Greetings from Upstate New York!

I have always been enamored with kilts, and always thought they looked good, but I never thought I would have the chutzpah to wear one. I also was a bit skittish about wearing a kilt while having no discernible Scottish heritage, as I felt that I might be doing a disservice to a historical and storied manner of national dress (I know now that one does not need to be Scottish to wear a kilt). However, having recently retired from the US Army and having quite a bit of time on my hands, I decided to research and chart my family history. As it turns out, I am a mix of Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish, and German, and I can trace my genealogy back to being from a sept of the Farquharson Clan.

After reading a voluminous amount of information on this forum, I decided to 'take the plunge' and buy myself a kilt for my birthday. I ended up getting a modern utility kilt to give myself a chance to 'dip my toe in the water', as it were. Plus, I don't really have the money right now to get a custom-made kilt in the Farquharson tartan. When my kilt arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas, and I couldn't wait to wear it. I put it on, but wore it very casually, with thick socks, boots, a belt and a nice button-down short sleeve shirt, and it looked good and felt great! I never wanted to wear pants again! My wife loved it, thought I looked great in it, and of course wanted to know what was under it. My 14 year-old daughter, however, though I looked ridiculous, and started in with the skirt jokes and the 'girly-man' comments.

While being somewhat self-conscious about wearing it out in public, as I live in a very small, very conservative farming community, I decided nevertheless that I would wear it that evening while walking the dog with my wife. Sure, I got some strange looks, and I even had a few kids outright double over in laughter over it, but whatever; I've got pretty thick skin. Upon returning home, my daughter was livid. She said that she had gotten messages from her friends that they had seen me wearing a 'skirt' out in public, and that they were teasing her about having a father would wore 'women's' clothing. I tried to explain to her that a kilt is a masculine piece of attire, and I also explained the history of it, but she did not want to hear any of it. So, I decided that in order to protect her from an onslaught of teasing and bullying from her peers, that I would only wear my kilt(s) at home or to more 'kilt-friendly' venues (like the Scottish Games that I will be visiting next week). This was somewhat crushing for me, as I was looking forward to wearing a kilt out-and-about more often, but I didn't want my daughter to suffer at the hands of her peers for it.

Now, even though I only wear my kilt while at home or working in my yard, my daughter still berates me with mean comments, and begs me not to wear it. While I said earlier that I have pretty thick skin, her constant comments are wearing heavily on me, and quite frankly are making me want to hang my kilt up for good. I know that I could probably tell her to stop commenting on it or punish her for being unruly, but I don't think that is the right way to go. It's a shame, because I really enjoy the freedom of the kilt. Has anyone else had a problem like this? I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Apologies that this post is so long.