Family objections to wearing your kilt

[Detroitpete]

Ok Lads, I can't believe this happend to ME! I was recently at a family reunion and a family member--ok an in-law called me SKIRT-BOY! Ok, my family has been the sad witness to 40+ years of me dancing on the high-wire of insanity. When a few years ago at a whopping 170 lbs. I decided to compete in Scottish Heavy Athletics they said, "Hmmmph, figures"--and with my penchant for family history, wearing kilts was also a no brainer...

So we were sitting around the fire and made what was probably his 5th SKIRT BOY comment, I said" So you think wearing a kilt makes me LESS of a man...aren't you the guy who drove here in a VOLVO?!"

To that the family erupted in laughter. I think this is just going to be some good natured ribbing between he and I, but now I have to brush up on my comebacks and have them at the ready

[Tony Miles]

" So you think wearing a kilt makes me LESS of a man...aren't you the guy who drove here in a VOLVO?!"

[Tony Miles]

oops double post

[Rob Wright]

Ok Lads, I can't believe this happend to ME! I was recently at a family reunion and a family member--ok an in-law called me SKIRT-BOY! Ok, my family has been the sad witness to 40+ years of

There was a family from Germany stationed at Holloman who were very good friends with my family. Their oldest daughter called me skirt boy and she was very proud of that. So proud that if anyone else even dared to call me skirt boy she ripped into them hard. I was her skirt boy and no one elses . It was always a treat to watch that nine year old girl just rip into someone and correct them about my kilts .

Rob

[ForresterModern]

Last weekend I had to make an urgent two day one night long distance drive from Louisville to Staunton, VA, for the funeral of my closest first cousin who died of colon cancer (2 years younger than me and like my little sister, practically). Wife and boy did not make the trip due to its distance and the limited time I had in which to make it. (Sorry, Mac o Rath that I did not get in contact while there but it was an overnite trip and strictly family time for the whole 20 hours I was there). Anyway, I did the drive both ways kilted and any non funereal related time in my recently acquired handsewn tank in one of the family tartans, as I wanted to be comfortable on the drive (I was extremely so) and becasue my parents in particular wanted to see me in one of my kilts. Unfortunatley my smart-a$$ brother, who seems to be in constant competition with the rest of the family and the world for attention and praise (and has so for nearly all his 52 year old life), had to start making the skirt comments right off the bat, which happily most everyone else including me just ignored. I guess his funniest was the morning of the funeral when I was checking out of the hotel in my suit and tie (I did NOT attend the funeral events in my kilt as that would have detracted from the attention being appropriately centered on my cousin) so I was carrying it on a kilthanger to the car when my brother had to get in his biggest dinger---"hey brother, I think you are supposed to leave the curtains behind when you check out of a hotel". Got a chuckle from my brother in law standing nearby, and honestly from me as well, purely for the inventiveness of the comment (better than the usual skirt comments). I had to leave right after the funeral so I changed back into the kilt and golf shirt after the lunch and was ready for the drive back home, saying my goodbyes to all the family members I do not see anymore except at funerals and weddings. Got lots of looks from my father's generation but no ill comments, my mom and dad loved it (my dad loves that I am doing the family history tracing part of our heritage along with him, one grave marker at a time), my generation of siblings and cousins were all pretty nonchalant about the whole thing but did do a great job with my nieces and nephews and cousins in the generation behind, explaining what a kilt was and wy I was wearing it. All in all went I guess as expected. Pop took photos of me in the kilt, which he loved but would never wear himself. I cannot even get him to wear a flatcap in our family tartan---says he is just not a hat person.
So, save for one smarta$$ brother, who would have dinged me verbally for something else if I had not been kilted anyway, my only true problems remain with my wife, for reasons stated in an earlier post on this thread.

I sense more family events kilted in the future. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

[Spartan]

Last weekend I had to make an urgent two day one night long distance drive from Louisville to Staunton, VA, for the funeral of my closest first cousin who died of colon cancer (2 years younger than me and like my little sister, practically). Wife and boy did not make the trip due to its distance and the limited time I had in which to make it. (Sorry, Mac o Rath that I did not get in contact while there but it was an overnite trip and strictly family time for the whole 20 hours I was there). Anyway, I did the drive both ways kilted and any non funereal related time in my recently acquired handsewn tank in one of the family tartans, as I wanted to be comfortable on the drive (I was extremely so) and becasue my parents in particular wanted to see me in one of my kilts. Unfortunatley my smart-a$$ brother, who seems to be in constant competition with the rest of the family and the world for attention and praise (and has so for nearly all his 52 year old life), had to start making the skirt comments right off the bat, which happily most everyone else including me just ignored. I guess his funniest was the morning of the funeral when I was checking out of the hotel in my suit and tie (I did NOT attend the funeral events in my kilt as that would have detracted from the attention being appropriately centered on my cousin) so I was carrying it on a kilthanger to the car when my brother had to get in his biggest dinger---"hey brother, I think you are supposed to leave the curtains behind when you check out of a hotel". Got a chuckle from my brother in law standing nearby, and honestly from me as well, purely for the inventiveness of the comment (better than the usual skirt comments). I had to leave right after the funeral so I changed back into the kilt and golf shirt after the lunch and was ready for the drive back home, saying my goodbyes to all the family members I do not see anymore except at funerals and weddings. Got lots of looks from my father's generation but no ill comments, my mom and dad loved it (my dad loves that I am doing the family history tracing part of our heritage along with him, one grave marker at a time), my generation of siblings and cousins were all pretty nonchalant about the whole thing but did do a great job with my nieces and nephews and cousins in the generation behind, explaining what a kilt was and wy I was wearing it. All in all went I guess as expected. Pop took photos of me in the kilt, which he loved but would never wear himself. I cannot even get him to wear a flatcap in our family tartan---says he is just not a hat person.
So, save for one smarta$$ brother, who would have dinged me verbally for something else if I had not been kilted anyway, my only true problems remain with my wife, for reasons stated in an earlier post on this thread.

I sense more family events kilted in the future. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

The best way, IMO, to deal with your narcissistic brother is to do what happened is to do exactly what happened -- ignore the comments.

Ignore the ignorance.

[ForresterModern]

The best way, IMO, to deal with your narcissistic brother is to do what happened is to do exactly what happened -- ignore the comments.

Ignore the ignorance.

I have two older brothers, the eldest a successful pharmacist in the wholesale pharmacy business. The second is the problematic one (typical second child inferiority complex) but probably the brightest one in the family, just never put it to good use. As the third I got picked on, predominantly by number two, as an easy outlet for his frustrations as the second son, initially physically, then when I got bigger than him, verbally. He always has to have something about me to pick on--weight, losing my hair, my dress, my spouse, my car, my work, and now my kilts. After 45 years it has become easy to let the "water roll off the ducks back", although sometime I feel I am only feeding his disorder by not standing up for myself----in essence teaching him it is okay to pick on my by letting him do it, nearly always in family settings. Good thing is that that is the only time we ever see each other or communicate. One day their will be a comeuppance, when the time is right.

[2176agp]

I hadn't really considered wearing a kilt until my wife saw a guy wearing a UK with his girlfriend at the grocery store she works at. One thing lead to another and kilt #1 arrived.

On the other hand, my first wife NEVER would have gone for it. She even hated the fact that I had long hair!

While the rest of my family (M & P) haven't seen me in it, I know they'd freak. My sister is cool about it to. My wife's family, my in-laws as it were, will be cool about it too. But then, they're from British Columbia, and don't get much better than that.

Tony

[Barclay]

---"hey brother, I think you are supposed to leave the curtains behind when you check out of a hotel".

Sorry, but that is really funny. He may be acting like a donkey, but he gets *** for that one.

You know you have a true tank when you carry it out if a hotel and are accused of stealing the curtains!

[Barclay]

Nobody from either side of my family has any particular problems - of course, I'm a combo of Scots-American and Scots-Canadian. My mom had us in kilts as wee bairns, so we grew up with and around it. Oddly, at my mother's funeral, though, we were all to be kilted and at the last minute my father requested that we all go in more "suitable" attire. It was only later that he said he wanted the attention on my mom, not on us. I can see and respect his point. In leiu of "dressing out", as my mom called it, at her memorial, we will when we scatter or bury her cremains.

As for the shaving of legs, I know a few rugby players that shave arms and legs as it helps minimize fiction burns (strawberries) on the pitch. You can discuss your percieved issues regarding their masculinity with them yourself.