# Department Stores don't think boys wear clothes? (mild & weak)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 21, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901 "2005-05-21T22:29:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/21 "2005-05-22T14:01:37Z")
> [@Chanteuse](#):
>
> I have become convinced that Wal-Mart thinks we want to take our boys to church in jeans or cargo pants and tennis shoes.
Not being a church goer, I find it hard to see why boys wearing jeans or cargo pants is a bad thing.
I do agree it is harder to find boy’s clothes then girl’s clothes. Maybe god likes naked boys…Catholic preists seem too ( I’m sorry, that was very BAD).
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2005, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/22 "2005-05-22T14:17:35Z")
> [@calm kiwi](#):
>
> Not being a church goer, I find it hard to see why boys wearing jeans or cargo pants is a bad thing.
My mother would have DIED before she allowed my brother and I to set foot in a church for Mass wearing jeans. We used to go camping about every weekend in the summer and we still went to Mass EVERY WEEK, even if we had to drive 40 miles to find a Catholic church (in rural Pennsylvania, that’s common), and we NEVER wore jeans and almost never wore sneakers.
The one time we did wear sneakers (because she forgot to pack our dress shoes), we ended up having to get up in front of everyone to carry the offertory to the altar. My mom wanted to crawl into a hole.
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### Author:  [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/23 "2005-05-22T15:15:08Z")
Mother of a (just turned) 14 year old boy here.
For my son’s band concerts he needed to locate a plain white button down shirt and a pair of nice black slacks. Because he is growing so fast, he has needed new black pants/white button down every 6 months for the past 3 years.
The school just changed the band dress code to tan pants and a blue polo shirt because none of the moms could find the white/black combo in teen sizes. As my son played in his final middle school band concert last week, this doesn’t help me very much. But future generations should thank the band department for sparing them plain white button down shirt hell.
The only places I’ve been able to find formal, non-hip hop cargo pants and T-shirt type clothes for boys has been in Sears and Pennys. I do all of his concert, wedding, funeral clothes shopping at Sears.
When he was a baby, he spent a good deal of time in girls clothes. His “onesies” and sleepers were unisex, but I wasn’t going to pay for another 6-month sized overcoat and hat just because the perfectly good ones his older sisters wore for 4 months each were pink. I got to see first hand that famous sociology experiment. When I had him out in public in his boy/unisex outfits people would come up to me and tell me that he was “going to be a football player” and lthat he looked big and strong. When he was out in his pink hat, people would come up and tell me how pretty “she” was.
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### Author:  [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/24 "2005-05-22T16:04:16Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#):
>
> And you’re a 30 waste with 34 legs…life quite sucks. She now refuses to accept any requests from me for clothing for Christmas or birthday. We could go through three malls and find all of one pair of pants that was slightly too short.
>
> But indeed, if I was female–life would be quite cheery (except I would look fowl in a skirt of course.)
Actually, with a 30 waist and 34 legs- you wouldn’t be able to find pants at all. They simply don’t make them or sell them. And all the skirts would land in the wrong place.
**sulamith** , I’ve heard the same complaint from my friends with boys. Good luck for the next few years.
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### Author:  [@DogMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DogMom)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/25 "2005-05-23T16:15:55Z")
> [@sulamith](#):
>
> As for shoes, well, he wears a 6 1/2. I am told that they never order that size… nobody wears it.
>
> …
> munch
> …
> I do find a pair of men’s 28 khaki’s that are really too big but will be OK with a belt, and a men’s small shirt that is actually pretty nice. Of course the pants are way too long, I’ll have to cut them off and hem them, which I really don’t mind, but dayum…
Welcome to My Life. However, I do not have Boy People to shop for. DogDad is 5’2", has a 23" inseam, is built like a Brick Sh…um…\ Warehouse, and wears shoes anywhere from 6 WIDE to a 7.5 “normal”, depending on the cut and whether or not he’s desperate enough for a particular type of shoe to get something a little long in the toebox. And we BOTH hate shopping.
I’ve given up even TRYING to get anything to fit him. Long sleeves? Forget it. We get “short” sleeved shirts in his neck-size and the stupid things are still 3/4-sleeve size on him.
I’m dreading getting him new shorts this year - looks like “Bermudas” are back in style here, and “Bermudas” on everyone else are “long pants” on him.
We NEVER try to get any pants that fit him “all over”. Waist fits? Great, let’s buy them and take them home so I can whack 12" off the legs and hem ‘em up.
Shoes? Oh, for-freaking-get it. Tennies are no problem, but he needs boots most of the time. We usually wind up going to Sears and hoping for the best, since Lands’ End seems to be wising up and carrying shoe sizes all the way from 1 - 16 or so, by the half size.
I hate that retailers don’t seem to realize that People Of The Male Persuasion actually exist if they’re younger than 25-or-so and / or shorter than 5’ 10". I **do understand** that they only have limited retail space and so forth, and they have to use it to appeal to the maximum amount of people who will spend and all that, but for crying out loud, there’s NOTHING out there in DogDad’s size that he’ll voluntarily wear unless we go to specialty shops. And if I’m dropping $50 - $75 on ONE frigging pair of shorts, they better last a LOT longer than one season. Which of course they don’t. Gr.
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### Author:  [@Boggette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boggette)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/department-stores-dont-think-boys-wear-clothes-mild-weak/304901/26 "2005-05-23T17:09:06Z")
Good rant. I have a similar problem with trying to find LONG pants right now. Every single thing on the rack here is shorts! I have 10 acres of woods my girls play in. That means ticks, bees, etc. Not real smart to put them in shorts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of long-pant option?
And we could also include the difference in cost between boys and girls clothes. The store sometimes carries sweatpants. Hanes (for boys) are cheaper than Hanes Her Ways (for girls) and are the exact same item. What’s up with that?
I do my best kid shopping at flea markets and garage sales. Gently used clothing for VERY reasonable prices! This is especially nice at the times when they grow a size overnight.
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