For all Ye Olde Millennials like me, raise your hand if you remembered having spirit days in school. It was one week, once a year, and it was relatively low-key… even in high school. The days would consist of weird things like “backwards day,” where you would wear your clothes inside out and backwards, a “sports” day, where you would wear your favorite team’s jersey, or even things like school spirit days, where you would simply wear your school’s colors. That was it, and it was enough.
Now, flash forward 122 years later, and good LORD, what has happened?! Now, spirit days are a THING. They are constant, and over-the-top, and stressful, and not special at all. Having a spirit week once a year made sense, because when it came around, it was something exciting. Yet in my experience with my kids, spirit weeks are non-stop. There was one in October, and now we’ve got a freaking spirit MONTH happening for the holidays, and God knows there will be more in 2024, too.
And the themes! Some of them are ok — like Grinch Day, where you wear green, or Grade Wars, where each grade is supposed to wear a specific color. It’s like, cool, I can get behind these things and make them work with our already-existing wardrobe. But then there ends up being so much more. Ugly Sweater Day, and Crazy Socks Day, and Winter Wonderland Day, and Sparkles-and-Lights Day, and Christmas Treats Day (what even is that?)… it’s never-ending.
Seriously, to the administrators doing this, what are you thinking?
First, I have to point out that by having so many ultra-specific spirit days, you are literally requiring parents to either go out and spend money on a whole new wardrobe just for spirit days, or risk their kid feeling left out. For some kids, that may not be a big deal, but imagine families who live below the poverty line, the amount of stress it places on them. And even for parents who aren’t living in poverty, most of us here in the rapidly-disappearing “middle class” are already squeezed tight and don’t have hundreds of dollars to drop on an endless supply of Ugly Sweaters and Crazy Socks and Sparkly Light-Up Sweaters. Have you, by any chance, been to, say, Target lately to see how much this stuff costs? It ain’t cheap!
Second, what happens when you have non-stop spirit weeks? You guessed it: the kids stop caring. My kids ride the bus each day, and there is a large group of kids at their stop — around 30. Most days, the kids are not dressed in whatever that day’s theme is. Why? Because it is the 215th spirit day they’ve had and it’s only December, so it’s a chore rather than something to look forward to. They just want to wear their damn Fortnite shirt and be left in peace, guys.
I get that schools are trying to make things a little bit more fun, and I love that — I really do. But for the love of all that is holy, and for the sanity of moms everywhere, y’all have got to dial the spirit days down. Nobody has time for 532 spirit days in one school year, ok? Try to find other ways to have fun with the kids. In the meantime, I’ll be over here taking out a second mortgage on my house so I can afford to get a shirt for my kids’ Diamond-Encrusted-Sparkly-Sportswear-Princess Day.
