I wouldn’t necessarily assume that they’re pajama bottoms, as there are now “lounge pants” and other styles that look like pajama pants.
But if they’re also wearing slippers, then probably. I saw (and even participated) in college, but I chalked it up to us living on campus. I hope the house shoes they use are better than mine.
Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are now shoes that look like house shoes but are designed for indoor-outdoor wear.
Band name.
Things sure have changed. In the sixties when I was in high school, girls
weren’t even allowed to wear pants.
There are definitely those kind of shoes. I have shoes called Barefoots. They are slipper looking slip ons that cover the heel(which was a requirement at my highschool, preventing sandals and flipflop wearing…jerks)with a rubber slightly treaded sole.
I would have pushed the issue and worn those in highschool, for sure.
I went barefoot sometimes in college. It was a rebellious time for me. I was so bad bad bad😊
That would certainly have disrupted classes in my school, especially since it was a Catholic school and the seats were very uncomfortable. The nuns would have been very angry too!
I’m not sure I know the precise differences between pajama pants and sweatpants and lounge pants.
But yeah: nobody* “dresses up” to go anywhere, nowadays. They wear the same thing they’re wearing around the house.
* Not literally nobody, of course, but lots more people than used to back in the good old days.
PJ’s and crocks are common enough in Kanicson’s school. I sort of like it in a stick it to tradition type of way but he likes to keep his dress to the ‘jean’s and (way too expensive) Nike sneakers’ formal school standard. With that said he does participate in school PJ day (one day a year, come in your PJ’s).
Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but surely there’s an equally valid point to be made that the disruption was caused, not by the enforcement of a dress code, but by non-compliance with it.
As for whether or why there should be a dress code, that’s a different discussion entirely. What I can say empirically is that the largest and most exclusive private school for boys in the area has a strict and detailed dress code detailing allowable colours, fabrics, and styles, one for the warm weather season and one for cold weather. A little up the road is an unrelated exclusive private school for girls; here instead of a dress code the girls wear actual school uniforms.
Is this beneficial, or just superficial snobbery? I’m not prepared to argue either side, except that I don’t think the answer is obvious and it may be a little of both. There is value to having a sense of decorum, and it’s arguably related to other values like respect for our institutions. Sure, it can be pushed too far, but I’m not sure we’re instilling the right values in our kids when we’re fine with having them attend school looking like they just spent the night in the back alley.
My own observations, which is me sitting outside a middle school daily waiting for my kid to get out and come to the car, is that it’s mainly girls. Apparently trends and styles differ from place to place.
The girls I see wearing them seem to have it wrapped into their whole aesthetic. I’m not left with the impression that they just rolled out of bed five minutes before arriving at school and didn’t have time to change pants. No, these are curated pajama pants, selected for the goal of displaying their casually slouchy counter-culture vibes. For one thing, it’s always just the pants. I don’t see anyone wearing pajama tops with them, much less any other nightwear (are nightgowns even a thing among today’s youth? You’re asking the wrong person). And it’s a pretty narrow band of pajama pants that I see get worn – as stated upthread, usually plaid, appropriately baggy with oversized legs but a waist that still keeps them on. I’m left with a strong impression that someone just randomly wearing their actual pajamas would still be committing a middle school fashion faux pas.
Again, this is all just one person’s impressions from one school location, watching the kids stream out in order to keep an eye out for his specific kid (who exclusively wears sweatpants/joggers).
This reminds me of ‘my date with the cute pajama pants wearing girl’. Is it just me?
Makes plenty of sense to me. European colonization of the Indian subcontinent introduced pajamas to the West. In a hot subtropical climate, light cotton clothes are simply sensible everyday wear; the word “pajama” comes from the Persian for “leg clothing” - that is, trousers. It was Europeans who made them specifically sleepwear. The only thing that keeps me from wearing pajamas during summers in Georgia is that they don’t usually have sturdy pockets.
My SWAG is that’s due to the pocket issue; girls carry purses, so the lack of good pockets is not as much a handicap as it is for boys. (And yes, I know that the lack of pockets in women’s clothing is a major hassle for them.)
The best argument (actually, the only good argument) I’ve heard for school uniforms is it puts the students on a level playing field, so there’s not competition between the richer & poorer kids - the rich kids in the expensive fashionable clothes, the poor kids in what their parents could afford on sale or hand-me-downs. And I say that as a kid who grew up with a wardrobe that was probably 60% hand-me-downs.
I have no problems whatsoever with young people wearing loungewear, or pajamas, or whatever it is you want to call that really comfortable clothing.
In my experience, the nuns are always angry.
When my kids were in the lower grades there was a school uniform. It was stupid looking and stupidly overpriced. The poorer families had trouble affording them. There was a way they could apply for vouchers to get them Walmarts version of the uniforms. (There was a difference between the uniforms from the uniform catalog and the Walmart version and believe you me, the kids knew it) This is a very poor school district. The district paying out for the uniforms was disgraceful. The money could of been better spent.
It was an unsuccessful attempt to try and stop a particular fashion problem the schools were having ( I won’t attempt to explain that, as there’s no way to without sounding racist. Keep in mind this is the deep south and authorities are still in a mindset that’s truly abhorrent, sometimes).
Parent groups got it stopped and they had, as my kids got in higher grades, a strict regular clothing dress code.
At the time, my opinion was to go with the rules laid down. I had 4 kids and no taste or time to cause waves or get outraged about it.
Now, I see it for what it was.
What drives me up a wall is adults (women and men) wearing this fashion when out in public. I see it quite frequently while grocery shopping, no matter the time of day. Just screams “lazy” to me.
Well, I am lazy. 
moi aussi
You can get stuff like fisherman pants https://www.thai-pants.com/product-category/thai-fisherman-pants/ https://www.amazon.com/Wevez-Womens-Fisherman-Pants-Assorted/dp/B00P3ASWQQ in different colours/patterns. As for being good for the lazy, how long does it take to put on any pair of pants?
I noticed when I taught middle school that some adults (me) don’t generally notice and don’t generally care what other people are wearing (within broad boundaries), while other adults can’t seem to let go of any departure from local conventions. When administrators were cut from the latter cloth, it was difficult for folks like me to enforce their emotion-driven dress codes.
Of course, add crazy parents into the equation (battling over all points on the spectrum of dress code standards) and I became grateful enough for administors to make the rules and take the heat.