Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkFish
BTW, what is the advantage of school uniforms? I can't think of any.
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They make it much harder for kids to use clothes as status symbols for the purposes of excluding, bullying, ridiculing other kids who don't wear the preferred styles, brand names, etc. They remove "what everybody else is wearing" as a subject of focus and concern and encourage kids to come up with other, more clever ways of expressing their individuality (which, if they wish, they can still do via clothing when they are "off the clock" anyway).
They can save parents a great deal of time, money, and hassle, since buying school clothes becomes a relatively simple matter and one that is less likely to be accompanied by sounds of whining, begging, sulking, and adolescent threats of "If I can't have [x] I'll just
die!"
From an adult point of view, where I work I didn't have to wear a "medical office" uniform when I started since I'm not a member of the medical staff. A few years into it they brought up the idea of having all the staff dress to the same standard and offered to purchase the first set of approved clothing for us.
I was dead set against it, not for "individuality" reasons but because when I took the job I'd spent a good bit of my own money buying the appropriate "business casual" wardrobe that was required at the time, which I would have no use for if I didn't wear it to work.
The majority wanted the uniforms, though, and that's what we went with. It wasn't long before I came around and I wouldn't go back now if I could. Putting together an outfit five mornings a week no longer requires the kind of thought and planning that it used to and instead of making a weekly trip to the drycleaners, everything I wear to work now goes in the washer/dryer with the rest of my stuff. Over the long run it has saved me a lot of time, energy, and money. Even if I buy my own uniforms to supplement what my employer provided, it's still much cheaper than keeping a business casual wardrobe together.