Unschool: Clothes, Connections and Reflections of Love

She twirls, spinning, her new dress lifting. She’s grinning, and I instantly forget the pain: I dislike sewing. Years later, all grown up, with eyes glowing, she recalls that dress and everything I sewed or chose for her. And I know that clothes are not frivolous but connections and reflections of my mother’s love.

The other day, I had a delightful conversation with one of my adult daughters while we were at a cafe sipping coffee. We were chatting about our winter clothes – what do we need to buy before the cold weather arrives? – and somehow found ourselves reminiscing about the clothes I’d chosen or made for my kids when they were younger.

“Do you remember the Christmas dress I made for Gemma-Rose?” I said. A few years ago, at midday on Christmas Eve, I had a completely impractical but fun idea: I wanted to make a special dress for my youngest daughter.

Gemma-Rose and I rushed into town to the shops and returned with some rose-splattered fabric, which I sewed into a pretty frock, complete with a zipper up the back. (I’m not very good at inserting zippers.) Late afternoon, I handed the dress to my daughter, who glowed with joy as she held it up under her chin and twirled, showing it off. The dress was simple, but it was new. Most importantly, it had been created especially for Gemma-Rose. That’s a big deal when you’re the eighth child and fifth daughter of the family.

That dress was Gemma-Rose’s favourite for several years. She wore it again and again on every possible occasion, from Sunday Mass to swinging on the swings in the park on a warm summer evening. When the dress rose up Gemma-Rose’s legs as she grew taller, she looked forlorn: would she have to hand on her favourite outfit to someone else? I fixed the problem, at least for another year, by adding a ruffle of contrasting rose fabric to the hem of the dress, so my daughter could keep wearing it.

A mother once told me we should never comment on our kids’ appearances. If we say such things as, “Oh my, you look beautiful!” our children will become vain.

She also said that clothes are trivial and frivolous. It doesn’t matter what we wear. I disagree. Watching my daughter’s face light up as we remember the childhood clothes I sewed or chose or searched high and low for, I know those clothes brought joy. They connected us together. They were a reflection of a mother’s love.

My adult daughter drives us home from the cafe, and still thinking about our conversation about clothes, I say, “Do you remember how I used to ask, ‘Who made you so beautiful?”?

”Oh yes!” she says, “and we’d all reply, ‘God!’”

Everything leads back to Him, doesn’t it?

So what do you think of clothes? Can they bring joy? Do you sew? Have you ever done something you dislike because you love?

One last thing: there are lots of love stories in my book, Radical Unschool Love. Why not check it out?