Dressing for Kindergarten Success - NYTimes.com There was little anxiety in our house about the first day of kindergarten until my son, Johnny, told me what he wanted to wear. "Angry Birds" he said in an "of course" tone, choosing the one shirt in his wardrobe that was completely contrary to my image of what a well-parented child would wear. It screams "Bird is the Word" in white brush-strokes on cobalt blue. The three birds and their monster eyebrows are so large they cover the front. It fits Johnny like a tunic, but that doesn't bother him. When he saw it, it was love. We were on vacation when Johnny spied it hanging on the door of an emporium of beach schlock. "Look!" he cried and was across the street with my wallet-wielding mother before I had registered what he had seen. It was sort of a touching scene: grandmother and grandson so bonded by their love of commerce that they had almost no need for words. He wore it and wore it, and it wasn't just Johnny who loved it. Any kid who saw it pointed and yelled, "Angry Birds!" I could see why he wanted to wear it; I just couldn't allow it. The first day of kindergarten was too big a deal. I had already imagined his academic career as one of serious inquiry and achievement. Of course, I was making too much of it and one shirt would not undermine that, but I had already staged a mental photograph of him at the bus stop in a plain t-shirt, fresh crew cut, dinosaur backpack and his close-lipped smile. As I watched Johnny eating his lunch, content with his choice, I worried how he would take the news that he would have to choose another shirt. Would he cry? I was as surprised at what he no longer cried about as I was that he could still well up when he could not find me in the grocery store. How would I explain it? That shirt's too ugly? Loud? Or the real reason: What would people think of us? I was certain that anyone who saw him would think that video games were vital to our family - that we played them constantly and adorned our bodies with their images; that we did not care about books. Would the other parents shun us? Mock us with back-handed compliments? "Isn't that shirt interesting!" Deny us playdates? Then it occurred to me that kids would elbow each other out of the way for a playdate at our house, imagining an orgy of video games, Ho-Hos and soda with a chaser of inappropriate television. They would think any mother who let her kid wear that shirt was awesome. At that thought, I decided to lighten up. It was just one day. I could crop the picture below his neck. After all, the shirt made him happy. I nearly had myself convinced he could wear it until the night before school when I told my husband, John, about Johnny's choice. "He's not wearing that," John said. Suddenly, I felt protective. "It's not that bad," I said. And then John unfurled a list of reasons why he was not wearing it that mirrored my own earlier thinking. He was right, of course; the shirt would be banned. The next morning, I called Johnny into our room as if I had grave news. John told him that the first day of kindergarten was important and that he should wear something nice - something other than his Angry Birds shirt. I began to think that we had been a little severe, but Johnny just sighed "alright, how about my dragon shirt?" - like he already knew how tiresome we could be. We nodded, as if a dragon t-shirt was the most dignified choice a boy could make. At the bus stop, we got a couple pictures of Johnny before the bus came and he hopped to his feet. John took two more pictures of him climbing the steps, but they didn't show his face, let alone the front of his shirt, because Johnny never looked back. As I watched the bus get smaller, I knew I was right about that morning being the start of big things, I just had not realized what those things were until I saw him walk away from me so easily. It was the start of a bigger world for him, and the oversized t-shirt and I had shrunk a little in it.