Susanne Seidman
Style Editor, Local Kicks

Back to school. Good bye pool.  Time to shelve my bikini, slip into my phone booth-sized bathroom, and don my super mom, potential soccer mom, and now kindergarten mom uniform.  

Not so fast, where am I really and how did I get here? Was there some type of time travel involved? I’m the parent? Perhaps it’s my 80’s pop culture upbringing, but could I possibly be back to the future?

Wasn’t it only the other day I was heading back to Vanderbilt, prepared to ready the new freshman students as an orientation leader in my “Ask Me?” style t-shirt, rush the new girls in my sewn on letters, and finally enjoy the legal drinking age in my oh so hip party clothes?

As I furrow my brow, squint, and train my mind’s eye, I vaguely remember starting my career as a corporate woman.  

My first “non summer” joining the fashion heard sweating in newly minted Banana Republic and J.Crew suits with stacked heels completely shocked my system.  The harsh realization that I was out of the fun and fray of college life felt like being shot out of a cannon into that so called real world, the one that for a lifetime was drilled into our heads as coming, without the requisite superhero cape.

Had I really listened? I was sure of only one truth, college was way to short. Or maybe two, my first salary would not cover that work wardrobe I imagined and allow me to eat and pay rent.

Fast forward to the first day of preschool with my first child.

I recall boldly dropping her off and neither of us looking back. My clogs clip clopped on the school yard steps. My poncho floated with the swift pace. This time, I remembered how comforting a cape could be. I felt and looked like Martha Stewart on her release from incarceration, wearily relieved to move on and anxious to reclaim a little of my former life, yet determined forge ahead in a new reality.  

Even parolees get a few bucks, some instructions, and someone to look in after them in the form of a parole officer, don’t they?  I embraced mothering like a career but couldn’t wait to revive a sense of the person I was before becoming mommy, virtually imprisoned with constant uninvited company for things like showering and getting dressed.

Now, as I prepare to shoot my daughter out of her first real cannon into elementary school, how much has changed?

Everything and nothing.

Times are tight for many of us as we await the election of our new president, ride out an actively forecasted hurricane season, and weather an economy that feels like one. I have always been overindulgent and a clothes horse, especially for my children.

I relish back to school shopping, any shopping for them. My tongue in cheek mantra, “my children may not be set for college but they will be dressed fabulously until kindergarten,” used humor to diffuse my penchant for the here and now.

Kindergarten felt light years away.  This year, in these uncertain times, kindergarten has arrived and the overindulgence stops.

Local retailers are responding to our changing habits as customers and friends.

As a relationship-driven shopper, I am on a first name basis with many sales people and boutique owners. We talk about the ups and downs personally and professionally.  They applaud my recent restraint and assure me business is good even while scaled back. Nice to know those of us so called professional shoppers are not single handedly carrying the economy on our backs.

Phew! One pair of Mary Jane’s from Monday’s Child will do this year, thank you, as I move out the four pairs from last fall.  Committing to really wear out more than just our child’s favorite outfit and acknowledging more can be less are part of the growing pains of childrearing in an overindulgent parenting culture, where we want nothing short of the best and the most for our children.

This year as our family embarks on “the real world of schooling” several shock waves will no doubt rock our up until now sheltered existence as preschool parents. What to do?

Start by getting dressed! The monogrammed check dress and mary janes akin to my own first day of school ensemble are laid out for my daughter. So is my boho chic, floaty dress, denim jacket, and newly acquired vintage, white fringe boots reminiscent of Sloan in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”  

Part conformist, part stand out, part outright rebel, I am no longer part of the fashion herd of my post college and early career days.  

As for supermom, although I’ll hang on to my capes for cooler weather, instead I reserve the imaginary accolade of most unlikely to dress like a soccer mom.  

Mostly, I plan to keep a sense of humor about adjusting to the rigors of on-time bells, packing lunches everyday, and navigating school in the real world. It is a fresh start and a new phase of life on the other side.  From student to parent of student, back to the future, indeed!

Susanne Seidman can be reached at SSeidman@LocalKicks.com unless she is in the kiss and ride line up or playing hooky with Ferris.