c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of five books and mother of two sons.)

(UNDATED) This year I’m shopping for back-to-school clothes in the men’s department.

Last year I was still happily matching plaids in the boy’s area, knowing the numbers on the clothes were getting higher, but thinking I had years to go. Then my adolescent son had one of those science-fictionlike growth spurts, going to bed one night in children’s pajamas and the next morning resembling the Incredible Hulk as he burst out of his shirts and pants.

We catapulted past the 14s and 16s in a month. We didn’t even bother with 18s. And by the time I bought a pair of 20s it had become a comedy. “Suck your stomach in,” I urged, knowing it was all part of a futile attempt to keep my son a child for just a little longer.

It’s not that I’m a whiny, hanger-on mom. I do really well with the big moments, the first day of school, the sleep-away camps, the first girlfriend.

But I have spent nearly 17 years learning how to buy clothing for little boys and I’m not really ready to give it up.

My husband and older son pick out their own clothes. But my 12-year-old is still too busy playing with his friends to take time for shopping. So I have the baffling task of trying to figure out the difference between a 30/30 and a 31/30.

And then there are the various cuts and pleat arrangements, belt loops and leg widths.

And the prices. How can a man’s pair of pants cost twice as much as a large boys? I try to explain to the clerk that I am not shopping for “casual Fridays” but for mud wrestling at recess. Chances are, the knees in these lovely chinos won’t make it through the first month of school. Why don’t they put reinforced knees in men’s trousers?

I am not the only mother with this problem. Other moms and I compare notes, trying to figure out if they are putting growth hormones in the water at school to enhance chances of a football championship.

Little boys shoot up past their parents in weeks. We are all wracking our brains and calling relatives trying to find the precedent for a giant in the family. Where did these big boys come from?

Whenever I’m out shopping I still find myself strolling past the boy’s department, peeking at the sale racks, noticing how they have adapted the latest trend to diminutive sizes.

I watch moms holding shirts up to backs of little boys who won’t stop long enough to try clothes on. I see them checking elbows and knees for extra fabric and checking seams for double stitching. I know these moves. “Don’t forget to test the zipper,” I almost tell one mom.

In the men’s department the same thorough testing brings raised eyebrows and concern from the sales staff. “You’ll rip those pants,” a man tells me as I pull at the inseam. I want to tell him that my tugs are nothing compared to what the boys in my son’s class will do if my son catches the ball and runs for it.

So I buy the inferior men’s pants and then go about customizing them for my son, adding some stitches, lining the knees, reinforcing the belt loops. But I’m not doing any hemming until the night before school starts and I can measure my son one more time.

DEA END BOURKE