Maybe It's Like Robin Hood?

This is part of the series in which I make fun of the ways Poles dress. This is only for fun and is totally an American perspective.

At the preschool where I'm teaching, there are 5 Polish children, 2 French children, 3 American children - although one of them thinks she's Mexican, one of them thinks he's Polish, and one of them thinks she's Israeli...only the Israeli one is correct, 1 New Zealander, and 2 Spanish children.

Notice how the nationalities come in pairs or more. Except the New Zealander - that's because there just aren't that many of them in New Zealand, so they don't often export them.

So there are 5 Polish children at the school. 1 of them never comes to school - he's just on the roster, so he could potentially show up at any moment. Of the other 4, 3 of them wear the same clothes every.single.day. This is because they have separate inside and outside clothes.

What does this mean exactly? Well, think about how long it takes to get a 3 year old dressed in the morning. We must put on tights, then an undershirt, then trousers, then an overshirt, then snowpants (no matter what the weather - as long as it still technically winter we must still wear snowpants...it could begin snowing at ANY GIVEN MOMENT!), then scarf, jacket, mittens and hat.

So, because all the other normal children come to school in tights, undershirt, trousers, overshirt, and spend the school day IN THOSE CLOTHES (mostly, there is one boy and one girl who just have to be in their undershirt and tights all day long), it doesn't take 20 minutes to dress each one of them to go outside.

Add to that the boy who is ADHD and can't sit still long enough to be undressed from his trousers and shirt and then redressed in (a totally different set) tights, undershirt, trousers, overshirt, snowpants, scarf, jacket, mittens and hat, and there is no way I will teach preschool for the rest of my life.

The other thing about this whole ordeal is that IT DOESN'T GET THAT COLD HERE! Our average winter temp is -4 C/25 F.

And before you ask, yes, my boys wear tights.

Their teacher asked me if Americans do this and I said, "No." She asked, "Then why do you put them in tights?" I said, "So the old ladies don't yell at me." Because if you've ever lived in Poland, you know that everyone on the street thinks that it is their business to tell you how to raise your children.

The teacher's ass almost literally fell off. She laughed that hard.

But my boys do have some manly looking tights.