A couple times a year I sponsor clothes for kids on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, and it is so hard to decipher what sizes to get because it's the parents or grandparents guessing what size their bigger-bodied kids would fit into, and it'll be, say, a size six for a two-year-old with a note going "size is correct," so, yeah, there are two-year-olds running around in pants that must be like 60% cuffs. Then at a certain point you get to the teenagers and have to wonder is this still in kids sizing or do they want adult sizes at this point.
It also makes me wonder how much of an effect the association of class and weight has on this -- if, in addition to everything else, brands assume that the people who most need inclusive sizing aren't going to buy enough or aren't going to buy high-end stuff, so capitalism says screw them.
Also, gotta say, today my son was wearing a pair of Tea Collection pants and they are super cute and also SO poorly made -- the things are a few months old and have a bunch of little holes already.
I’m so glad you flagged the class/race relationship; I woke up wishing I’d spent more time on that in this piece. There is a direct correlation between price points and which brands are willing to make kids’ plus sizes and it’s frustrating because it limits options.
“Labor intensive hemming,” so encapsulates my experience. Actually, I became quite the seamstress and not surprising, but all my experience is mostly with stretchy clothes and bathing suits. My kid also got my duper broad shoulders. In the 80s, I had to cut out sll the shoulder pads in my clothes then they laid perfect. I got 4 garbage bags of hand me down kids’ clothes, the first few months of my daughter’s life. The sizes were birth thru all the toddler sizes and some early elementary clothes. I thought I was set except I end up using them for her first year of life. If something wasn’t stretchy maybe she could wear it for a day or maybe she would not ever be able to wear it. I had a sewing machine in my closet that I bought in my mid twenties and took classes for because I was intimidated by it. Once my kid was born, I was so grateful for it. My kid grew so fast and just before she had a growth spurt, she would get super round. It was just her body’s process. I would scour thrift stores for cute cat patterned leggings for her or any animal print tops. Honestly, I wish we could have afforded Justice’s plus size girl clothes, but they were too expensive. Shorts were the worst because companies decided girls needed to wear short shorts, so I bought my kid the land’s end husky boys size even though we couldn’t really afford it. Because of my ability to sew and my own experience as a fat kid, I totally overcompensated by my kid having an extensive wardrobe. I wore men’s jeans and T-shirt’s that hid my body all through my youth. My husband and I have to do laundry every week to have enough clothes where my child can go several weeks. My kid loves clothing exchanges now because that is where a large majority of her clothes came from, our neighborhood clothing exchanges. My child’s best friend is on the extreme opposite end and up ‘till her friend was 8 was wearing my kids toddler clothes or the clothes I had made my kid for when she was a toddler. I get to see all the the clothes I altered on my child’s best friend, but from 6 years ago. I have also altered bathing suits and clothes for her best friend because otherwise her pants fall of and the pants for her small waist size and long legs. My husband decided he didn’t like pictures on his tshirts and they were heavy duty, soft, and had cute cartoons or great art on them. He bought a lot of the “Woot” shirts with custom art. He is a 3xl. I made a lot of my kid’s dresses and clothing from his old t-shirts. I feminized the shape and my kid had these cute long t-shirt dresses and then her friend wore them 5 yrs later. I feel so privileged that I can sew, so my kid never had to experience my limited selection of 3 pairs of men’s jeans, 2 pairs of men’s shorts, and a bunch of enveloping t-shirts which was what I mostly wore. I was really poor growing up and my sisters were tiny and thin.
Thank you SO much for this. I’m straight sized and have a bigger sized kid (age 12) and it’s SO confusing for both of us to try and find clothes for them because neither of us understand the sizing mechanisms. I used to be a thrift store only kind of mom but for now shopping in the adult sections at Walmart works out OK . . . but it sucks so much that kids clothing sizes are based off of age and kids know this and start to feel weird as they “age out” way faster than other kids.
Dec 13, 2022·edited Dec 13, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
Feels even that much harder in Canada! Children's Place only sells plus online and it's limited to leggings in navy and black and some school uniform items. Gap and Old Navy maybe have a few things. I was just able to order a snowsuit and other things from Lands End (in Cnd $!) and seeing a whole page of stuff was like hitting the lottery even though as you say it's still pretty pathetic.
Supporting my 7 year old through her feelings of only having black pants is heartbreaking. As a fat mama who was a fat child I feel like I should be able to do better. To support her the way I wasn't supported and I personalize this as "I am just not working hard enough to find her good clothes. I need to be a better mother". But nope. This is not all on me. It's highly triggering for this work-in-progress healing from diet culture lady - makes me feel the old feelings and that I somehow need to make her body be different (nope). All this from trying to buy my amazing daughter leggings!! Do better clothing industry. I don't want her to have to buy a dress for a 50 year old when she's 13 like I did. Thanks as always for your validating essays and shining light where it needs to be shone ❤️
My 10 year old kid would love some size 12 or 14 length clothes in a size 16 or 18 width! We have had success with Target husky sizes (that we have to order online despite living less than a mile from target) and now men’s t shirts that thankfully come in many 10 year old friendly designs (video games! Star Wars! Pokémon!). This works because said kid only wants to wear athletic or other elastic waist pants and t-shirts. But I’ll never know if that’s because their earlier attempts at wearing jeans or khakis were so uncomfortable.
Dec 13, 2022·edited Dec 13, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
Oh gosh this brings back such memories of being a Sears "Pretty Plus" kid. I don't recall much about buying clothes before my tween years, but I do recall the sad and limited selection of that Pretty Plus section. I was always fairly tall so I think I could start to buy adult sizes pretty early (5th or 6th grade). I also recall some hand me downs from my older brother that came from the boys "Husky" section. Sigh.
But then we got to the dreaded teens / 20s when I just want to wear fun clothes and I'm stuck with what passed for Plus fashion in the 80s and 90s.
Somewhere around age 10-11 in 1984-85, I recall asking my mom in a quavering voice what happened when I sized out of children’s clothes after I was in the biggest size. I was medium height for my age and transitioned to some junior’s clothes but mostly “misses” which were never as cool.
Not cool at all! I dressed like a middle aged lady when I dressed up for a dance in junior high because that's what fit and at the time I could borrow mom's clothes.
Even worse was the shame of growing out of clothes, especially after the point at which my height had stabilized at my adult height. Because then "growing out" of clothes was my fault, and well, that was bad, and we don't have an unlimited budget for clothes, and and and ... ugh. So many years of shame that I'm finally undoing.
It might predate you a bit, but Lane Bryant used to have a department called "Chubbettes" that probably was like the Sears one you mentioned. I have heard older women talk about how mortified they were by having to shop there as a kid.
It makes me despair that things haven’t gotten any better since i was a fat kid in the 60s. The sheer shame and misery of dressing like a middle-aged librarian when you’re 10!
Your piece is one of the most perceptive ones I have read about the fashion industry, and one of the very few relating to clothes for fat kids. And that's after my following the topic for the last 53 years, ever since after much searching, I was barely able to buy a blouse for my new wife's birthday in her size, in a mid-size American city (Rochester, NY).
Although I am not very smart with clothes in general, I feel that for the plus-size person, especially women, fashion is political. I don't mean that in the sense of government politics--I mean that the ability to buy and wear nice-fitting and good quality garments impacts almost every life experience you have (except for maybe online gaming or the like). Everything from appearing presentable for job interviews, attending school board meetings, going on a first date, meeting your romantic interest's parents for the first time, visiting your own parents who may have been critical of your size in the past, applying for a home mortgage, and going to a medical appointment, there are so many times in modern life where we have to look "presentable" and have some confidence that we do look good--but access to clothes that fit you and look nice can be a huge challenge.
Usually we hear this from the adult's point of view, and children, including fat ones, get ignored--even within the size acceptance community. Kids are a very special problem, even when they are outwardly as attractive as in the great photos you used in this article. You did a good job in highlighting those problems. Many or even most parents are hugely conflicted about having a fat kid. They feel like the spotlight is on them as parents--how could they "permit" their kid to be fat? There must be something wrong with them as parents... My second mother-in-law gave away her 13 year-old fat daughter's bicycle after they moved to an upscale neighborhood--her mother told her, "I don't need our new neighbors to see your fat ass riding around on a bicycle." The mother was fat herself and doubtless felt that having a fat daughter might draw more attention to her own weight.
The problem is even worse when the kid senses that their parent is ashamed of them; they may blame themselves and their own body size for being a special problem--especially if everyone is constantly reminding them via bullying and stigmatization that there is something wrong with them. In my case, I had a daughter who at age 7 was a bit chubby, and her mother and I found out years later that her pediatrician, unknown to us, had made nasty remarks about her thighs--which triggered an eating disorder that plagued her for years to come. Parents can assume that their fat kid will have to endure this kind of crap forever. Some unconditional love is called for.
My sister carries her weight in her thighs. When she was a tween the pediatrician said she was overweight. Mom said "No she isn't, check out the charts." The ped admitted that Sis was not overweight, but said "She might wish it were distributed differently." Mom said icily, "Is that your *medical* opinion, Doctor?" The conversation ended there.
I love that your mom shut down that fatphobic doctor! But a gentle reminder that we try to avoid o words in this space because they are stigmatizing. And the real issue there isn’t that your sister was mistakenly labelled as large, it’s that this doctor was clearly equating health and weight and making judgmental comments about kids’ bodies!
My kids’ pediatrician always wants me to watch their weight because apparently their BMIs are high for their ages, even though neither one of them “looks fat” at all. Makes me wonder why the “normal” BMI range for kids is so low. After we leave the doctor I usually have to tell my kids not to worry about what she said about eating fewer sweets. My older son (almost 12) has a bit of flab around his belly area but generally looks thin and wears straight-size kids clothes (granted, almost his entire wardrobe is t-shirts, sweatshirts, and athletic pants, but still). I was surprised when the Lands End winter jacket in Husky fit him better than the non-Husky one. So I can only imagine what it must be like for kids who actually are “husky.”
A couple times a year I sponsor clothes for kids on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, and it is so hard to decipher what sizes to get because it's the parents or grandparents guessing what size their bigger-bodied kids would fit into, and it'll be, say, a size six for a two-year-old with a note going "size is correct," so, yeah, there are two-year-olds running around in pants that must be like 60% cuffs. Then at a certain point you get to the teenagers and have to wonder is this still in kids sizing or do they want adult sizes at this point.
It also makes me wonder how much of an effect the association of class and weight has on this -- if, in addition to everything else, brands assume that the people who most need inclusive sizing aren't going to buy enough or aren't going to buy high-end stuff, so capitalism says screw them.
Also, gotta say, today my son was wearing a pair of Tea Collection pants and they are super cute and also SO poorly made -- the things are a few months old and have a bunch of little holes already.
I’m so glad you flagged the class/race relationship; I woke up wishing I’d spent more time on that in this piece. There is a direct correlation between price points and which brands are willing to make kids’ plus sizes and it’s frustrating because it limits options.
“Labor intensive hemming,” so encapsulates my experience. Actually, I became quite the seamstress and not surprising, but all my experience is mostly with stretchy clothes and bathing suits. My kid also got my duper broad shoulders. In the 80s, I had to cut out sll the shoulder pads in my clothes then they laid perfect. I got 4 garbage bags of hand me down kids’ clothes, the first few months of my daughter’s life. The sizes were birth thru all the toddler sizes and some early elementary clothes. I thought I was set except I end up using them for her first year of life. If something wasn’t stretchy maybe she could wear it for a day or maybe she would not ever be able to wear it. I had a sewing machine in my closet that I bought in my mid twenties and took classes for because I was intimidated by it. Once my kid was born, I was so grateful for it. My kid grew so fast and just before she had a growth spurt, she would get super round. It was just her body’s process. I would scour thrift stores for cute cat patterned leggings for her or any animal print tops. Honestly, I wish we could have afforded Justice’s plus size girl clothes, but they were too expensive. Shorts were the worst because companies decided girls needed to wear short shorts, so I bought my kid the land’s end husky boys size even though we couldn’t really afford it. Because of my ability to sew and my own experience as a fat kid, I totally overcompensated by my kid having an extensive wardrobe. I wore men’s jeans and T-shirt’s that hid my body all through my youth. My husband and I have to do laundry every week to have enough clothes where my child can go several weeks. My kid loves clothing exchanges now because that is where a large majority of her clothes came from, our neighborhood clothing exchanges. My child’s best friend is on the extreme opposite end and up ‘till her friend was 8 was wearing my kids toddler clothes or the clothes I had made my kid for when she was a toddler. I get to see all the the clothes I altered on my child’s best friend, but from 6 years ago. I have also altered bathing suits and clothes for her best friend because otherwise her pants fall of and the pants for her small waist size and long legs. My husband decided he didn’t like pictures on his tshirts and they were heavy duty, soft, and had cute cartoons or great art on them. He bought a lot of the “Woot” shirts with custom art. He is a 3xl. I made a lot of my kid’s dresses and clothing from his old t-shirts. I feminized the shape and my kid had these cute long t-shirt dresses and then her friend wore them 5 yrs later. I feel so privileged that I can sew, so my kid never had to experience my limited selection of 3 pairs of men’s jeans, 2 pairs of men’s shorts, and a bunch of enveloping t-shirts which was what I mostly wore. I was really poor growing up and my sisters were tiny and thin.
I love that you can do all of this for her — and see just how much time, labor and skill it requires!!
Thank you SO much for this. I’m straight sized and have a bigger sized kid (age 12) and it’s SO confusing for both of us to try and find clothes for them because neither of us understand the sizing mechanisms. I used to be a thrift store only kind of mom but for now shopping in the adult sections at Walmart works out OK . . . but it sucks so much that kids clothing sizes are based off of age and kids know this and start to feel weird as they “age out” way faster than other kids.
The “age as proxy for size” rule is so deeply flawed.
Feels even that much harder in Canada! Children's Place only sells plus online and it's limited to leggings in navy and black and some school uniform items. Gap and Old Navy maybe have a few things. I was just able to order a snowsuit and other things from Lands End (in Cnd $!) and seeing a whole page of stuff was like hitting the lottery even though as you say it's still pretty pathetic.
Supporting my 7 year old through her feelings of only having black pants is heartbreaking. As a fat mama who was a fat child I feel like I should be able to do better. To support her the way I wasn't supported and I personalize this as "I am just not working hard enough to find her good clothes. I need to be a better mother". But nope. This is not all on me. It's highly triggering for this work-in-progress healing from diet culture lady - makes me feel the old feelings and that I somehow need to make her body be different (nope). All this from trying to buy my amazing daughter leggings!! Do better clothing industry. I don't want her to have to buy a dress for a 50 year old when she's 13 like I did. Thanks as always for your validating essays and shining light where it needs to be shone ❤️
This is not on you! This is an entire systemic failure of these kids!
My 10 year old kid would love some size 12 or 14 length clothes in a size 16 or 18 width! We have had success with Target husky sizes (that we have to order online despite living less than a mile from target) and now men’s t shirts that thankfully come in many 10 year old friendly designs (video games! Star Wars! Pokémon!). This works because said kid only wants to wear athletic or other elastic waist pants and t-shirts. But I’ll never know if that’s because their earlier attempts at wearing jeans or khakis were so uncomfortable.
Agh, yes on the jeans and khakis. So tricky.
Oh gosh this brings back such memories of being a Sears "Pretty Plus" kid. I don't recall much about buying clothes before my tween years, but I do recall the sad and limited selection of that Pretty Plus section. I was always fairly tall so I think I could start to buy adult sizes pretty early (5th or 6th grade). I also recall some hand me downs from my older brother that came from the boys "Husky" section. Sigh.
But then we got to the dreaded teens / 20s when I just want to wear fun clothes and I'm stuck with what passed for Plus fashion in the 80s and 90s.
Somewhere around age 10-11 in 1984-85, I recall asking my mom in a quavering voice what happened when I sized out of children’s clothes after I was in the biggest size. I was medium height for my age and transitioned to some junior’s clothes but mostly “misses” which were never as cool.
Not cool at all! I dressed like a middle aged lady when I dressed up for a dance in junior high because that's what fit and at the time I could borrow mom's clothes.
Even worse was the shame of growing out of clothes, especially after the point at which my height had stabilized at my adult height. Because then "growing out" of clothes was my fault, and well, that was bad, and we don't have an unlimited budget for clothes, and and and ... ugh. So many years of shame that I'm finally undoing.
It might predate you a bit, but Lane Bryant used to have a department called "Chubbettes" that probably was like the Sears one you mentioned. I have heard older women talk about how mortified they were by having to shop there as a kid.
It makes me despair that things haven’t gotten any better since i was a fat kid in the 60s. The sheer shame and misery of dressing like a middle-aged librarian when you’re 10!
You're right, of course--but I need to say that I love middle-aged librarians!
Your piece is one of the most perceptive ones I have read about the fashion industry, and one of the very few relating to clothes for fat kids. And that's after my following the topic for the last 53 years, ever since after much searching, I was barely able to buy a blouse for my new wife's birthday in her size, in a mid-size American city (Rochester, NY).
Although I am not very smart with clothes in general, I feel that for the plus-size person, especially women, fashion is political. I don't mean that in the sense of government politics--I mean that the ability to buy and wear nice-fitting and good quality garments impacts almost every life experience you have (except for maybe online gaming or the like). Everything from appearing presentable for job interviews, attending school board meetings, going on a first date, meeting your romantic interest's parents for the first time, visiting your own parents who may have been critical of your size in the past, applying for a home mortgage, and going to a medical appointment, there are so many times in modern life where we have to look "presentable" and have some confidence that we do look good--but access to clothes that fit you and look nice can be a huge challenge.
Usually we hear this from the adult's point of view, and children, including fat ones, get ignored--even within the size acceptance community. Kids are a very special problem, even when they are outwardly as attractive as in the great photos you used in this article. You did a good job in highlighting those problems. Many or even most parents are hugely conflicted about having a fat kid. They feel like the spotlight is on them as parents--how could they "permit" their kid to be fat? There must be something wrong with them as parents... My second mother-in-law gave away her 13 year-old fat daughter's bicycle after they moved to an upscale neighborhood--her mother told her, "I don't need our new neighbors to see your fat ass riding around on a bicycle." The mother was fat herself and doubtless felt that having a fat daughter might draw more attention to her own weight.
The problem is even worse when the kid senses that their parent is ashamed of them; they may blame themselves and their own body size for being a special problem--especially if everyone is constantly reminding them via bullying and stigmatization that there is something wrong with them. In my case, I had a daughter who at age 7 was a bit chubby, and her mother and I found out years later that her pediatrician, unknown to us, had made nasty remarks about her thighs--which triggered an eating disorder that plagued her for years to come. Parents can assume that their fat kid will have to endure this kind of crap forever. Some unconditional love is called for.
My sister carries her weight in her thighs. When she was a tween the pediatrician said she was overweight. Mom said "No she isn't, check out the charts." The ped admitted that Sis was not overweight, but said "She might wish it were distributed differently." Mom said icily, "Is that your *medical* opinion, Doctor?" The conversation ended there.
I love that your mom shut down that fatphobic doctor! But a gentle reminder that we try to avoid o words in this space because they are stigmatizing. And the real issue there isn’t that your sister was mistakenly labelled as large, it’s that this doctor was clearly equating health and weight and making judgmental comments about kids’ bodies!
Oh, right, I'm sorry.
No worries! Thanks so much for reading.
My kids’ pediatrician always wants me to watch their weight because apparently their BMIs are high for their ages, even though neither one of them “looks fat” at all. Makes me wonder why the “normal” BMI range for kids is so low. After we leave the doctor I usually have to tell my kids not to worry about what she said about eating fewer sweets. My older son (almost 12) has a bit of flab around his belly area but generally looks thin and wears straight-size kids clothes (granted, almost his entire wardrobe is t-shirts, sweatshirts, and athletic pants, but still). I was surprised when the Lands End winter jacket in Husky fit him better than the non-Husky one. So I can only imagine what it must be like for kids who actually are “husky.”