As Chuck Palahniuk pointed out, every Portlander has three jobs, and I'm no exception. When the wife had our second child, I was thrown into the family business--making ironic baby clothes. Add this to author and parent, and there's my three.

Our baby clothes company, which sells rock baby clothes on black onesies amongst other things, has sparked more cultural debate then anything I've been involved in. On Monday, MSNBC ran an article about us that asked the question: should parents "let kids be kids," or should they dress "how their parents want them to."

The premise kind of cracked me up, because last time I checked, most babies can't really dress themselves. There is a huge difference between a 3 month old and a 2 year old, and while we carry stuff for older kids too, we've always been primarily a baby site.

But let's grant that we do sell some stuff for toddlers. I just don't see why letting kids be kids automatically means they want to dress like giant purple dinosaurs. The amount of marketing effort that goes into hooking kids into Barney, Disney, and the rest of the corporate-sponsored apparel industry is astounding. Kids aren't naturally attracted to purple dinosaurs, they're deviously manipulated into liking them.

Which isn't to say that we've thrown away all our daughter's Snow White costumes--it's just that we want to show her that making our own clothes is cooler, that you don't have to just drive your SUV into Wal-mart and wear what corporate America wants you to wear.

Labels: babies, Lessons taught by 4 year-olds