Today I’m off to the thrift store: son H. has sprouted up a few more inches, and his long pants are now cropped pants (not a good look for a first-grade boy) and daughter F. needs a fall and winter wardrobe.

Before I had the depressingly common stay-at-home mom wardrobe (a modest number of items, each stained, faded, or stretched out of shape), I used to shop a lot for myself, and had an embarrassingly large amount of clothing. That’s the trouble with second-hand shopping. You think, “Hey, it’s a dollar – I’ll take five!” and pretty soon your wardrobe is spilling into your spouse’s closet, filling up the basement, and piling up in the laundry room. You don’t need to wash those pants – you’ve got 27 more pairs in the closet!

Those days are over. Ninety-eight percent of the shopping is now done for the kids.

And the thrift store really brings into high relief the disparity between shopping for girls and shopping for boys. The girl section is packed full – racks and racks of stuff, and a seemingly endless supply of “dress-up” clothes: fancy dresses with puffy skirts, in pink netting or red or black velvet (for the holidays, you know), not to mention the loads of regular, day-to-day clothing. The girls’ clothing manufacturers could call a moratorium on production; I think we’d be okay for a year or two.

But try to find something simple for a boy – say, a pair of jeans – and it’s, “Good luck to you, my friend.” Maybe you’ll find three pair in your son’s size, but they’ll have holes in the knees, frayed hems, or look like they might fall apart on the way to the car.

New clothes shopping is not much better. Try to find a pair of boy’s sandals in mid-summer – I dare you! I double-dare you! No, don’t bother: I’ll tell you now, they don’t have them. The two models they stock were sold out in mid-May, and they won’t be ordering any more. Check out the girls’ section: there’s still a large array of fake-jewel encrusted sandals in all sizes.

In my hunt for kids’ clothing, shopping for son H. is a bow-and-arrow affair; shopping for daughter F. is a turkey shoot.

But I’ll still venture out, armed with my debit card and a list of things we need. And maybe I’ll even find a item or two or 27 for myself…