You Won't Catch My Kid Wearing That!

In church this weekend, there was a little girl, about 6 months old, 2 rows behind us. Of all the kids in church, she was the only one who was consistently fussy, and at several points during the service, she had to be taken out of the sanctuary because she was disrupting things. She was also wearing a shirt that said, "This is my princess shirt." Coincidence? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.

I'm sure you've all seen kids wearing shirts like this. For girls, they are shirts that imply that they're princesses or angels. For boys, they suggest that if there's trouble, the boy has caused it but it's not his fault. And there are a lot of shirts like this out there. These two examples come from CafePress.com, where all you have to do is type "princess" or "spoiled" into the search box, and dozens, if not hundreds of results pop up.




Let me be blunt. I hate shirts like this. If my children ever get shirts like this as gifts, they will be donated to Goodwill. I hate the idea of some spoiled kid running the household, and parents just thinking it's cute. And so instead of disciplining the child, the parents celebrate the fact that they are raising a spoiled brat. There's something really wrong with that mindset to me. I know that many people probably just think the shirts are cute, and for them, they're not really indicative of their parenting styles. But honestly, I don't understand what is cute about suggesting that your child is so spoiled that he or she can't take "no" for an answer.

My husband tells me that I'm overreacting about this, and I really need to get a life. Probably so. But I've been watching for proof for my theory, and every time I've seen a kid wearing a shirt like this, he or she has been causing some sort of trouble, whether it's crying in church or running like a hooligan around the mall. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm not going to take that chance on my kids.