The evolution of guy to husband to father: The Wardrobe

Guys are a tricky lot.  Sometimes aspects of our personality or behavior may not be what are best for hygiene, friendships or employment.  Part of that trickiness* can be attributed to youth, while other traits can only be laid solely on the backs of our Guy DNA.

The wardrobe for all men changes over time, regardless of what generation you grew up in or how your body changes.  A 20 year old guy will dress differently than a 30 year old man, who will hopefully in turn, dress differently when he’s a husband or father.   A grown man wearing a Star Wars shirt is not becoming, really, I’ve tried it and my wife didn’t let me become.

“Well, when I first met you, you dressed like you were from the 70’s, except it wasn’t Hollywood, it was more ‘homeless’.  Then you gradually became 70’s with a bit more class and now you dress contemporary, with just a little bit of good 70’s”, my wife said.  ‘Homeless’ is never an adjective that a guy wants to be used upon him, especially by a woman.

I’m also a big fan of fleece.  I have these super comfortable black fleece pants from Patagonia.  They are the most comfortable pants in the world, but they do have two small paint stains on them.  That, plus the fact that they are cinched at the bottom of the legs have caused my wife to declare war on all fleece products in the house.

Unfortunately, I had more fleece than the average man, about four jackets and three pants, including the aforementioned ones that started my wife’s war.  In the concessions of a married man I did relent and gave up a couple fleece jackets and a pair of pants.   The Patagonia pants, which have since been renamed Lusitania, still hide in the house and make appearances when they sense a lack of estrogen or a need for testosterone.

When my wife and I were dating we were late for a funeral.  We had to stop off at my bachelor pad so that I could get dressed.  Pants and shirt are easy, I put them on quickly.   I once had a foreign friend of mine tell me sarcastically that khakis and a button down were the uniform of American men.     I had plenty of ties to choose from, but couldn’t find one that was appropriate for a funeral.

“All of my ties have cartoon characters on them”, I said in a frustrated tone.  Again I had about 25 ties, but they had Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, ducks, neon frogs or super heroes on them.  If I were teaching to a bunch of children, which in my defense was my previous job at the time, then they would’ve been perfect.

In the end, I went with the least cartoonish tie that we could find and then got lost on the way to funeral home.  The tie story is a favorite one that my wife likes to re-tell to other women.  It’s her fashion war story, ‘you think your husband is bad’, let me tell you something, and then they go off watch Oprah and talk about Eat, Pray, Love.

So now I’m a husband and stay at home dad who doesn’t have to wear a tie, yet I have many to choose from.  As an added benefit to the suit and tie set, none of those ties have cartoon characters and any of them can be worn to any location.   The overwhelming majority of my clothing doesn’t have paint and bleach spots.  Perhaps most importantly, none of my clothing makes me look ‘homeless’; or at least if it does my wife has accepted it, or is throwing them away while I’m in the office typing and watching cat videos on YouTube.

About the series, The evolution of guy to husband to father

Guys change.  We change our fashion, our workout habits, diet, enjoyment of things, basically everything after the college age years has the potential to flip 180 degrees.  Change isn’t bad, but it’s possible that your new, more mature lifestyle has unrealized benefits.  Then again maybe it’s possible that you were better off with your Vanilla Ice jacket and ‘New Jack’ shaved into your hair.  In this series we’ll look at the changes that guys go through on their way to being husbands and maybe dads.

*See also: Stupidity