Science of Dress/Chapter VII
CHAPTER VII.
CLOTHING FOR OLDER CHILDREN.[edit]
I SKETCHED in Chapter V. a new system of clothing infants, and if that plan be adopted no change in dress is required at the usual period for short-coating; this is a saving both in economy and in health, for such sudden changes as that from the ordinary long robes to the ordinary short ones are dangerous, especially at the time when it is usually made, namely, when the nervous system of the child is in a very irritable condition owing to teething.
Boys and girls should be dressed alike until the boys are breeched, and when they begin to walk a change may be made from the baby dress.
They should then wear next the skin a long-sleeved and high-necked vest, over this a high-necked flannel bodice, with or without sleeves, and fitting to the figure, to which the drawers and petticoat should be buttoned, so as to distribute their weight evenly.
The combination garment of vest and drawers is very good, and then only the petticoat, which should be cut to a good length and made of warm all-wool material, need be fastened to the bodice. Socks should not be tolerated: they expose the legs and wriggle down into the shoes or boots, causing much discomfort to the wearer; but woollen stockings should be pulled up an inch or so over the ends of the drawers, and fastened with suspenders to the bodice. Garters compress the leg injuriously, interfering with the circulation. They increase the liability to chilblains, and have even been known, if worn very tight, to give rise to varicose veins.
The dress should be made high in the neck, with long sleeves, and to reach nearly to the ankles.
Charming little dresses for small children can be knitted or crocheted out of thick Berlin wool, and outdoor jackets made in the same way are very nice. They, like all children's dresses, should be made to reach throat, wrists, and ankles, not according to the absurd fashion of making dresses low where they ought to be high, and high where they ought to be low.
What is called the carter's-smock dress is very pretty. This is not lined, and is gathered into a yoke or shoulder-piece, so constructed that it stretches as the child grows. The hem is made wide, and tucks are put in the sleeves as further provision for that event. This costume is beautiful made in white serge and embroidered in washing silks. The infant's robes, of which I have spoken, may also be ornamented to an almost unlimited extent with embroidery in washing crewels or silk, and can thus be made much more beautiful, artistically, than the ordinary babies' robe, which is simply a senseless mass of lace, insertion, frills, and fall-lals.
Boys should be breeched as soon as they begin to run easily. Jersey suits (see Fig. 3) are most healthy and comfortable, and may be worn from three years old till the child is six or seven. They stretch to every movement (Fig. 3), and are very durable besides being inexpensive; they should be worn with combinations and stockings, the warmth of which may be graduated according to the weather. Scotch suits for boys, which are so fashionable and so much admired, are an abomination owing to the way in which they expose the legs.
I know a curious instance of a little boy six years old who wears a Scotch dress, his legs have never been covered since he was an infant. As an infant he was one of the finest children I have ever seen, and has always enjoyed good health, yet he has hardly grown an inch, nor increased in weight since he was three years old. His mother often complains to me of his smallness, and asks what she can do for it, to which I always answer "cover up his legs." And then I cite the case of his little sister, who being a delicate child had always had her limbs well protected, and is now about the best grown child of her age that I know. Yet I cannot make that lady understand the influence which to my mind has determined the development of these two children. She cannot or will not believe that the saving of heat in the one assisted her growth, while the other's constant loss of heat hindered his. And yet all the other conditions affecting the two children are so identical that I positively cannot assign any other cause for the difference between them.
It is no less instructive than interesting to observe what a marked increase takes place in the growth, and improvement in the health, of boys, when from the ordinary improper clothing of young children they are promoted to the trousers or knickerbockers and stockings, with the jacket and waistcoat of schoolboy life. The body is now properly covered, and a quantity of food material formerly used up to develop heat is now appropriated to the purpose of growth. The trousers are supported by fitting closely over the hips and by braces, which help to distribute their weight; the cut of the jacket and waistcoat permit the arms to move freely, and the chest is not compressed in any way; whereas formerly, the dress cut low in the neck (see Plate 5, line C, D), slipped down on the shoulders, binding, as it were, the arms to the sides, and preventing the full expansion of the lungs. The boy can now stand erect, and his arms, instead of hanging forwards as before, will incline backwards, his chest will grow broader and his back narrower, and his face bright and rosy with the improvement in circulation and breathing. On first standing erect he may feel somewhat stiff, owing to the previously unexercised muscles of the chest and back being brought into forcible action; the same feeling is experienced by adults, accustomed to stoop, when placed erect.
A very pretty and nice dress for boys when breeched is the sailor's suit (see Fig. 4), which, by its looseness, allows free movement, is very durable, and covers all the limbs. The jacket must not, however, as is sometimes done, be cut low in the neck, or, if so cut, it must be filled up with a thick white flannel, so as to keep the warmth equal.
Under the suit flannel drawers and vest or combinations should be worn. Sailor suits should, however, be made with trousers, and may be worn till the boy is old enough to wear ordinary trouser suits.
The artist in mistake represented knickerbockers in the above illustration.
It is a pity that little girls as well as boys should not enjoy the freedom of Jersey knickerbocker and sailor suits; but prejudice is against this at present. Skirts made to the ankles would protect little girls' legs; but the disadvantage of long skirts is, that they are in the way when children are running and romping as they ought to do. About the best dress I know of for girls from three years upwards consists of a sort of smock over a divided skirt. Next the skin combinations of thick or thin material, according to the weather, should be worn. Next this a flannel body, on to which two sets of buttons are sewn, one above the other, to the lower buttons the suspenders of the stockings, which should be woollen, are to be fastened; to the upper buttons the divided skirt is attached (see Fig. 14 on p. 172); over this comes the smock which completes the costume.
Figures 5 and 6 are pretty dresses for little girls, and may be worn over the divided petticoat as described. Fig. 6, suitable for a girl from three to eight years old, may be made of blue serge trimmed with white, or of white trimmed with blue, or of Jersey material. Fig. 5 is suitable for a girl from eight to thirteen, the skirt being lengthened in proportion to the age.
Bonnet or hat and stockings may be made to match the material of the dress, which is as pretty as it is healthy. Dressed in this way girls can romp about or go in for gymnastic exercises with the utmost freedom and comfort.
If the skirt is made to fasten at the side, like buttoned drawers, it is a suitable and modest garment for girls who romp with their brothers, or go in for climbing and gymnastics, as nearly all girls ought to do. This sort of dress can be made very easily and cheaply if one has a pattern, or bought at quite a moderate price, and if it were only generally adopted by the little girls of to-day a vast difference would be found between the health of the young ladies of ten years to come and those of the present time. Moreover, girls who in childhood had been clothed in this way would never submit when grown up to the unhealthy and uncomfortable forms of dress which are generally dictated by fashion.
As I recommend that the little ones should always be clad in woollen materials, and preferably in white, it is necessary that care should be taken to protect their dresses when at meals or at play. For this purpose an overall pinafore, like that shown in Fig. 7, made of coloured cotton, may be worn. The illustration represents a very pretty one trimmed with Madeira work or Swiss embroidery.
In choosing materials for clothing, care must be taken to avoid weight while securing warmth; and, above all, they should be inexpensive and strong, so that the child may not suffer from being forbidden healthy play lest its clothes should be spoiled. It must be a poor sort of mother's love—and yet it is a very common one—which prefers the welfare of the clothes to that of the child. If a woman wants a block to set fine clothes on, let her get one made of wood or wax, but not turn her little boy or girl into one.
In a later chapter I shall have to refer to the question of reform in the matter of corsets and tight-lacing; but, as I have already urged, reform should begin with the infant. Let us then be sure from the child's earliest days that no external pressure of garments shall hinder its natural and healthy development; and if, combined with this negative advantage, there be the positive one of a liberal amount of physical exercise, we shall be the means of giving to our children erect frames, clothed with firm flesh (or muscle), which will scorn the use of artificial support.
In a former chapter I urged "the total abolition of the binder," and I have now to plead against the use of those baby stays with, which so many little ones are provided. Here mothers will exclaim, "But what harm can they do? They are not at all stiff. Why, they are only made of corded jean, or something of that sort." The answer is: They can do harm in many ways.
In the first place, if they are not stiff they are unyielding, and thus not adaptable to the changing proportions of the little body. That body, moreover, is all "straight down alike," to use common parlance; hence, if the stays are loose, they slip down and press on the pelvis, crushing the surrounding soft parts, and possibly deforming the bony structure, which during childhood is cartilaginous and easily bent, thus creating a source of misery for the girl's future. Since the stays thus tend to slip down, mothers are inclined to tighten them somewhat, "just to give them a little grip, you know," and in this way the evil of tight-lacing is initiated; or shoulder straps are added, for the purpose of keeping them in place, and these give rise to stooping by dragging on the shoulders, and not unfrequently to curvature of the spine.
The too common custom of pinching in the waists of growing girls has most probably arisen from the difficulty of keeping their clothes, as ordinarily constructed, from slipping down. The difficulty is a real one, but it can be overcome by a more rational plan of fastening clothing and a more even distribution of its weight. If stays are not worn, petticoats and drawers are fastened round the waist with bands or strings, and have to be fastened tightly, or else they would slip over the narrow hips natural to girlhood. This is both uncomfortable and hinders natural growth; but in the majority of cases stays are worn, and are tightened at the waist to "give a grip" in very young children when the drawers and petticoats are buttoned on to them, and in older girls to make the hips a basis of support for those garments, which are then fastened round the artificially-formed waist.
When girls are old enough to dress themselves, although they would not willingly compress their bodies, they may adjust their stays loosely enough at first, but carelessly, and in ignorance of harm, they may not let them out for months; and thus, although the girls grow bigger, the stays do not, and compression takes place almost without their being aware of it. An inelastic corset effectually hinders the gradual enlargement of the body of a growing girl, and presses on her soft bones like a vice. At no period of life is pressure on any part of the body so terribly injurious as during the period of growth, for not only are the bones soft and easily deformable, but every organ of the body has its duty of development to perform, and this development is cramped and hindered by external compression. To take an analogy from the vegetable world, you cannot expect a fine plant to grow in a pot too small for it.
As pressure on any part is injurious, it at once becomes obvious that it will not be right simply to remove the pressure of the clothes from the waist and suspend their whole weight from the shoulders, as is frequently done; for this is a cause of stooping, of poking forward of the head, and of spinal curvature. The great desideratum is to distribute the weight of the clothes evenly, which may be done by wearing union garments fitting rather closely to the figure, or by supporting petticoats and drawers to a well-fitting bodice such as I have already described, and shall say more about hereafter.
The subject of shoes and boots for children is one of great importance, as the vast majority of feet are deformed by the custom of wearing badly-fitting and badly-shaped boots.1[1]
The infant's shoe, made with a strap round the ankle, is good if made in the way I am about to describe; but if the child's legs or ankles are at all weak, high boots should be worn both indoors and out. As soon as the little one begins to walk it needs more protection to the feet than the woollen stockings I have described. The boots and shoes should then be made of what is called "glove" kid—a soft and yielding material. They should fit exactly on the foot, as too roomy a boot chafes both stocking and skin, causes corns, and allows the foot to turn over in walking. The inner margin of the boot or shoe must be made straight to the line of the big toe, and the toe of the boot must be wide enough to allow movement in the child's toes. The waist of the sole, which corresponds to the arch of the foot, should be to a certain extent elastic, and, if any heels are worn, they must be broad, low, and under the natural heel.
There must be no roughness on any part of the inside, or corns will result; and the boots must be given up directly they are beginning to be outgrown. They should be laced or buttoned, and should cover the ankle so as to give it support. This is especially important for children inclined to be ricketty, and for such weak legs the boots should be made very high, and only taken off when the child goes to bed. In decided cases of rickets inch-broad strips of thin steel may be inserted between lining and leather from the top of the boot right down each side of the ankle; these may be made as high even as the knee, and will be found more comfortable, being very much lighter than the irons usually worn for incipient bandy legs. Not only does deformity result from the use of improper boots, but from the discomfort arising from them the natural activity of childhood is impeded, and the whole constitution suffers accordingly.
However desirable economy may be, it must not be practised in the following cases, for then it would be injurious to health. We must not grudge paying our laundresses' bills, or if we cannot afford to have every article worn by our children washed twice or thrice a week, we must turn up our sleeves and wash them ourselves.
The choice of children's clothing should never be left to nurses or outfitters; but the mother, be she never so rich and fashionable, should superintend it herself, so as to be sure that every garment worn by her little ones is both healthy and comfortable.
We must never let children wear clothes they have outgrown. Boots must always be made to fit, by good makers, and of the expensive material I have described—what is called glove-kid, and each child ought to have two pairs, which should be worn on alternate days, in order to prevent that moulding of the foot to any peculiarity in the shape of the boot, which may happen if it is worn constantly.
The little ones must have clothes suitable for every kind of weather, so that they may never be kept indoors because they have nothing fit to go out in. They must have changes of clothes in case they come in damp. And last, but not least, however great the damage may be to clothes, nothing must induce us to interfere with the little ones' romping play.
From the foregoing it is clear that the first principles to be obeyed in the clothing of children are the prevention of undue loss of animal heat by the use of apparel so contrived that it shall not hamper their movements; and CLEANLINESS. Both these principles may be obeyed equally by rich and poor: for clothes may be made even more easily on a rational plan than in the common way, and soap and water are decidedly inexpensive; but people must devote time and thought to the subject.
By the observance of the broad principles which I have endeavoured to lay down, it will be possible to avoid the snares of prejudice and old-fashioned customs more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but which unhappily are now too widely adopted. It will be possible, by intelligently watching the necessities of child nature, to provide for its contingencies, and thus obtain the most favourable conditions under which children can start on their life-career, so that they may become strong and healthy men and women, and useful members of society, instead of puny hangers-on at the skirts of life.
- ↑ 1 See Chap. XIV.