THINGS REMEMBERED: Era Parents Bought Oversized Clothes For Children

Back in the day, our parents didn’t shop for our size. They shopped for the size we’d become. One size bigger, always.

“Buy it big,” my mother would say. “One day it will be your size.”

So, every special occasion came with the same ritual. Shirts with sleeves that covered our hands. Trousers we had to fold at the ankle, again and again, until we looked like we were wading through water. And shoes oh, those shoes. So big we had to stuff them with cloth, paper, or cotton just to keep them on our feet. Without it, we’d be slapping the ground with every step.

We looked funny. Like oversized babies trying on adult life. My little brother especially. He’d wobble in those shoes and we’d all laugh until our stomachs hurt.

But we never felt poor in them.

Because those big clothes meant we were going somewhere new. A wedding. Sallah. Christmas service. We’d spend time rolling sleeves, pinning waists with safety pins, and polishing those oversized shoes. Then we’d step outside, chest out, smiling like kings. “See my shoe? It’s big now, but next year…” We said it with confidence.

The funny part is, most of them never fit. By the time our shoulders finally filled that shirt, there were already three newer, bigger ones in the wardrobe. We collected oversized clothes faster than we grew.

Today, I buy clothes that fit perfectly. No pins. No folded hems. No paper in my shoes.

And yet, I miss it. I miss that joy of gratitude. The joy of wearing something too big and still feeling rich, because it came from parents who were thinking about tomorrow for us.

It wasn’t really about the cloth. It was hope, stitched into every oversized seam.