No, Mom: We Don't All Put on Pants the Same Way

You’ve heard the saying, “He puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.” It’s meant as a reminder that, despite our differences, we all have some basic human similarities.

My husband used this saying yesterday in a family conversation.

“I don’t,” said my eight-year-old son abruptly.

“You don’t? You put on your pants two legs at a time?” my husband asked, amused.

The boy nodded confidently. “Uh-huh.”

“So, you sit down on a chair and put both legs in at the same time? That’s a good idea,” said my husband, turning to me to continue what he’d been saying.

“Nope,” my son said.

I arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Let’s see…you sit on the floor and pull on your pants.”

He crossed his arms, getting into this. “Nope.”

My husband tried again. “You hold them up and jump.”

“Nope.”

My turn. “You lie down on your tummy and pull them on.” This must be it. “That sounds pretty complicated, honey.”

“Nope.”

My husband and I exchanged glances and shrugged. “Okay,” I said. “How do you put your pants on two legs at a time?”

“It’s easy,” he explained. “I scrunch up the legs”—he gestured—and then put them down so I can see the floor through the legs. Then I step in and”—he mimed pulling up the pants—“pull them up. Both legs at the same time.”

We made him show us. Sure enough, he had developed an effective method of pants-putting-on that neither of us adults had ever considered.

There is always a way to do something that no one else has thought of. There’s always a way to be different and creative. My son probably hadn’t given much thought to the way other people do things; he just made up his own way. I’m taking a lesson from that.