Babies in Spain are F-A-A-A-A-N-C-Y. Girls wear pearls from day one. Boys are dressed in dresses, bows, flowers and ruffles until they’re thirty years old months old. Clothing is fancy. Strollers are fancy. Crib bedding is fancy. They even wear baby perfume on a daily basis. My baby is half-American (thanks to my XX chromosomes) and she therefore can wear hand-me-down sweats from her American cousin half of the time. And she does. My baby, however, is also half-Spanish (thanks to her father’s XY chromosomes) and she therefore must be fancy at least half of the time (especially when we will be seeing her Spanish grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins or friends with babies around the neighborhood).

Yesterday she attended the 1st-birthday party of her boyfriend, in her fancy birthday party dress (this dress cost as much as an Alexander Wang T tee-shirt, or an entire adult woman outfit from Zara…good thing it was a gift!). In Spain, (maybe in America, too?) groups of siblings wear the same clothing, or at least clothing from the same line. This may make things easy on the parents (go to one store, buy the same outfit in 3 –enter number of children from same family– sizes), but does it affect the individuality of each child?

If you have kids, how do you dress them? How do you shop for them? Do you think their early fashion has any affect on them later? If you have half-nationality children like me, do you feel obligated to dress them per country-of-residence standards?