The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. This morning I spent two hours sorting out 5-year-old's clothes. It's only a slight exaggeration to say I was waist-deep in a pile of clothes, unable to escape like a man trapped in quicksand. 5-year-old has hundreds of items of clothes. In his wardrobe alone, there are:

• 35 short-sleve t-shirts
• 28 long-sleeve t-shirts
• 24 pairs of socks
• 22 pairs of trousers
• 15 jumpers
• 13 coats and jackets
• 10 pairs of underpants
• 8 pairs of shorts

I know this. I know this because I counted. Also, I looked in the mirror afterwards and saw I had a pair of 5-year-old's pants on my head. I have no idea how they got there.

And that's just the clothes in his wardrobe. In another wardrobe, we've got bags full of clothes for 1-year-old. I sorted the clothes into bags by size, so there's a bag for 1.5 years to 2 years, a bag for 2-3 years, a bag for 3-4 years, and so on. And in each bag is somewhere between 50 to 100 items of clothes.

My kids are aged one and five and they have more clothes than Paris Hilton.

Where are all these clothes from? This is a question I can answer. Girlfriend has a friend called Mar. Mar has two sons who are just a little older than 5-year-old. Once a year, Mar meets up with Girlfriend and hands over a big bag full of old clothes that don't fit her growing sons anymore.

Overall these second-hand clothes have been a good thing because we've saved money by not having to buy new clothes. But on the other hand, we have too many clothes!

I googled how many clothes a 5-year-old boy should have:

They need roughly 6 tops, 5 bottoms

5-10 shirts; 3-8 pants

5 pairs of trousers. 7 long sleeve tops. 7 t-shirts.

So if they're saying 5-year-old needs 5 pairs of trousers, why does he have 22 pairs of trousers?? And why does he have 35 T-shirts??

I think it's because some people really enjoy buying clothes. And I don't want to be sexist, but it's mainly women who enjoy shopping for clothes. They enjoy it as much as I enjoy reading comic books or taking walks. And when these people go clothes shopping, they're not really buying clothes, they're enjoying the experience of buying clothes. They like looking at clothes on the rack. They like imagining their children wearing them.

When Girlfriend came home from work, I told her about the wardrobe and the massive surplus of clothes.

"Oh, I know," she said. "I was planning to get rid of some of them. Once summer ends, I'm going to go through them."

His wardrobe has been full of clothes for years.

Traditional gender roles would require Girlfriend, as the mother, to be the one organising the children’s clothes. And I always assumed that women were good at organising children's clothes, just as they're good at keeping the house tidy and cooking meatloaf. But no: Girlfriend is good at none of these things. Gender stereotypes have lied to me. Girlfriend cares even less about the children’s clothes than I do. In fact, if it were down to her, then all the clothes would be lying in disorganised piles on the shelves. I know this because it was like that until I came in a few months ago and organised everything.

"But why do we have so many clothes?" I asked her. "Is your friend addicted to buying clothes or something?"

"Well, people give her their old clothes, and then she gives us their old clothes, plus her children's old clothes too."

Now I understand. It's the snowball effect, except instead of a snowball, it's a giant ball of second-hand children's clothes. Every time the clothes get passed on, more and more clothes get added, like the metaphorical snowball getting bigger as it rolls down the hill and collects snow. Except it's a clothes ball collecting clothes.

"Plus one of the parents at the school gave us a bag of clothes recently," said Girlfriend.

Just as the Trojans had to beware of Greeks bearing gifts, I need to beware of other parents foisting their children's clothes onto me. Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of all these children's clothes.