My blog-mate Julie’s recent post on “Food Wars” reminded me of the clothing wars we are currently engaged in at our house. While I realize the obsessive compulsive (OCD) aspect of the behavior, I have to wonder if it is also passive aggressive behavior. Why would a young girl want to wear the same outfit several times a week when it isn’t especially cute, flattering, or have a designer label?

Dani, our ten-year-old daughter has been wearing the same three outfits for weeks now. She can be seen in the morning, digging frantically through the baskets of clean clothes. It certainly isn’t for a lack of clothing.

Her dresser, her closet, the drawers under her bed, and the clothes’ pegs in her room are all overstuffed. She has beautiful clothes, most of which she picked out herself.

Lately, her favorite outfit has been a lime green pair of shorts, which are too big, given to her by a girl at church. She wears them with a light green shirt that says CUTE on it and her green crocs. She rather reminds me of a green bean.

Ah well, some clothes seem to disappear when you put them in the washer. I’ve heard horror stories about washing machines that eat clothes, haven’t you?

When my 18-year-old daughter was younger, she used to wear her worst clothes to appointments. If she had a doctor’s appointment, counseling session, or piano lesson she wore her barn clothes. If she was staying home for the day, she wore her Sunday best. She did this from the time she was seven until she was about 15.

I talked to her about numerous times about this and frequently asked her to change her clothes before we left the house. Yet, the behavior continued. That is what led me to believe that it was passive aggressive in nature.

She is a very intelligent girl, but suffers from an attachment disorder as well as other diagnoses. She knew that it annoyed me to have her dressed like a ragamuffin.

You might remember me mentioning that Super Dad and I were fairly new and inexperienced foster parents when we accepted her and her older sister. I’m afraid I was too naïve back then to realize that you don’t let a child with an attachment disorder know that something annoys you.

Dani has been putting us through the wringer for over a year now. We all thought that her adoption would go through rather quickly. Because she had been in our home for over two years and our homestudy was already updated.

Well it hasn’t gone quickly, and in the mean time, we were matched with Amigrace’s mother and then finalized her adoption while Dani waited. That is why I feel that her clothing choices may be passive aggressive in nature.

When Adoption Takes Too Long
The Child’s Best Interest? Adoption and Foster Care
Old Habits Die Hard for Adopted Daughter Who Suffered Previous Child Abuse
It’s True! Adopting Special Needs Children Can Make You Nuts
Only One of Us Can Be Good at Home

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