When the Okaden family went back to my parents’ house, my sister-in-law gave me a lot of pigments from my cousin Takeh, my son’s cousin.
We are always very grateful. We always get clothes and books from our relatives.
Normally, it would be great if we could give the clothes we no longer need to another relative. But since we don’t have such a partner, we are the last to go.
However, that would be a waste, so we donate large items such as chairs and strollers to a local nursery.
When I think about these daily activities, I realize how difficult it must be for manufacturers of baby and children’s products to do business. This is because the second-hand market has been the most established genre in Japan since ancient times.
However, in defiance of such an ecosystem, children make their clothes noisily dirty and tattered. When they cannot tear them to shreds, they leak poop and make stains on them that are difficult to transfer to others. This kind of childish habit is probably why children’s clothing manufacturers have been in business for so long.
Well, one of the old clothes I got from my sister-in-law was a hat with a big brim. It was a blue hat with lots of things on it that looked like secret tools from Doraemon. But nowhere on it is there a Doraemon character, nor is it even called Doraemon. It is hard to tell whether this is a copyrightable hat or a problematic one.
My son Takeh has always hated wearing things. Whenever I try to put a hat on him, he hates it and throws it far away with a bang. But he seems to be aware of TPO (Time, Place, and Occasion) because he seems to be playing outside with a hat on at his preschool. Still, at least in our house, he is consistent in his hat aversion.
However, this blue hat is the only one he liked at first sight. When my parents tried it on him, he looked satisfied. We, his parents who put the hat on him, were so surprised that we said, “What? We, his parents, who had put the hat on him, were so surprised that we shouted, “What?” because we had put the hat on him as a joke, thinking that he would not like it and would not wear it anyway.
The next day, even when he went to preschool in the morning, he wanted to wear the hat and started yelling at the door, “Where’s my hat? He would ask his parents, “Where’s hat?” And when he couldn’t find the hat, he would say, “hat! hat!” when he couldn’t find his hat. I have no idea why he liked that hat so much.
After that, he quickly became particular about the patterns and colors of his clothes. He developed his own “favorite clothes,” and when he couldn’t find them, he began to get tongue-tied. I was surprised to see my child develop such an obsession with clothes. Whether this is a temporary thing or something that will continue in the future remains to be seen.
(2023.05.05)
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