What Not to Wear: Musings From the Evil Stepmother

I’m lost in a sea of pink, purple, and sparkles, dizzied by carousels replete with tiny midriff shirts and mini-skirts instead of carved horses and frozen zebras. This is the Target girls’ section on a Saturday, and these are the clothes my seven-year-old stepdaughter, D., loves to wear. She’s somewhere nearby although I can’t see her at the moment. I glimpse the top of my husband’s head near the silky monkey pajamas and assume she’s not far behind. My task is to find cropped pants. Having located an appropriate clothing rack, I quickly pull out a pair of pink camouflage cargos, check for size and an adjustable waist, then grab the same pair in baby blue. These are just her style. During the car ride to Target, she listed the items she wanted most—colorful camouflage topped the chart.

My own daughter, T., also seven, only wears clothes from the boys’ section, so the dormant teenaged girl in me delights in the chance to find the girliest clothes for D. since that impulse is thwarted by my biological child. I add a hot pink cami with a sparkly heart and begin threading the aisles to show D. my finds. She’s with her dad, deciding between a flouncy green nightgown and a polka-dotted purple one. He holds them both before her, and she obviously can’t decide because she loves his choices so much.

“I think I got just what you were looking for,” I say, and show her the pants. She barely gives them a glance. 

“No,” she says, and turns back to the nighties.

“But I thought you wanted …”

“No,” she repeats, not looking my way.

A bit more hesitantly, I offer up the camisole. No again.

“Daddy, can I get both nightgowns?” she asks.

“I don’t think we need both,” he says.

“Well, maybe it’s not a bad idea to get both,” I offer.  At that, D. points to the green gown.

“Just that one,” she says.

Okay, I can take a hint. I slink back to my original side of the children’s section and return the clothes I picked. But hope is a tricky mistress—she appears this time in the guise of a pink and purple striped mini-dress with ruching on the shoulders. So cute! I bounce back with my sure-to-please loot.