By Kathy Keeley
Moms, daughters and tack stores seem to bring out the best and the worst in our relationships. Visiting the tack store together can be a unique experience. There are those trips when it is a shared experienced with smiles, thanks, and even good fun looking at the newest hot color for riding pants. Then there are those trips that become a tug of war between parent and child. Tough on the sales staff!
I recently visited a tack store at one of our shows and had an opportunity to watch a number of mother-daughter exchanges. Somehow the tack store has become not only a place to shop but a place where mother and daughter dynamics, both positive and negative, are on full display. We had a few supplies and a gift to pick up but mostly I think my daughter wanted to walk around checking out every section of the store. So I sat in a chair and watched.
Shopping Phases:
Pre-teen
As I reflect on tack store shopping with daughters, I think there are three distinct phases. Pre and early teens provide the greatest challenge. These riders are caught between stages of childhood and being a teenager. They have lots of opinions and have mostly decided they know more than their parents. They can be rude, loud, demanding and full of self importance one moment but clinging, quiet and needy for parent contact the next.
My approach to tack store shopping at this age is to avoid scenes and leave the child in the hands of another adult whose opinion the child would be more be more likely to respect. I once left my child with a clerk (prearranged plan) to outfit her for A Circuit showing. This was a time period when she never liked the color of the pants or the look of the helmet and when no color show shirt or jacket was acceptable. In short, she was being a pre-teen brat. The clerk did wonderfully, got her outfitted with humor and assistance from older riders in the store. All left the tack store smiling and without an unnecessary tug of war.
At this age, however, I still expected manners in the store. Any scene or loud demands caused me to leave with the credit card still in my purse – no clerk or other shoppers should have to experience our children’s bad behavior. I often watch and wish more of us expected some baseline of manners or civility from this age group.
Older Teens
The second group is the older teens – those riders with the confidence of ‘I know who I am and I know what I want.’ Shopping with them brings its own challenges since they definitely always know more than we do and seem to want only the best, latest, and most fashionable. They know what is in and what is out and will happily share that information with Mom who seems to be at least one season behind.
This is a great age to learn about budgeting, fads vs. trends, and needs vs. wants. If they get everything they want, how do they learn about what they need vs. just what they want at the moment?
Most are approaching a time when they will go off to college and the concept of living on a budget is a great one to learn. How many of those fads end up on the closet or horse trailer floor – how about buying things that will last more than a couple of horse shows?
Hunter and equitation classes tend to follow a rather conservative dress pattern so shopping for looking the part is often more important than shopping for the newest fad.
This age group has fewer scenes with Mom but this is the age when they would rather go to the tack store with barn friends or the trainer – it can be a time when Mom sits out the shopping experience to leave some space for growing up. I had my own shopping buddies – other moms who were in a similar space. We made up our own trips, guessed what the girls might pick out and generally enjoyed ourselves. It was also our time to catch up, share kid stories and exchange parenting tips.
Young Adults
The third age is the young adult amateurs – confident, calm and back to inviting the parent along to shop. They are comfortable in their own skin and actually like shopping with Mom. They probably also like the credit card in your purse since this comes off your budget and not theirs. These young women seem to know the value of what they have and understand that they don’t need as much stuff as they thought they did a couple of years before. They even pick out things, try them on and say I don’t really need that – how long have we waited to hear that phrase?
Tack stores are an important place to communicate your values. Ask your daughter to set an example by being considerate to both the accompanying parent and the sales staff. Poor behavior towards the parent, the trainer or the sales clerk is not acceptable. Courtesy, respect and appreciation are expected in the tack store as well as the show ring.
Teachable Moments Abound
Some examples:
– Set a budget for the week of showing to demonstrate how to create a budget and live within it.
– Note rude behavior when you witness it in others and discuss it,
at a later time, with your child.
– Explain the history of equitation and why dark jacket colors are the norm. Helmets must fit correctly for safety reasons – not to protect our hair. Think of all the helpful conversations you can generate out of a shopping trip.
Watch and Listen
Shopping trips can be good opportunities to step back and really observe our children. What are their tastes? How do they process and think about purchases? What values do they display? I would take a moment to watch and listen to opinions expressed as well as actions taken. Is it a good time to have a discussion on how their behavior is received and how it could affect their future? All parenting seems to be about strategy and finding the right moments for those many small conversations that shape our children into adults.
In the tack store – let’s be savvy show moms with great kids.
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