- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- dads today articles
- dads today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
A Really, Really Big Christmas
I just don't get it. Why can't my near-perfect husband get within a rack or five of my size? By Gwen Kopetzky
Imagine my delight one Christmas to find under the tree a new pair of my favorite purple slippers, size nine. Together with my four-sizes-too-big purple short set from the holiday before, they completed the look -- the look of a grape in the throes of an allergic reaction, that is.
I just don't get it. Why can't my near-perfect husband get within a rack or five of my size? I know I'm not alone in this. Other friends have complained of their husbands' clothes shopping largesse. And I do mean LARGEsse. Husbands never seem to err on the side of smallness, do they? One friend lamented that it's one thing to have your great aunt from back East buy you something that would make a great couch slipcover, but it's completely unflattering when the one you snuggle up to at night does it.
I concur. At times I wonder if my husband's eyes reflect back a carnival funhouse mirror image of me stretched out to unbelievable girth.
I know that not all guys have the same shopping disability. I also know that the ones who do make such shopping boffs suffer from the tragedy just as much as -- if not more, longer and more wretchedly -- than their wronged wives. They don't mean harm. Women's clothes shopping is just not their forte (and why would it be?).
So in the hopes that there may be one less reviled pair of overgrown slippers, one less post-package-opening wifely glare this holiday, here are a few tips for those brave but misguided men in our lives skulking through the women's departments this pre-holiday season. Maybe leave this list laying out somewhere in the hopes that your husband might pick it up and try out some of my tips. Or e-mail them to a friend's most significant guy and make her Christmas that much better -- and well -- fitted.