Figure 1.--.

My brother often kept his smock on after school. I always changed out of mine. Thinking back, I cannot recall having a strong opinion about smocks. Yet I do recall that I only wore them when I had to for school and immediately took my school smock off after school. I never wore it for play or even around the house after school. Some boys did, but I never did. So perhaps without really being aware of it, I did have definite thoughts about smocks. Interesting that we had such different thoughts on this. While our mother insisted we wear smocks to school, she did not make us wear them after school. This was not the case for some other boys.

My Bother and Me

My brother often kept his smock on after school. I always changed out of mine. Thinking back, I cannot recall having a strong opinion about smocks. Yet I do recall that I only wore them when I had to for school and immediately took my school smock off after school. I never wore it for play or even around the house after school. Some boys did, but I never did. So perhaps without really being aware of it, I did have definite thoughts about smocks. Interesting that we had such different thoughts on this. While our mother insisted we wear smocks to school, she did not make us wear them after school.

Other Boys

While my brother and I never wore our smocks on Thursdays and Sundays and for the hollidays, this was not the case for some other boys. Some boys kept wearing their smocks after school. Some just didn't bother taking them off. Other boys wore smocks on their days off from school. They seemed to have secial smocks they wore on these days. They were not commonly worn, however, on Sunday to church. Smocks were not considered to be appropriate for such a formal occassion.

Thursday

In France before 1970 children hadn't class on Thursday. Since the 1970s the daff off has beem on Wednesday. [HBC is not sure why France has this day off fom school. We believe that there was for a time class on Saturday.]

Some boys

While most boys took their smocks off after school, I often met boys in the street wearing especially nice smocks. It was not at all unusual. Boys up to about 10 years of age even a few older boys might wear smocks on Thursday. It was the same age rage as the boys who wore smocks to school. Smocks were still very common in the early 1950s. My parents made large numbers of smocks. I remember seeing boys wearing smocks everyehere.

More girls

It was much more common tosee girls wearing smocks outside of school than boys. Not oly did more girls wear smocks, but older girls than boys tnded to wear smocks.

After school

Most boys took their smocks off after school. Some boys, however, didn't bother. Often they just couldn't be bothered to do so. Some mothers may have insisted they do so. A few may have had smocks for the boys to wear after school, although his was probably more common before the 1950s. A French-speaking Swiss reader, who grew up in the 1940s, tell HBC that his mother had him and his brothers change into smocks both after school and on Saturday. He wore red ginham smocks to school and blue gingham smocks at home.

Special smocks

The smocks boys wore on days off from school were school smocks, but not common ones. As the school year progressed, a boy's school smock might become rather worn. Many mothers would save a smock for Thursday as she might accompany her son to the park or visit friends with him and she wanted him to look nice. The mother chose a smock that was clean and not worn out. They also tended to be the Vichy (gingham) or Zephyr smocks rather than the more plain smocks. Mothers at the time had much more discression about how to dress their children and did so depending on their tastes. Many thought that children should be dressed to look like children.

Sunday

During the week I recall seeing boys wearing smocks everywhere. Boys might commonly wore smocks if they went to church during the week. On Sunday, however, it was traditional to be well dressed to go to the church. Smocks were not considered suitable to wear to church on Sunday. HBC inotes a French-speaking Swiss reader, who grew up in the 1940s, had a black pleated smock that he wore on Sunday to church and for visiting relatives.