I hate them in the car. They are not safe for car seats, because they lead you to believe that your children are strapped in tight when they are not. (Yes, I was completely indoctrinated by the Delaware Office of Highway Safety when David was born, and I like it: I may not be able to force broccoli down my children's throats but heaven help me if the car seat retainer clip is not exactly at armpit level.) I personally hate wearing a coat in the car because once the heater warms up, I'm stuck suffocating unless I'm able to perform some fancy acrobatics while driving in order to get the thing off. And I hate to have my children suffer too.
I also hate coats once we arrive at our destination, especially if it's a store. Do we sweat it out, uncomfortable and miserable, wearing our coats? Or do we take them off? If we're at the mall, we can fill the stroller with our coats, but then there's no room for the baby. And isn't that the point of the stroller? If we are grocery shopping, then we need an extra shopping cart just for coats. The situation is even worse at eating establishments, particularly if there is no obvious place to hang your coat. Our coats invariably end up on the floor and/or covered with ketchup. No thanks.
As a result, I try to avoid winter coats at all costs. Instead of spending twenty minutes zipping up coats before we leave the house, we make a run for the car, where the kids are quickly (and tightly at perfect 45 degree angles) strapped into their car seats and promptly buried under a mountain of quilts. That's right, we keep a large stash of blankets in the car, expressly for the purpose of forgoing coats. The quilts have the added bonus of giving Mary and David something to do in the car--fight over who gets which quilts. Our coats do go with us in the car--I'm too worried about getting in an accident and being stranded in the cold to leave them at home--we just don't wear them. Depending on how far it is from our parking space to the store (or restaurant or church or doctor's office), I might put the kids' coats on before they get out of the car. But often, you just have to be tough in this family--or lucky, like Mary, who gets wrapped in a blanket.
The problem with my anti-coat attitude is that it's rubbing off on David. (But not Mary, who, since wearing a coat in this family is such a novelty, likes to sport hers around the house for fun.) For all of my coat-hating, though, I must insist that David wear one to school. For one, he needs a coat at school because they go outside every day it's 32 degrees or above. Running through the parking lot when it's 34 degrees is one thing, but playing outside for twenty minutes in that weather is a different matter. Even more critical are the societal pressures on me as a mother. Yes, that's right--good old fashioned peer pressure. I see all the other children bundled snugly in their sub-40 coats, complete with hats, scarves, and mittens. (To be honest, the hats, scarves, and mittens are a mystery to me. How do all these moms manage to find and put on all those accessories for their children every single time they leave the house past Nov. 1? I admire them. How do they do it and keep their sanity?) I want to be like the moms who express their love by keeping their children toasty on a cold winter day. (But, of course, I only want to be like them when I am around them--otherwise, I evidently don't care if my children catch pneumonia.) Those puffy, down coats with the faux-fur are like giant arms of love wrapped snugly around David's classmates in warm, caring embraces. And my kid is wearing an old thin fleece jacket. What does that say about me?! Correction: What do David's teachers think that says about me? Do they see a direct connection between his lack of cold weather gear and the amount of time he spends on the orange chair? (Is there a connection?!)
So lately I have insisted that David wear a real winter coat to school. This hasn't been an easy battle. My first compromise was to zip out the lining. It looks like a real winter coat (important for teachers and mothers to see, lest I be labeled negligent, never mind that I probably am negligent) but it doesn't feel like one (important for David). But even after that major compromise, David still basically refuses to wear his coat to school. This is how bad it's gotten: We leave for school and I carry his coat to the car. Then we get to the school parking lot, where he still refuses to let me put his coat on. So we run to the building and up the steps. Just INSIDE the building, I put his coat on, and he walks down the hall to his classroom, only to rip it off ten feet before he gets there. To my relief, his teachers usually see him in his coat and are none the wiser about how long he'd actually been wearing it. Then, at the end of school, one of his teachers has to physically force him into his coat, so he can leave the classroom, find me, and take it off before he's even left the building. This is getting ridiculous! But I know I deserve it.
Last month there was what I considered to be a pretty nice day. It was in the forties, and it was sunny. I thought we should take advantage of the "good weather" and go to the park. So we did. David was wearing that old thin fleece jacket. Mary's jacket was even thinner. No coats, no mittens, no hats. It was a bit brisk, but my kids are tough (right?). We were the only ones at the park until a pair of two-year-old twin girls arrived. Wow--they were decked out like it was the North Pole. Heavy duty winter coats, hats, and gloves (with each of their little digits in the fingers of the gloves--how did their mom do that? I can't even get David's thumb in the thumb of his mitten.) The girls could barely walk (think Ralphie). And I could see that they were getting hot as they stumbled around the playground. Yes, yes, I tried not think judgmental thoughts, but my first reaction was, "Whoa! That is one uptight mom." From observing them, I learned that they have to strictly obey the rule to keep their hats on. They were reminded again and again, "Sophia, Caitlyn, if you take off your hats, we will go home. That's the rule!" Pretty intense. By this point I was thinking about what a great mom I was for allowing my children to run around the playground and play in the sand unencumbered by coats and gloves.
Then I started talking to the mom. (If you ever want to continue unfairly judging a stranger, don't start up a conversation.) Turns out they live in Minnesota. We quickly covered the how-old-are-your-children-they-are-so-cute material, so then there was nothing to talk about...except the weather. Including wintertime in Minnesota. Turns out Garrison Keillor wasn't exaggerating. This mom didn't have to explain to me why her girls were bundled as they were. We might complain about the winter here in southwestern Ohio, but it's nothing compared to what folks experience up north. For this family, coats and hats and gloves aren't a cultural inconvenience. It's a matter of life or death. So they are not negotiable. Even when you're visiting Ohio on a not-so-frigid day. I'll bet those girls will happily wear their coats to preschool.
By the time we left the park that day back in November, a chilling wind had picked up and my children were almost frozen solid. Maybe what I really need is a few more days like this one today--where the temperature feels like 25 below--to knock a little sense into me. You know, to convince me that you can't tough out the winter in nothing more than a hoodie. So then maybe David will wear his coat in the parking lot at school. And I can feel like a good mom.
