A recent feature in the Daily Mail newspaper offered ideas on how to look good on the school run. The idea seemed to be that if you're going from school to office, us dumb little mummies need a change of designer bag to remind us which is which. Though I do wonder if whoever picked the clothes has ever seen a child – a £400 dress for a trip to school? Hmm, yes, I'll take two.
Perhaps this is an antidote to complaints from teachers about 'slovenly' mums doing the school run in their pyjamas.
On my school run, we have the whole fashion gamut, from coats pulled over pyjamas, to head to toe Boden, to (my favourite) the mum who dyes her hair all the colours of the rainbow. I don't think anybody is really bothered about how other parents dress. Though I am slightly in awe of the people who turn up in sportswear and say they are just off for a run. Not going home to drink coffee and eat biscuits like me, then.
I never used to wear make up to do the school run. I was coming back to work from home, so it's not like I had to be office-fresh anyway. In any case, the mornings were just too rushed to find time for face painting. But when I got to my mid thirties I started to think that make up was probably a good idea. I am very fair with a round face, blonde eyebrows and eyelashes, so if I'm not careful I run the risk of looking like a boiled egg. At least if I bung on some mascara and lipstick I will look like a boiled egg that a child has drawn a face on to. So now I do take five minutes to put some make up on before going out on the school run, and feel under-dressed without it.
Ultimately this issue is about self esteem. How little do you have to care about yourself to not even bother getting dressed in the morning? If you totally let go of how you look externally, how must you be feeling internally? Not so good, I'm willing to bet.
What about you – do you wear make up for the school run? Do you dress with care or doesn't that matter? Would you do the school run in pyjamas? Leave a comment and have your say