We all know that kids can be messy tiny human beings, so it goes without saying that they religiously stain their clothes about 99.9% of the time. One mom recently shared her approach to dealing with her toddler's stained clothes, and that's to let her wear them. Marla Branyan, a mother of two, shared a TikTok video that has now gone viral, garnering over 120K views. In the clip, she explains that she sends her toddler to preschool in stained (but clean) clothes, and it alleviates stress for her.
"This is your reminder that it's OK to send your kids to school in clean, stained clothes," she started off. "I have a three and a half year old, she goes to preschool. She stained these while at preschool," the mom said, holding up a pair of pink sweatpants.
"Why would I not send her to school in the stained clothes that she stained at school?" Marla then asked. "I'm not sending my kids to any type of school, no matter what age, in their Sunday best. It's just not happening unless they are naturally less of a messy kid than my precious little three and a half year old baby girl."
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"She messy, she's living her best life," the mother continued, referring to her daughter. "And I will continue sending her in the stained clothes because I can't afford to keep replacing these pants every single week." Surely many parents can agree there!
In the caption, the mom added, "I think most preschool teachers and daycare providers would actually prefer kids NOT be in their nicest/name brand clothes bc it takes some pressure off the teachers/providers to help keep those clothes as clean as possible. Kids need freedom to be messy and dirty, and that preschool and daycare age is a great opportunity for that."
The opinions on Marla's take were split. Some disagreed with her.
"This works until about 3rd grade," one mom wrote. "Then kids get mean and it’ll break your heart. So I send my kids in nice clothes lol."
"Do you go to work in clean stained clothes?" another person asked, and many who agreed with Marla's explanation chimed in. "No but I typically don't paint at work, or jump in mud, or draw on my jumper ," one mama said.
Other comments agreed with Marla, with teachers even chiming in to show their support.
"I’m the director of an early childhood education center and it’s sooo much better when kids come in in play-able clothes! They eat! They paint!" one person said.
"If it gets too stained, we tie dye it. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle," another mom wrote.
"I had this lightbulb moment where I thought, 'If she's getting these stains at preschool, why can't I just send her back with the clothes clean, with the stain still there, if they didn't come out?' It was a really pivotal moment for me because I feel like it gave me a lot of freedom, and it reduced the stress," Marla told Good Morning America.
"When it comes to kids, especially at a really young, impressionable age, I don't think as a society, we should put this pressure on 3, 4, 5, even 6-year-olds [about] their looks. I think they need to be focused more on having fun, learning and making friends," she said. "Maybe if we focus more on that, maybe later in life, they won't experience or care as much about the peer pressure surrounding looks and name-brand clothing and things like that."
