the clothing you bought because it actually may be the only stuff that fits your kid in a reasonable fashion.

Most of us making that argument have also been plain that we grew up poor ourselves and we figured out to either do without or to find ways to have what other kids had through our own initiative and hard work.

The main voices against us finally admitted they grew up relatively wealthy by comparison and just don't want kids to feel bad because they don't have things. That's not a good excuse, especially when most of us have said that if the school wants to have a uniform policy, they should. Some of us (myself) have even said there is an argument to be made that it's pretty dumb for kids to wear hideously expensive coats to school where they can be stolen and the school could cite security concerns, but instead they think citing price tag and fairness alone are valid which we all found to be weak excuses when other, better lines of reasoning (more common sense ones anyhow) exist for this.

Can we ban posts about trump too? I feel dumber each time i read one.

originally posted by: JourneymanWelder
Can we ban posts about trump too? I feel dumber each time i read one.

If so, why read them?

originally posted by: Unruhestifter

originally posted by: Nyiah
What are people going to complain about next, food eaten? OMG, Suzie had to eat a Ramen last night for dinner, Billy CANNOT eat out at an upscale place with his parents or have anything remotely gourmet in his kitchen cupboard, ever.

No because that just hyperbolic stupidity.

What happens outside of school is none of my business. Eat, wear or do what you like as outside of school you are free.

Inside school you are under school rules and under the guardianship of the school.

It's not hyperbole, it's making logical leaps from one luxury to another. Food is basic to all humans, but many can not afford a varied diet, let alone a good cut of meat. If Bobby comes in to class that morning bragging about his brie-smothered breakfast toast and steak & eggs, don'tcha think that miiiight rub Polly the poor kid living in poverty the wrong way? Say, making them feel like s# for only being able to have plain oatmeal, if anything at all?

What about the kids that go on, as you call them, winter holiday and come back more bronze than a Greek god statue? Your poor students don't have the money to go anywhere, how do you think looking at the tanned kid fresh off the plane from the Caribbean makes them feel? Are you gong to tell those parents they cannot take vacations now because Polly feels like crap about not being able to afford traveling? That the tan is rubbing their status in her have-not face?

Keeping that in mind, if you think meddling in anything more than uniforms is worthwhile, your line of controlling what students do at and not at school just got a lot thinner, and that's not good thing to coddle poor kids with because it teaches them nothing, it gives them nothing to strive for.

It's the school's job to mandate the uniform policy, if the school has one. That covers shoes, trousers/skirts and tops. And blazers in some schools.

What it does not cover is outerwear. You have zero say in what brand they wear as a windbreaker, rain jacket, winter coat, etc.

If you serious think you do, crack open that glorious 6 figure bank account of yours you thought so wisely to brag about, and start buying them coats & jackets you feel are appropriate, so that they refrain from offending the poor kids' eyes with other brands.

Either way, this is micromanaging to a ridiculous extreme.

Winter boots are NOT worn during class !
Nether are Winter coats worn during class !
So . . . in essence they are dictating on the
private lives of others (out side of the class room)
Communism does the same.
Indoctrinating political ideals into young minds .
Critical thinking is not for sheep or slaves ?