My administrative team gets questions, objections, and suggestions from parents all the time about our clothing guidelines – or “dress code” at CHA. In fact, it’s in the “big three” of classic contentious school issues for parents, right there alongside homework and the schedule. Goodness; it’s even become a verb for students when they get “dress coded.” Parent commentary is across the spectrum:
Our students dress like they just crawled out of bed!
Dress codes inevitably result in shame; we shouldn’t have one.
Every year it seems like students are wearing less clothing at CHA; we need school uniforms!
Why is this issue such a big deal? Just let parents decide what’s appropriate.
As I continue to speak with different parents about the topic, and especially as families gear up for the coming school year, I realize that it may be helpful to have some proactive clarity on how we think about our dress expectations at CHA.
#1. Our dress expectations are not a definitive statement on “modesty.”
I’ve been to and lived in enough cultures to know that there is no one standard of Christian modesty across different cultures or within the church. I remember my grandpa being upset that my family sent out a missionary prayer card on which my mom was pictured wearing shorts. A good friend of mine grew up in a Haitian church. They had really different expectations for Sunday mornings than a church I once visited in Hawaii.
Do CHA’s dress expectations have to do with notions of modesty? Certainly. There is language directly related to short length and strap width. But we don’t harshly claim that these dress expectations are the end-all definition of biblical modesty. In fact, we don’t even use that word in our handbook. Instead, we talk about “professionalism,” “neatness,” and “comfort.” These, too, are subjective, but we use them because they don’t bear the same moral connotations. But regardless of connotations, any decision on length or fit is often simply a judgment call of the beholder. Some of our families feel our expectations are not appropriate. Leggings. In-seam length. Sleeveless shirts. Dyed hair. Some of our families feel our expectations are inappropriate for the opposite reasons. Shame. Fundamentalism. Judgment. Legalism.
But, again, our dress expectations are not a definitive moral commentary. They are simply where we have chosen to draw the line between naked and uniforms. But why do we need a line? And why do we draw it where we do? Keep reading.
#2. Dress expectations are a normal part of life.
One of the most fascinating places I’ve visited is the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It’s an incredible building. Upon arrival, visitors must remove their shoes, and women must cover their heads. I’m clearly not a Muslim, but it would have been a strange kind of protest for me not to oblige as a visitor. I used to take groups of students on service trips to an impoverished part of Indonesia. It was equator-level hot, literally, but it would have been extremely offensive to our hosts if we wore shorts. So we sweat it out every day in pants. I wear a collared shirt to work every day. Other places require ties. My wife wears a lab coat. My daughter’s volleyball team has to wear the same shoes, for crying out loud.
We live in a diverse world with myriad cultural expectations about dress. Even within the same culture, we have to assess what would be appropriate and what wouldn’t be depending on the occasion and purpose. A school is not a bedroom or a park or a beach. It’s also not a church or a law firm or a barracks. It’s in between. And it’s a fact of life that folks need to sort out what the dress expectations are for different places and then, unless unbiblical, simply adhere to those cultural expectations.
#3. Our dress expectations are an attempt at healthy balance.
CHA is a subculture, made up of members from over 150 churches in Chicagoland. Our families have cultural roots from all over the place: we are Indian, Romanian, urban, Korean, suburban, African-American, South African, Peruvian, Egyptian, Taiwanese, Ukrainian. We hear from families who are shocked at how liberal our dress expectations are. We hear from families who are shocked at how conservative our dress expectations are. Our goal is to find a healthy middle that represents a fair, comfortable, norm.
Three years ago, Kim was out of town, so I went summer shopping with my three girls to get shorts with a five-inch inseam (the dress expectation for shorts length at the time). After Kohls and JCPenney and Target and who knows where else, we finally found one or two pairs that sort of worked (4.5 inch?) at Walmart. I had heard complaints about this difficulty many times over. Our dress expectations were outside of normal and reasonable, so we changed the in-seam length to three inches.
Many of our families find leggings to be far too revealing. Many of our families wear leggings to church. Our attempt at healthy community balance is that if girls wear leggings, that’s fine. But they should wear a long shirt or sweater. Sometimes our male students wear ball caps or try to show off their ripped arms by wearing muscle shirts. We simply don’t think school is the time or place for that, so we don’t allow it. Again, it’s not a moral issue; it’s simply where we have landed as we seek to create healthy and appropriate expectations within our community.
#4. Living in a community sometimes requires a little sacrifice.
We will always have parents on both ends of the spectrum who disagree with our expectations. Always. But what we ask of our families is that they recognize our goals, as stated above, and make a small sacrifice for the sake of our community. That might mean having a conversation with your son or daughter about how just because other families might make more liberal dress choices than yours does, it doesn’t mean you have to. That might mean having a conversation with your son or daughter about how sometimes community dress expectations are more conservative than we’d like and that sometimes we simply need to respectfully live within those norms.
As a missionary kid, I was surrounded by adult mentors in the missions community who had completely adjusted the cultural norms of their life in order to effectively witness to others, whether within a much more conservative or liberal community, whether in working in the slums or in ministry to those in a red light district, or in a church context with vastly different norms than suburban American evangelicalism. Flexing the muscles of “community living” is important for a life of sacrificial ministry. As ministers of the gospel, our students need to be used to asking questions like “If I make a big deal of this, am I unduly forcing my cultural preferences on others?” And “If I push the boundaries on this, will I be unduly offending my sister or brother’s rightful sensitivities?”
#5. We do our best to gracefully respond to clothing that doesn’t follow expectations.
Now comes the tough part. In an ideal world, once dress expectations are explained, like above, everyone gets the deal and abides by them. But surprise surprise, that’s not what happens. Here’s how we try to approach it:
We Communicate Up Front. Our dress expectations are clear in the handbook. We send out a summer email. Weeks and weeks before our dances, we send out a reminder before kids buy their outfits. We don’t want to spring our expectations on anyone, because that’s not a good feeling. Our goal is to never have to talk about this issue. But we do, and when we do…
…We Don’t Make it a Moral Issue. Our faculty are well aware that if they talk to a student about a muscle shirt or about shorts being too short, it should NOT be a conversation about immorality. It should simply be a conversation about community expectations. Do we take those expectations seriously? Yes. Do we take them seriously because we believe students are sinning against God because of the length of their shorts? No.
We Provide Alternatives. Often students just get a warning and are asked to make a different choice going forward. But sometimes the line has been crossed too far, or it’s a repeat offense. They do not receive an orange jumpsuit to wear for the rest of the day or a shirt with SHAME printed boldly on the front. We have nice shorts and shirts available in the office that, hopefully, others won’t even notice aren’t their own.
Sometimes it Gets Ugly, and We Really Don’t Like That. Sometimes our students (and, if we’re being honest, our families) consistently and blatantly ignore our dress expectations over and over and over again. This is the worst. But at some point, we then need to begrudgingly start enforcing consequences beyond a change of clothes and a gentle reminder. We then start getting accused of being harsh or judgemental or legalistic. But flip the script. Why is this student so insistent on fighting against community-oriented expectations that are not unreasonable or uncomfortable? Will this student be able to understand and meet the future dress expectations of his or her job?
We Need Parental Support. Our students will always point at our dress expectations and say they aren’t fair. They say they are judgmental. They say only girls get consequences. They say some kids get targeted and others go unnoticed. I know. I have kids, too. We will try our best as a school to frame it as articulated above. But we need partnership from parents in helping to do the same. When my kids complain, I always try to reframe it with commentary like the following:
Someday when you have a job, you’ll have dress expectations, too. It’s not crazy.
CHA is a culture. Different families have different expectations, and CHA’s expectations are in the middle.
This is not about modesty or sin. It’s just clothing norms, which is a part of life.
Why are you fighting the expectations? Are they unreasonable? Uncomfortable? What’s your goal?
And full parental transparency: When I was a kid, I had to wear a cardigan and tie to school. Tough it out.
This piece will not be the full stop to all dress code conversations. I understand that. But at the very least, I hope it articulates where we are coming from as a school and as a community. We love our students. We also love our community, despite the complexity it brings. Let’s keep working together, gracefully and with grace for one another, as we seek to prepare our students to live well in the world, in the church, and in their future communities, as followers of Jesus who love and serve others.
—J.T.