White, The New Purple

On this last day of summer for the school calendar, I'm reflecting on the many adventures my kids and I had over the summer.  We traveled a lot.  We swam at the pool frequently. We used as many coupons from our library reward book as we could.  And this time of year also forces me to face the looming challenge of having to switch out the summer clothes for the fall/winter clothes.

On this Labor Day, the kids and I used
our water park coupon from the library
reward book the day it expired, 
and I didn't wear white.

Being Labor Day, I feel this pressure to box up all the summer fabrics, colors and prints.  Out of curiosity, I asked on Facebook if white shoes are acceptable after today.  I wanted to know if this was the last day of the year to wear white shoes even though I don't own any white shoes.  Unanimously, we all agreed that white can be worn anytime it looks appropriate.


White.  That's an interesting color for clothes, isn't it?  Well, it is for me.  White is such a difficult color for me as a mom to wear.  The difficulty of keeping it clean makes me think that maybe white is the new purple.


It all boils down to what is the most difficult to obtain, right?  The least available becomes the most desirable.  Royalty of old wore purple because that dye was created through tediously extracting the dye from sea snails.  Being expensive to create, only wealthy people could afford to wear it.

Fast forward a few centuries.  A few millennia. Purple? Easy peasy.  Anyone can buy and wear that.  But can just anyone wear clean white?  No way.

In order to keep your white clean, you probably shouldn't watch kids.  Do you have any idea how many times my 4 year old has used my shirt as a napkin?  Seriously, I went around my college homecoming last year with her PB&J smears across my belly since that is at her mouth's height.

Also, I'm guessing that if you are wearing anything white that's clean, you must have an army of laundry maids diligently scrubbing those persistent stains.  Ya think just throwing those whites into the wash will guarantee they come out spotless?

Today, purple is probably being worn more by the tired, working moms who need stains concealed. Purple has fallen a long way from it's glory days presiding at the king's court.  Although it may stil may be court side today but only to have snotty-nosed children spilling their concession goodies all over it.