Maybe Sweatpants Today

Boys are easier than girls, yada yada yada, less emotional drama, and they don’t care as much about fashion . . .

Those are all things I hear A LOT as a mom of three boys.

OK, it’s true my boys don’t care about accessorizing or being dressed to the nines, but the opposite can actually be quite a challenge, too. (note – I do know some boys who love to dress nice . . . they just don’t live in my house or have my last name) .

Nice khakis? That’s a hard no for my boys. Nice-ish khakis, with comfy waistbands and no hard buttons or snaps? Only if they’re forced because we’re going somewhere where anything more casual would be rude and inappropriate.

What would they wear every day if they had the choice? Well, correction — what DO they wear every day, as long as it’s 45 degrees or colder (because anything warmer than that warrants wearing shorts)? SWEATPANTS.

Sounds casual, comfy, and oh-so-easy, right? It’s not. Did you know there are tapered sweats, straight-leg sweats, sweatpants with drawstrings, sweatpants with pockets, dry-tek and cotton and fleece and clingy and the ones that make that swishy sound when you walk? Did you know that, even after your boys find sweatpants they LOVE and you buy 7 pair of them, they will — for some unknown reason — sentence some of those pants to live, crumpled in a drawer, rejected weekly in favor of just one or two pair of identical sweatpants that somehow are “better”???

After spending a small fortune on sweatpants, I couldn’t take it anymore. Hence, the Great Sweatpants Conference of 2020. I organized it. I hosted it. I ensured the attendees participated. I ran the event. I conquered the sweatpants situation.

Here’s how:

I took the time to lay out every single pair of sweatpants my boys’ had in their drawers or in the laundry or on their floor.

I had them try on every grouping of pants — all of one brand in the same size, vs. a different brand in the same size, vs. different sizes. One by one, we weeded out the pants they would never wear again . . . and one by one, as I forced them to try on and model different materials and sizes and brands, we discovered “new” sweatpants they were willing to have in their “fashion” repertoire. It felt like a real breakthrough.

But, was it?

What do you think?

NO. They still wear the same few pair of freakin’ sweatpants they wore before the conference. So if you were looking for great advice on how to run your own Great Sweatpants Conference, I openly admit that, despite my best efforts, I have failed you.