What would we do, baby, without us?

Last year my wife bought some sheets and comforters for our kids by mail order. Ever since then we receive a lot of family-oriented catalogs in the mail in which we simply are not interested.

When my wife thumbs through the catalogs she finds it highly entertaining that many of these magazines seem to support a strange and (as far as we know) non-existent family value where families like to buy matching pajamas for the entire family:


Who are these people? What really goes on in their homes?

"If you're REALLY an ANDERSON you will march your butt upstairs and get your stripy jammies on NOW, Little Lady! THEN you will come back down and have some cocoa! WE'RE GONNA HAVE FUN FOR ONCE! As a family!"

"Hey, what's everybody doing in their stripes? I thought tonight was snowmen? Oh crap! Does this mean today was THURSDAY?"

"Family Meeting! Family Meeting! The pajama thing is off tonight. Dad's top is still in the dirty clothes hamper. It's just not the same when WE'RE all dressed up and HE just throws on a white t-shirt. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow."

I don't know. People who spend their time dreaming up scenarios like matching family jammies to convince themselves it will be a fulfilling experience really worry me. It seems like overcompensating in all the wrong places; places too much importance on sleepwear.

"How can Billy be gay? Didn't we do everything right when he was a kid? Didn't we buy him all those Baby Einstein videos? Didn't we do that thing with the pajamas? I just don't see where we went wrong?"



Don't worry about the rapscallion in the red there, I'm sure she'll be sent to one of those camps for bad teens if she doesn't straighten up her act soon.

I can't tell you how to make a family work but I can tell you that matching PJ's are not the answer.

Here's a funny topic that my daughter constantly brings up to my wife:

O: "Mommy, we're all Indians in this family. This is an Indian family."
Eleanor: "Really?"
O: "But YOU'RE NOT INDIAN. But that's okay. You can still be in our family."
Eleanor: "Thanks a lot."

Yeah, she's not Indian. She slipped in under the family Affirmative Action policy. But she's okay. We'll keep her. Provided she can adhere to our family clothing themes.

Sha-la-la-la