Historical Accuracy Is Highly Overrated

Or, as that Great Font of Parenting Wisdom, Ozzy Osborne once said:

"I love you kids more than life itself, but you're driving me fucking nuts."

Today, the Pony's entire grade wraps up their unit on the North American fur trade by staging a Rendezvous. The kids are to come dressed as voyageurs, and they will be eating traditional foods, playing traditional games, trading their pelts for supplies and some trinkets. Historical re-enactment as a teaching tool: both fun and educational.

Except the costume thing. The costume thing is totally out of control.

So, think about it. Voyageurs were (largely) French trappers and hunters, who had to keep everything they owned in a canoe that they had to be able to lift and portage over long distances. These were men who lived far from most other people, who probably didn't bathe or shave or cut their hair from one season to the next, who almost certainly never washed their clothing, who probably didn't have much of that anyway, who bedded and wedded the "local girls" and lived pretty darn primative lives. They wore broad sashes wrapped tightly around their bellies to prevent hernias, and tied strips of cloth below their knees to prevent blood clots or something. Practical, functional, and pretty much "make do."

BUT! They were French. So, that means that what they did wear was as fashionable as possible. The hernia cloths were striped, their hats were long stocking caps that dangled alongside their faces, anything that could be brightly colored was brightly colored.

So, apparently, it's incredibly important to have just the right sort of scruffy clothes to be a 6th grade voyageur, although the word has come down that you aren't supposed to have to buy anything.

Try and resolve that paradox! Especially at 10 minutes before school starts, when you already have a 17 minute commute to even get to school.

I don't know about your household, but we just don't have a whole lot of authentic 18th century wilderness clothing lying around the house. I mean, if they don't sell it at Target, why would we have it anyway? Right?

So, I found a hat that was gray knitted wool, with white snowflakes on it, with a white tassel that hung down the side. No good. All our other hats are basically head hugging, without even a tassel. Pony ended up upset, discouraged, unhappy and basically having sucked all the fun out of the project.

Never mind that we found an awesome hernia belt for her (with tassels!) Never mind that she had really cool knee ties, that had fringe on the ends! Never mind that she was going to be wearing her regular jacket over it all because fully half of the day was going to be spent outside. Never mind that she had felt guilty about buying the hernia belt and knee ties because they weren't supposed to buy anything.

Sometimes you just can't win, and then you just have to silently recite the parenting mantra:

"I love you more than life itself, but you're driving me fucking nuts!"