One of the most interesting aspects of being an expat is when you find yourself in the eye of a culture clash storm. Last winter my, then seven-year-old, son was determined to wear shorts, whatever the weather. His avoidance of long trousers evolved gradually during an unseasonably long and mild autumn (to put it in context we swam in a lake last year in the middle of October!). Wearing shorts on days between 10 and 17 degrees celsius seemed entirely appropriate, and I did not stop him. At the beginning of November, the temperatures dropped and he resolved to continue wearing his favourite item – his shorts. Long trousers felt uncomfortable, he said, too hot. A relatively laissez faire parent about some things at least, I left him to it.

Wearing shorts in winter

It was as the other children at school pulled on their thick down jackets, and some children appeared in snow trousers, that various teachers started asking me if I minded him wearing shorts – in winter! Anyone who has spent any time in Germany will know that the common attitude is one of terror at the thought of letting your children get too cold. I have seen parents chase their children around heated apartments insisting they put on their slippers, just in case they get cold toes. German children must be the first on the European continent to put on beanie hats to warm their ears at the end of summer and the last to take them off in the spring. A fellow Brit I know was approached by two old ladies whilst carrying his relatively little baby daughter in a sling, well wrapped up by his jacket and her own clothes and chastised for being out on a frosty day. 

To run the risk of more national stereotyping, the impression given by most Brits by contrast is that they are not very bothered by cold. Granted British winters are (generally) not so harsh. Our Gulf stream climate means that thermometers hover between 5 and 10 degrees celsius almost all winter long. School boys traditionally wear shorts all year round – to save them growing out of trousers so quickly. At school we girls were expected to wear our netball skirts and long socks with bare legs all through winter when playing sport out on the muddy school field. And there is the well-known vision of mottle-skin girls standing in queues outside nightclubs in December wearing nothing but high heel sandals and the shortest, strappiest dress they own.

A classic image of a boy wearing shorts in winter

Be that as it may, my son’s teachers did not entirely approve. “Is he allowed to wear shorts at this time of year?” they would ask me with a slight frown as I picked him up. The next day, “I did ask him if he had long trousers with him, but he said he came like that.” Yet another time, “If my child went out like that, they would immediately have a bad cold.” Whilst personally preferring a coat and boots in sub-zero temperatures, past experience and any quick google search suggests that being a bit chilly (especially on your legs) does you no harm at all. The kid should wear what he felt most comfortable in. I was not keen to evangelise on the matter, so I took the milder line of saying, “I think he will choose to wear trousers when he actually starts to feel too cold.”

With that, it is quite possible he would have pulled off wearing shorts to school all the way to Christmas had it not been for the fact that a couple of his friends started following suit. I suppose this was inevitable. The more teachers asked about his shorts-wearing, the more it was seen as a sign of subtle and admirable rebellion. The day the third boy in the class walked through the sleet in short trousers was the day the school-wide ban was introduced. A new (somewhat arbitrary) rule – long trousers on days colder than 8 degrees celsius – just to ensure everyone’s legs stayed warm. So we pulled ourselves from the eye of the storm, bought a couple of pairs of comfy, cosy trousers, and folded the beloved shorts away until the March thaw.

Chloë