Wearing Big Boy Pants
22/07/12 04:27
Tall is not one of the words that people use to describe me. In my school pictures, I am always one of the kids in the front row. They always said, “tallest kids in the back row.” I was never one of those kids. Classmates reached certain milestones before I did. One of those milestones was moving out of the boys section in the clothing store.
At our home, when we were growing up, we got new jeans for Rodeo weekend, which usually landed in June. These jeans were to be kept for good occasions and we were expected to have them good enough to wear to school in the fall. Generally, there were a couple more pairs of new jeans at back to school time. The rest of the summer we wore cutoffs most of the time. In general, I didn’t pay any attention to what other kids wore. In my school, all of the boys wore jeans most of the time. We had dress slacks for church, but jeans were the accepted pants for school. There were a couple of different brands, but that made no difference to us as kids.
What I did notice was that as I was growing, the size of my jeans didn’t match my age. At age 10, I was still wearing size 8’s. The summer that I turned 14, I worked at my uncle and cousin’s farms and after harvest we went to town and I bought two pairs of jeans on my own. It was the first time I got jeans from the men’s section. I had been wearing my size 12’s all summer long. Cutoffs weren’t worn for farm work. I headed for the men’s section of the store and purchased the smallest size jeans in the men’s department. They fit perfectly. At least the waist was the right size. My mom cut off a bit of the legs and hemmed them up for regular wearing.
I’ve had to find someone to cut off the bottom of my pants ever since. The concept of finding jeans that I could wear off the rack involves wearing jeans with legs a bit too long for me.
Over the years, my waist size increased, but my inseam didn’t get any longer. It remained about an inch shorter than the smallest inseam offered by the jeans companies. For many years, the size of jeans was very predictable. The major U.S. manufacturers were very consistent in how they sized men’s jeans. This shifted as the production of clothing was moved offshore. Now the major manufacturers of jeans produce their clothing in China. I thought that might be a boon for those of us with short legs. I’ve never been to China, but the men who grew up in China that I know are all shorter than I and I have been told that I’d be a relatively tall person in that country. This, however, did not seem to be the case.
However, there was something happening behind the scenes that I failed to notice. While I was getting older, and getting used to having someone alter the length of the legs of my pants, American children were getting bigger. The manufacturers of children’s clothing added sizes 14, 16 and 18 to stock jeans for boys. And the added a new waist size as well. In place of the standard “slim” and “regular,” you can now buy children’s jeans in “husky.” I hadn’t been paying attention to these changes. I was just going into the store, heading for the men’s department and buying the shortest jeans they had in stock.
Through a careful plan with some good advice from my doctor, I have dropped a few pounds over the past six months. The weight loss has been accompanied by a shrinking of my waistline. This has meant that I have had to purchase a few new pairs of pants. So, while others were shopping recently, I wandered around the clothing store in search of a pair of jeans that would fit. After being frustrated in the men’s department, a clerk suggested that they would have my size in the boys department.
It has been 45 years since I bought my first pairs of jeans in the men’s department of the Sears store in Great Falls, Montana. This week, I found a pair of jeans that fit perfectly in the boy’s department of a store in Lees Summit, Missouri. It seems that I am a boys’ size 14 husky.
I am well aware that it is a lot easier for men to find clothing that fits than it is for women. We generally don’t spend much time shopping and we are not big fans of the dressing rooms in department stores with their semi-private doors and tiny spaces. A successful shopping trip for someone with a personality like mine involves heading to the right part of the store, selecting a brand that I have worn before and searching for the right size. I then head for the cashier and pay for my purchase. I can be out the door in 10 minutes or so, depending on how talkative the cashier is. So it isn’t fair for me to complain about my clothes shopping experiences. Still, it will take an adjustment for me to look for pants in the boys’ department.
Still it is nice to find a pair of jeans that I can wear without having to ask someone who is better at sewing than I to cut an inch off of the bottom of the legs and hem up what is left. OK, sometimes I had to have them cut two inches off the bottom of the legs. Now I can just stop by the boy’s department and be on my way.
I’m told that as we age we do start to shrink slightly. With proper attention to diet an exercise, my goal is simply to avoid expanding. I think I can manage that. But if I lose height, I may have to lose weight as well. I don’t think I could squeeze into a pair of boy’s size 12 even in the “husky” size.
At our home, when we were growing up, we got new jeans for Rodeo weekend, which usually landed in June. These jeans were to be kept for good occasions and we were expected to have them good enough to wear to school in the fall. Generally, there were a couple more pairs of new jeans at back to school time. The rest of the summer we wore cutoffs most of the time. In general, I didn’t pay any attention to what other kids wore. In my school, all of the boys wore jeans most of the time. We had dress slacks for church, but jeans were the accepted pants for school. There were a couple of different brands, but that made no difference to us as kids.
I’ve had to find someone to cut off the bottom of my pants ever since. The concept of finding jeans that I could wear off the rack involves wearing jeans with legs a bit too long for me.
Over the years, my waist size increased, but my inseam didn’t get any longer. It remained about an inch shorter than the smallest inseam offered by the jeans companies. For many years, the size of jeans was very predictable. The major U.S. manufacturers were very consistent in how they sized men’s jeans. This shifted as the production of clothing was moved offshore. Now the major manufacturers of jeans produce their clothing in China. I thought that might be a boon for those of us with short legs. I’ve never been to China, but the men who grew up in China that I know are all shorter than I and I have been told that I’d be a relatively tall person in that country. This, however, did not seem to be the case.
However, there was something happening behind the scenes that I failed to notice. While I was getting older, and getting used to having someone alter the length of the legs of my pants, American children were getting bigger. The manufacturers of children’s clothing added sizes 14, 16 and 18 to stock jeans for boys. And the added a new waist size as well. In place of the standard “slim” and “regular,” you can now buy children’s jeans in “husky.” I hadn’t been paying attention to these changes. I was just going into the store, heading for the men’s department and buying the shortest jeans they had in stock.
Through a careful plan with some good advice from my doctor, I have dropped a few pounds over the past six months. The weight loss has been accompanied by a shrinking of my waistline. This has meant that I have had to purchase a few new pairs of pants. So, while others were shopping recently, I wandered around the clothing store in search of a pair of jeans that would fit. After being frustrated in the men’s department, a clerk suggested that they would have my size in the boys department.
It has been 45 years since I bought my first pairs of jeans in the men’s department of the Sears store in Great Falls, Montana. This week, I found a pair of jeans that fit perfectly in the boy’s department of a store in Lees Summit, Missouri. It seems that I am a boys’ size 14 husky.
I am well aware that it is a lot easier for men to find clothing that fits than it is for women. We generally don’t spend much time shopping and we are not big fans of the dressing rooms in department stores with their semi-private doors and tiny spaces. A successful shopping trip for someone with a personality like mine involves heading to the right part of the store, selecting a brand that I have worn before and searching for the right size. I then head for the cashier and pay for my purchase. I can be out the door in 10 minutes or so, depending on how talkative the cashier is. So it isn’t fair for me to complain about my clothes shopping experiences. Still, it will take an adjustment for me to look for pants in the boys’ department.
Still it is nice to find a pair of jeans that I can wear without having to ask someone who is better at sewing than I to cut an inch off of the bottom of the legs and hem up what is left. OK, sometimes I had to have them cut two inches off the bottom of the legs. Now I can just stop by the boy’s department and be on my way.
I’m told that as we age we do start to shrink slightly. With proper attention to diet an exercise, my goal is simply to avoid expanding. I think I can manage that. But if I lose height, I may have to lose weight as well. I don’t think I could squeeze into a pair of boy’s size 12 even in the “husky” size.