Do you wear shorts all winter? For some, it’s a sign of growing up (2024)

Even with the wintry, rainy weather forecast in the Bay Area this week, my son Didi will stick to his usual attire: shorts.

Like the postman, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will prevent this 11-year-old from wearing his beloved baggy polypro shorts.

He’s become “that kid,” the one who wears shorts year-round. Maybe you remember someone like that or you were that person, who defiantly, gleefully wore shorts despite — or perhaps because of — protestations from parents about the dangers of catching a cold. You insisted that you weren’t cold despite the goose bumps and posed for pictures while sitting in snowbanks.

A search online reveals multiple articles about this phenomenon, including two satirical monologues in “McSweeney’s, titled “I’m the guy who wears shorts in the winter, and one day you will all bow before my bare weatherproof legs” and “I’m a middle school boy and I refuse to wear anything but basketball shorts in the winter.”

In an informal online poll I conducted on social media, people weighed in on a trend that dates back decades and into the present — not only in California or in mild climates, but also in places where it snows. The reasons for their choices included comfort, thinking it looked “cool” not feeling cold, and taking pride in not needing to wear pants (that is to say, pants are for wimps!)

Some grew out of the habit; others still persist into adulthood.

I’m fascinated by how wearing shorts can powerfully define someone. By contrast, wearing other elastic-waisted garb such as athleisure and soft pants isn’t viewed as particularly memorable. It was perhaps considered a tad slovenly, despite becoming extraordinarily common during the pandemic among those working from home.

Related styles among the younger set: wearing cotton tights or athletic tights beneath the shorts, or in Didi’s case, in the fifth grade, he’d wear track pants over his shorts and whip them off by afternoon. Now he’s dispensed with the intermediate step.

His twin brother, Gege, is the opposite: always in a sweatshirt and long pants. At bedtime, Gege slips into red flannel pajamas, while Didi is in cotton shorts, shirtless. Their perception of temperature runs at different speeds.

As parents, it’s fascinating to see how our boys’ personalities and preferences emerge through their attire. For as long as we can remember, Didi has claimed green as his favorite color, and Gege red, which has in turn influenced their choice of clothes. We thought it was innate.

Then I glanced at their first studio portrait, as infants: Didi wore a green-striped rugby shirt, and Gege a red-striped one. Did we set them down the path of who they would become, or would they have developed those tastes anyway?

Phyllis L. fa*gell, a therapist and author of “Middle School Matters,” told the Atlantic that children in late elementary and middle school don’t want to seem babyish — and for some kids, wearing shorts helps assert their independence.

That’s in contrast to the British aristocracy, royals and upper class, whose boys wear shorts until 8 years old — until graduating to long pants, according to etiquette experts. To do otherwise is considered suburban!

Our boys are suburban, through and through. Because the pandemic interrupted and constrained their childhood, I’m glad that wearing shorts gives Didi a chance to exercise his autonomy.

Didi swears it’s not a bid to get attention or to be contrarian. Indeed, his long, wavy hair, which he grew out during the pandemic, has come to define him more strongly. “I like being different,” he said. He’s not obsessed with being like everyone else, a lesson that will serve him through adolescence and beyond.