Catholic School Uniforms Questions

[Corki]

Pants can look feminine and be modest. It all depends on the cut.

BTW, I don’t think if is common for students to attend Mass weekly in Ireland with their schools. We didn’t in the late 1970s to 1980s and my mother didn’t during the late 1940 and 1950s.
Gearoidin

I agree pants can be modest but I can’t think of any feminine pants that would also work with a school uniform. But the problem still remains for Mass. There are many families that don’t allow their daughters to wear pants to Mass. Our pastor has even told the CCE teachers not to wear pants to Sunday Mass. Even if you could find feminine pants, you would have a hard time selling them to conservative parents. And those are the families most likely to be shelling out the big tuition dollars for Catholic school.

And that’s the thing about uniforms. If the kids don’t like them, that’s one thing but if the parents object, then it becomes a much bigger deal.

Too bad about Mass in Ireland’s Catholic schools. Most of the schools in our area have weekly Mass and I know two that have daily Mass.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

If a Catholic institutions expects to be believed that they are examples of modesty, or if they expect to claim a moral high ground, and they are going to expect their girls to wear skirts, then those uniform skirts darn well better be BELOW the knee - midcalf or lower. If if that can’t be done, then pants would be the only modest option. Girls can very easily dress in uniform wearing pants. They can have particular shirts, sweaters, they can even have ties/neckerchiefs. None of these details is as important as protecting the purity of our girls and boys, and knee length skirts simply don’t cut it.

 

[SouthCatholic]

If a Catholic institutions expects to be believed that they are examples of modesty, or if they expect to claim a moral high ground, and they are going to expect their girls to wear skirts, then those uniform skirts darn well better be BELOW the knee - midcalf or lower. If if that can’t be done, then pants would be the only modest option. Girls can very easily dress in uniform wearing pants. They can have particular shirts, sweaters, they can even have ties/neckerchiefs. None of these details is as important as protecting the purity of our girls and boys, and knee length skirts simply don’t cut it.

There is nothing in Catholic modesty that requires calf-length or longer skirts on girls. This is your personal preference and between you and your daughters. But do not suggest those draconian dress standards are required of a Catholic practicing modesty!

 

[L_piperatus]

When I attended school, girls’ uniform dresses went below the knee. It’s the same thing the Catholic Church requires from anyone visiting a church building: whether you are a man or a woman, whether you wear pants or dresses/skirts, they should go below the knees. Actually the girls’ dresses in my school went anywhere from below the knees to mid-calf. Buying a dress that’s mid-calf length probably makes good sense for teenagers, because they grow fast and quickly outgrow those dresses.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Some skirst and actually “skorts” which come with built in shorts. Those will likely come shorter than the actual skirts. As others have said, girls grow and parents can’t always buy new uniforms right away. They are more expensive than regular clothes. And, girls may have rolled up the waist of their skirt.

If you haven’t said anything to the priest or the principal of the school, I don’t think there is any reason to be here complaining. Girls are going to do what they can to adjust a uniform to their ideas of fashion. Girls always have.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

My mother remembers going to Mass a few times a month at least with her school mates in the 1950’s in the USA. I am sure the nuns made sure the students were dressed correctly head to toe in addition to being well behaved at school & at Mass.

I would say if a skirt or a dress for a girls uniform is preferred, make sure its long enough & a style that makes it hard to shorten it. Too bad the school can’t do a basic uniform checks when students arrive to school, and if the skirt/dress doesn’t at least reach the knee, the student will have to serve a detention for a dress code infraction unless they can prove that they did not short their skirt/dress. I am not asking for the length of skirt/dress be what St. Padre Pio insisted on for women who came to confess to him: 8 inches below the knees but knee length is acceptable enough for Catholic Schools and for attending Mass in school uniform. I would hope that manufacturers of uniforms understand that kids are not tiny like the past, and have spurts of growth with height and/or weight increases.

I suggest you volunteer to police the uniforms at your local school then. You check every student, contact every parent, and deal with the fall-out from girls missing class because of detention. You can also negotiate rates with the uniform companies, present the uniform changes to the parents, and help them figure out how to pay for new uniform pieces every time their child grows. Oh! you can also coordinate the uniform exchange closet, making sure that uniform pieces turned in are laundered and repaired and managing the process for buying or receiving new ones.

It’s a full time job when described like that, isn’t it. And few schools (public or private) have the resources to handle the job. And the first part of it cannot be turned over to volunteers (although the uniform closet usually is). Yes, the “nuns” in the 50s probably did keep the girls in proper length skirts. Unfortunately there are few if any religious sisters in schools in the US today. And regular fashions are not as close to uniform fashions today as they were then.

Certainly girls should be allowed/encouraged to wear appropriate uniform trousers or tights in the winter or when riding bicycles (great story!), but as many posters have said, they should also be taught to wear skirts properly – modestly and femininely. And younger girls should be given shorts to wear under their skirts just in case.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

There is nothing in Catholic modesty that requires calf-length or longer skirts on girls. This is your personal preference and between you and your daughters. But do not suggest those draconian dress standards are required of a Catholic practicing modesty!

First off, “draconian” is an insulting term. I’ll thank you for using a tad more respect with regard to “my preference.”

Secondly, anyone who thinks that little girls can be modest in knee length skirts must not be familiar with little girls. Not because visibility of the knees is immodest, but because little girls sit on the floor “indian style” (or criss cross applesauce, or pretzel style), and because little girls play on the swings at recess, and because little girls run around where the wind blows. So a knee length skirt is very likely to actually end up showing skin very close to the underpants if a little girl in school is wearing it, if not actually showing the underpants.

Skorts and shorts protect against that kind of innocent flashing that happens all to often with little girls. So would bicycle shorts under a skirt, if they are long enough. But if little girls are going to be required to wear skirts, and bike shorts are not part of the uniform, then only a skirt that goes below the knees will keep from sliding right up to the crotch when that little girl is sitting on the floor for “circle time” or at all those other times when she is not being quite prim and proper.

So we could go back to the days when little girls were expected to always sit properly, and not allowed to run around like the boys. OR we could make the girls actually wear long enough skirts so that they can comfortably act like kids and sit on the floor at assemblies, or sit in “circle time” etc… without worrying about exposing themselves. Personally, I’d pick the one that actually lets girls play.

***Note I did make a caveat for bike shorts under skirts. I think that is a big improvement. But I also would like to point out, that even hidden bike shorts doesn’t really solve the modesty problem as well as it could. Until your skirt has actually flapped up in the wind and shown off the bike shorts, you are creating the impression of a potentially “exposing” situation. The anticipation of inappropriate exposure can make people uncomfortable (or titilate perverts or hormonal boys), and I think that bike shorts do their best work at enabling modesty when they fall just a bit below the bottom of the skirt (or if the skirt is long, when they fall below the knees). This way, the person wearing them assures those around her that she won’t be flashing them without having to actually prove it. I know, I’ve thought A LOT about this. But I’ve seen a lot of girls play on my swingset, and have had moments of nervousness too many times (worrying about them exposing themselves out in the yard) that I’ve decided that I’d rather my girls just wear pants when they’re playing like that.

 

[Ladygem]

I had to wear a uniform from kindergarten through 12th grade. In high school the official rule was our skirts had to be hemmed at 4 inches above the knee or lower, but I rolled mine a little higher than that, and I know lots of other girls who did as well. Regardless, we were required to wear biker shorts under our skirts to preserve our modesty. That solved the problem of sitting Indian style and actually being able to move. It also put a more concrete limit on how high we could roll the skirts, since the shorts weren’t allowed to show under the skirt. The lower school girls wore jumpers, and I know some schools in the area had the upper school girls were them as well because the girls were rolling their skirts up to a ridiculous extent, but everyone at my school knew not to push it too far.