When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.
Yesterday, Aiden came downstairs wearing the oldest, rattiest pair of jeans he owns. There's a hole in one knee, and the other knee is just a big white patch of strings holding on for dear life. The cuffs of each leg are nearly completely frayed, and one is shredded completely at the seam.
I don't particularly care if he wears these jeans until they literally turn into dust, as long as he doesn't wear them to school or anywhere important, so I didn't say anything to him about them.
A little later in the day, though, we had this interaction:
Aiden: You know, mom, you really need to throw these jeans in the trash next time you do laundry.
Me: You DO know where the trash can is, right?
Aiden: ....yeah?
Me: Well when you decide you want to stop wearing ripped up jeans, be my guest and pitch them.
Aiden: But.
Aiden: But.
Me: Yes?
Aiden: I can just.....DO THAT?
One of the great things about having only boy children is the lack of clothing drama that comes along with little girls. I have relished this facet of life as a mom of boys, fully appreciating that as long as there is some kind of article made out of some kind of cloth material in their drawers, they will simply hike them up over their skinny legs, or shrug it over their buzzed heads, and be done with it. No hemming or hawing over what to wear, and I love it.
However, it occurred to me after this conversation that I could see how far I could take this. Slowly and gradually, I believe I could switch out all of their clothes with rainbow colored clown suits, or outfits that announce "I love my mom!" and I wonder, I truly wonder, if they would ever. even. notice.