These are some interesting questions... While I would never dress my 2-year-old in any such clothing, my wife and I do tell our families and the folks at his school that he is vegetarian and expect them to respect our choice. So I guess we do use our son as a vessel for our own ethical choices, and fairly blatantly so...

I think Penny is right: you can't get away from projecting your ideas onto your children. But when you dress them up in shirts like the ones discussed in the post, you take that added step of literally spelling out your ideas to the world. I don't think I would ever take that step, not even to put on my son an anti-animal-cruelty t-shirt.

Around here it's a sort of fad to put babies in t-shirts or creepers of punk or heavy metal bands -- The Ramones, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and so on. My sister is expecting a baby due in February and she's already gotten a Manowar tee. No, we still don't know if the baby will be a boy or a girl, it's funny either way XD

Um, my kids had better turn out to be feminists. Not wanting your kids to be a feminist is like wanting your kids to grow up racist. "What! They can make their own choices. They hate black people, I have to support them!" Um...nope!

Also, I've always found that "Homeland Security" shirt super offensive. I didn't know it was theoretically "lefty." Um, using the genocide of the aboriginal Americans as as punchline? Really?

Yeah, I'm with you Mordicai--I don't like the Homeland Security shirt either.

"you take that added step of literally spelling out your ideas to the world" Absolutely. And I spell them out to my kids too: we're a family with certain values and experiences. Not feeling too bad about clarifying that. It's no secret to anyone that I'm a feminist. Why shouldn't that be reflected in how I dress my kids?

I'm not sure I would actively go out and buy the political T-shirts, but if I was a new mother and someone gave me the "Future Feminist" one... I'd probably use it. There's no way I'd expect my children NOT to be feminists, and clean clothing is clean clothing where babies are concerned. After all, expressing the hope that your children will be feminists doesn't express any rigid expectations about the other things they'll do with their lives (as in the famous "This is what a feminist looks like" T-shirts.)

I've seen criticism of baby rock-band T-shirts on the grounds that the choice is about the parents wanting to look hip, not about the baby. That seems a bit silly; as Penny says, the baby doesn't know it's wearing a band shirt, and since baby clothing is largely going to conform to the parents' taste anyway, how is this any worse?

"clean clothing is clean clothing where babies are concerned"

Amen to that. And if it fits too, bonus.

About the band t-shirts--my understanding is that the coolest ones are handmade, refashioned from mom and dad's old shirts--which is sweet, because it's recycling something you already own, and because it's usually something meaningful to the parents. They also have that super-soft old T-shirt feel that you can't easily replicate by shopping, perfect for a baby's skin.

Metal band t-shirts of any vintage also, often, have the virtue of being black, which hides pretty much any kind of stain imaginable. And a few you never expected. (They do showcase carpet lint, though.)

... and have all seen the creepy video of the young kids trained to sing the Obama song??? Unreal and spooky.

Mordecai, I have three daughters and I don't want them to become Feminists. I want them to be strong, independent women who work hard and get what they want.
To burden them with psuedo-academic Feminist theory is like saying you want your kid to be a hardcore Marxist or a Trotskyite.
How about being a 'person' instead?

I don't put my kid in clothing that presumes something about his future beliefs or activities. We don't even have shirts with "baseball" on them.

I've always disliked it when parents superimpose their beliefs onto their children, so no, I don't think I would buy these clothes. I realize it's difficult if not impossible to NOT hope that your child grows up to embrace your values, but since they are independent beings, I don't see that putting words in their mouths is a positive thing.

On a somewhat related note, it drives me crazy when new parents send notes that read as though they were dictated by the infant. Can't you just say little Madison looks darling in her jumper and is drooling on it even as you write the note?

I don't typically like baby clothes with written messages on them, but I did buy him a handmade onesie that read "Builder of a new society," which I thought expressed more of a message of hope rather than a particular agenda. I'll encourage him to think independently, but I have to say I'm with mordicai and Kirsten on expecting my son to be a feminist-- that is, anti-sexist. Just as I expect him to be anti-racist. I suppose he might end up rejecting my values and becoming sexist or racist, but I won't support it.

Abby, that seems fine. But no where in the world is the term Feminist equivalent with anti-Sexist. They are two completely different things.

So if, we are just simply making up new meaning for words, I too want my daughters to Feminists*

*my invented definition of this word is: "happy".

I love the Homeland Security shirt, and a few of my friends have (and wear) one, even to the airport. I still wouldn't use it or any shirt to turn my kids into billboards, unless someone actually paid me to dress them in shirts with commercial messages (making them into literal billboards would help offset the cost of raising them). ;)

I'm not sure everyone 'gets' the Homeland Security shirt though; it's not using "genocide of the aboriginal Americans as a punchline," at least not in the estimation of my friends and I. For what it's worth, it was a popular shirt at a wilderness survival school I went to that taught primarily native American survival skills.

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like now if the (ab)original Dept. of Homeland Security had actually managed to repel the first wave of terrorists that landed on our shores... and make no mistake; they were real terrorists who did not hesitate to use a bio-weapon (smallpox blankets) in addition to conventional means to kill vast numbers of human beings.

"since baby clothing is largely going to conform to the parents’ taste anyway, how is this any worse?"
Indeed. A parent buying a yellow item of baby clothing because their favourite colour is yellow seems pretty similar to a Feminist buying baby clothes with Feminist slogan on, for example, in my view. It's not like a baby can choose it's own clothes, anyway.

And Bob, I was raised vegetarian.. and still am. I would raise my own children that way too until they're mature enough to make an informed decision. I think describing it as 'using your son as a vessel' is a bit harsh. No one questions a family who follow a certain religion if they raise their children as part of said religion, do they?
Well yes actually.. I do, for a start! But then again I think religion is far more destructive towards people than vegetarianism, but I'm really straying off topic now. My apologies!

The only t-shirt of this type that I've been tempted to get for my son is this one:

http://store.theonion.com/i-support-my-parents-political-beliefs-p-136.html