Back to School, Pottery Barn Kids Style

The back to school gear catalog from Pottery Barn Kids and Teens arrived last week (yes, it’s still JULY.) Thank God, because now we can all breath a sigh of ivy league elementary school relief. I was starting to get a bit nervous that my only back to school gear options were gonna be from that gawd awful red bullseye place, you know the one we sorta pronounce in quasi French. I mean, I don’t want to buy my kid’s lunchbox in the same place where I buy my tampons!

So, when my mailbox unloaded those back to school pages of fall catalog euphoria, I skipped into my house, practically giddy, holding all of its glossy goodness. Now I can sit down, relax, and have a perfect bird’s eye look at everything my own children and my home are NOT.

I don’t know about you, but I personally love feeling more inferior, more stylistically- challenged and more parentally inept than I already did before. So let’s go Back to School shopping, Pottery Barn Kids style, shall we?

1. Your kid’s lunch better be Bento style. And also prepared by the staff from Whole Foods, and served in a $50 stainless steel divided feng shui style box. Because PB&J, a banana, and some chips are so 2005. Do you get just a wee bit peeved when your kid loses a $1 Ziploc container? Just think how delighted you will be when they come home without this beauty.

2. Your kid needs their own home office. Complete with a $700 adjustable leather chair, an old beat up suitcase a la thrift store, hanging industrial-looking lights that scream “jailhouse,” a magazine sorting system, and a tin lunchbox circa 1940. Sorry mini CEO’s, but I did my times tables on the kitchen table, and turned out just fine. As a matter of fact, I am able to actually concentrate and write this post from my current office, the laundry room.

3. College dorm closets are not just for beer anymore. Because you definitely need some place to store the 30 pairs of shoes you brought with you. And your typical dorm room has plenty of space for rolling carts and boxes made of linen. I am sure those will never, ever, see pizza grease or vomit.

4. High school is hard on your daughter, so she needs a ‘lounge’ room. After a long day of 19th century lit and negative integers, I too like to come home and lie down like a Kardashian on a plush chaise with star pillows, under a chandelier, a wall light reminding me how “Wonderful” I am, and surrounded by old vinyl records and suitcases. Again with the vintage suitcases! Memo to self: Next time you see one at the Hospice thrift store for $5, BUY and EBAY.

5. Everything your kid owns needs to be personalized. Yep. Even that. My kid’s school supply list says he needs 6 spiral notebooks. No biggie, this will only set me back about $60, and they will stay as crisp and fresh looking as they do in this picture all year long. And honestly, it is such a pain in the ass for my kid to have to WRITE their name on all their stuff. It’s not like there are local children currently living in poverty, whom I could entirely outfit with a backpack, a lunchbox, and every school supply they need for the whole year with that same $60. Charity, shmarity- little Todd needs to know Spidey is all HIS!