In 2009-10, about 57 percent of public school principals reported that their schools enforced a dress code.

Some rules are intended to promote modesty, others to encourage a respectful learning environment.

But if the school doesn’t require a certain length for shorts, it’s left to parents to decide whether, and how, to ensure that their children leave the house dressed for school, not for a beach party.

When I posted this as last week’s parental quandary, mothers, fathers, non-parents and grandparents all responded with what seemed like one voice, arguing that the fact that I would even ask, “Should parents impose a dress code?” just proves that many parents (that would be, of course, “other” parents) are too lax.

“Parents have already punted too many of their parenting responsibilities to schools,” wrote Trixie in a popular comment. “Teaching is hard enough.”

Amid all those who felt the question was an obvious one, particularly for those who buy the clothes, a few parents admitted conceding this battle.

As the week went on, more and more presented arguments for letting children make their own mistakes in this regard.

Children trade or alter clothing; they wear it in situations for which it wasn’t intended (a sports bra under a “pinnie”: perfect for lacrosse, less so in the classroom). Parental control is more limited than it appears.

Josh Hill wrote, “Teens have to learn to make choices for themselves.”

Parents should focus on teaching children that those choices have consequences. Some opportunities may go to the student not sporting a “my favorite subjects are lunch and recess” T-shirt. Better to learn that now than at a job interview.

Still, most parents, and even most adults, don’t see dressing appropriately for a given situation as something a teenager should need to learn through experience.

Why not just save your daughter from the uncomfortable leers of construction workers, or your son from being followed around a store by security?

We know clothing communicates; we’re the adults to whom, in part, it speaks.

Why not translate that language for our children not just through words, but through rules? Reality dictates that hoodies work rather better for the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world than for most.

As sensible as that argument seems, “sensible” is the watchword of relatively few teenagers.

With so many parents who insist that they’ve successfully set limits on their children’s attire — comments here, at least, ran overwhelmingly in favor of the parental dress code — why aren’t school hallways a model of sartorial decorum? Why were students at Stuyvesant High School protesting their (reasonable-sounding) dress code with “Slutty Wednesday,” as happened there last spring?

I should say that I’m as judgmental of the wardrobes of high school students as anyone (with a clear distaste for any pants with printing across the seat).

I share the woes of all those who point out that it often feels affirmatively difficult to buy a young girl clothes that don’t suggest Lindsay Lohan on a bad day — and yet, clearly, this question isn’t quite as easy as it appears.

Maybe the question shouldn’t have been, “Should parents impose a dress code?” but what should that dress code be, how is it enforced in your family, and what, if anything, happens to the teenager who doesn’t conform?

Contact KJ Dell-Antonia at:

kj.dellantonia@nytimes.com

 

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