A friend posted a first day of school picture on Facebook recently. Her son looked ready for his first day of kindergarten at their nearby Catholic school.

I recognized this kind of picture very well. In fact, I have seen many like it, especially as social media provided a ready outlet for these kinds of photos. But this one set me off for some reason.

What has happened to Catholic school uniforms?

I don’t know if I have the complete right to complain about this since I send my daughter to public school, but I suffered through 13 years of school without having any real freedom in my wardrobe so I have walked the walk.

Now I know these kids can’t wear whatever they want, but the schools might as well let them. The cute little boy I saw on Facebook had on a comfortable polo shirt and dark trousers that he could wear pretty much anywhere outside of school.

Where are the ill-fitting grey slacks that you wouldn’t wear to a funeral? Where is the white dress shirt? For the love of God, where is the ugly maroon tie I had to endure through elementary school?

On the surface, the whole point of uniforms is to make everyone look the same and instill a look of discipline. In the background, however, I think someone wanted to make Catholic school children look silly.

Somehow, the schools have lost that edge, Maybe this has to do with fewer nuns in the school. Some of the ones I had carried a bit of a sadistic streak. But even back then, you saw signs of weakness.

At some point in my elementary or middle school career, the uniform changed slightly to compensate for winter weather. Boys could now forego the shirt and tie combo to wear a turtleneck (which had to be white, of course). Girls could also wear a turtleneck, but had one more scandalous exception.

They could wear pants. Yep, my school caused a stir in the early 1980s by letting girls wear grey pants and a turtleneck instead of the always-stylish maroon and grey jumper with a white blouse underneath.

I think all of this falls under the same concept as gateway drugs. You take one thing which leads to another and another and the next thing you know you’re living in the gutter. You start to let boys wear turtlenecks and girls wear pants and the next thing you know uniforms almost turn trendy.

My daughter actually bought the uniform skirt from a local Catholic school in a thrift store because she liked how it looked. Of course her friends who have to wear it every day were appalled, but she thought it looked nice and would go with some of her other clothes,

I’m sure this development led some nuns to roll over in their grave.

That’s why I had trouble looking at that cute little boy on the first day of school. I don’t blame him. I don’t blame his parents. I blame the person who approved the first turtleneck more than 30 years ago. Didn’t they know that parents paid good money to make sure their kids wouldn’t be comfortable at school?