You should wear what you want to wear

Introduction

As I wrote in this note, the high school I attended was a public preparatory school.

I had a very bright friend.

To explain how bright she was, while the rest of us were struggling until the very end to get into national or top-tier private universities, she had already secured a spot at a junior college through a designated school recommendation early on.

In this world, that is fine for a girl.

Or rather, that is actually better.

She also got married early. Her partner was a high school classmate, and it seemed he earned a decent living. I thought,

How smart!

She was cute, feminine, and on top of that, very sensible. She was the quintessential 'good wife and wise mother' type. As a girl, I thought she was the smartest in our grade.

But...

She got divorced early. She lived far away with him, working full-time and doing housework in an unfamiliar place. That married life was so tough that she became ill.

I found out about this while I was on maternity leave for my first child, struggling with what is known as 'solo parenting'.

I wondered why we were having such a hard time.

(By the way, it wasn't just her and me; the friend who was working hard was trying to recruit us into expensive self-improvement seminars, and the friend who had just gotten married experienced a serious perinatal loss—our late twenties were really full of all sorts of things.)

'Saving money' and 'saving time'

When I first got married, the words I often saw in the homemaking magazines I bought for the freebies were 'saving money' and 'saving time'.

'Saving money' I understood. It is especially important when you aren't working and have to manage on your husband's salary alone.

But I didn't quite get 'saving time.' Once I had a child, I understood the meaning painfully well. There is simply no time.

She didn't have any children with that classmate she married, but she said her married life was truly all about 'saving money and saving time'.

Is this what they mean by 'not feeding a caught fish'? He wouldn't give her money for living expenses, nor would he do any housework. He didn't cherish her, and they couldn't even agree on the air conditioner settings.

But once you're married, you have to live together. She was a serious person and tried her best, but eventually, she became ill.

If his income is decent, you'll be secure, and you can just handle the housework yourself... Even if you read the room as much as you can like that, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be happy, does it? orz

He wasn't a cool guy. I thought he was lucky to have married a cute, domestic girl early on, but he turned out to be just a disappointing man.

Remarriage partner

After that, she found a connection through a marriage agency and remarried. Her husband is also remarried, a graduate school graduate, and quite a handsome-looking guy.

But his way of thinking is old-fashioned; he thinks a wife should be a full-time homemaker, or if she works, she should earn less than him. On top of that, he runs his finger over the top of the furniture to check for dust and sighs.

Even a mother-in-law wouldn't do that these days, would she?

That's what I think. To top it off, he says there are no people with disabilities in his family line. Wow... this is the kind of situation where if something happens to the child being born, it'll be blamed on the mother...

Well, from my perspective, I think, 'Your own genes are the high-risk ones for spouting such stubborn nonsense.'

The serious her

She is just a very serious person.

One time, she consulted me on LINE about a method for 'labeling names' on children's clothes, assuming they would eventually be passed on to someone else. She had become a mother, too.

I had never thought about such things. I just write the name with a permanent marker, and when it gets too small, I pass it on to someone else as is. That's all.

The clothes I receive are the same. The name of the child who wore them originally is written on them (sometimes crossed out with a single line), and I just write my child's name anew. That's all.

She is meticulous and tries too hard to meet the expectations of those around her and the times. I think that's why she ends up feeling exhausted.

When I heard her child was entering nursery school, I thought she had decided to start working, but the enrollment was due to her own illness.

It seems she was still struggling with the mental illness she developed during her previous marriage. Besides, raising a child is heavy labor.

Clothes for the entrance ceremony

She also consulted our LINE group about what to wear to her child's nursery school entrance ceremony. The group consisted of her, our classmate A who is also a full-time homemaker, and me.

It was during the day on a weekday, and I was at work, so she and A were having a lively discussion first. The first thing I said when I joined late was

Simply put, you should wear what you want to wear☆

My advice boils down to that one thing.

Before my son's nursery school entrance ceremony, I bought a three-piece set at a shopping mall that I thought was 'the one!' It was a white top and bottom with a light blue dress.

However, I also humorously described how I stood out by wearing the same outfit at my workplace (school) entrance ceremony a few years later. That was after my maternity leave for my second child, my daughter, and everyone at the workplace entrance ceremony was wearing dark colors.

For my part, I wanted to express the joy of spring and a new life with bright colors, and a teacher who had just transferred also wore bright colors, but it is also fine to dress chic for a ceremony.

Since then, I have also started wearing black and pastel or gray tones for workplace entrance ceremonies. But bright colors are not wrong either. That is a matter of personal judgment and freedom.

I don't own one, but I think navy is also good because it is highly versatile. I talked about that too.

Also, leaving aside kindergarten entrance ceremonies, nursery school entrance ceremonies, to put it simply, have all kinds of parents; my children's entrance ceremonies also doubled as promotion ceremonies, so there were people in casual clothes, and there were moms in pantsuits who looked like they were going straight to work, I talked about that too.

She said she had never thought about 'clothes she wants to wear.' I got a little worried about whether her life was fun with that mindset.

Later, she reported that based on A's and my advice, she had purchased clothes that were highly versatile and could also create a glamorous look. Also, when she actually went to the entrance ceremony, there was even someone in ripped jeans...


I wrote about many things, but for now, I

think that you should just wear the clothes you want to wear, even if you stand out.

That is what I think.