They’re asking: Where is that kid’s mother?

Is there anything in the world more precious than a smartly outfitted child sporting freshly pressed pants, polished sneakers and a look that is topped off with a crisp, neatly trimmed hairdo?

As everyone knows, behind every handsomely dressed child is a woman with fashion sense. Behind every baseball player in a bleached uniform is a gal who knows how to run the laundry, and behind every kid with slicked-down hair, parted neatly down the side, is a gal with a comb.

It reflects greatly on mothers such as myself. You see, wherever the children go, whatever they are doing, if their appearance is bad, people don’t look at them and inquire, “What was his father thinking?”

This is true even if the child is accompanied by the father and the father alone. Instead, the general population looks at a shabbily dressed youth in mismatched plaids and a polka-dotted shirt, and wonders out loud, “Where on earth is that child’s mother?”

To further complicate the matter, men don’t notice when a child is mismatched. It’s just not in their genetic code. They don’t notice dirty faces, runny noses, or little hands sporting enough filth to contaminate the Western Hemisphere. Rub some gum on a kid’s cheeks, roll him in the mud, walk him through a lumberyard, and women and men alike will look at him and ask one another, “What sort of mother ...?”

Which brings us to the case in point.

On a recent Friday night, our darling child, Lawrence, was asked to spend the night with a nice and upstanding family in the community, the sort of family everyone knows and people tend to look up to.

I’d packed Lawrence for the night with haste, I must admit that. But it’s hard for a woman to adorn the children in the middle of the Christmas season. I had bells to jingle, halls to deck, and I’ll be danged if that Christmas tree was going to rock around itself.

A better mother would have taken time to fashionably co-ordinate. She would have matched the socks with the shoes, opted for the name-brand sweatshirt, and when push came to shove, she would have taken the time to freshly press the family crest.

As for me, I impressed myself with my ability to remember clean socks and a toothbrush.

When the father, the head of the nice and upstanding family, called bright and early the next morning to see if I minded if Lawrence accompanied him and his son to breakfast, I responded with, “Shoot no! Have a good time.”

And when the happy father called an hour or so later to see if Lawrence might tag along on some errands that included a lumberyard and Wal-Mart, I never — not once for a second — thought to ask about Lawrence’s appearance. After all, I’d packed his clothes myself, hadn’t I?

Several other phone calls followed that included lunch at a busy restaurant, a basketball game that was well attended by the bulk of the state of Nebraska, and say, while we’re at it, “I think I’ll take the boys to an overcrowded movie.”

It goes without saying that most of the city’s population had been exposed to young Lawrence and thanks to the stop they made at the local feed store, so were some of the fine folks from up north.

I had no problem with it. In my mind, Lawrence was enjoying a fine day on the town while I stayed home listening to voices singing, “Let’s be jolly, deck the halls with boughs of holly.” In fact, I was fine until the moment that Lawrence walked into the door sporting an all-day sucker, uncombed hair, a dirty face and his younger brother’s four-sizes-too-small Jed Clampett pants. They were bright, tight and hit him mid-calf like a pair of badly fitted capris.

“Honey,” I exclaimed as he walked through the door, “what on earth are you wearing?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied between licks, “but I think you gave me little Charlie’s pants.”

Maybe no one saw him, I thought to myself, maybe he moved through crowds unnoticed, or better yet, perhaps everyone thought Lawrence was a member of the nice and upstanding family. Perhaps a third cousin from Hickville, twice removed.

When Lawrence walked away with a shrug and a smile, I noticed the back of his sweatshirt. Not just any sweatshirt, mind you, but his favorite sweatshirt. The one that fits nicely over T-shirts and jerseys, sports grass stains on the elbows like a badge of honor and has “CLINCH” printed proudly in bright bold letters across the back.

I suppose it could have been worse. Lawrence could have cared.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” Her e-mail address is clinch@atcjet.net.