Sartorially speaking, an infant is barely more than part of a parent’s outfit, like a handbag or a jacket. Put your baby in a little blue bubble smocked with yellow sun-shines, and you have a whimsical accessory for a day at the beach! As they get older, though, kids develop brains and personalities. That’s when—sigh, FINE—we have to start treating them like people.

Smocked clothing on a toddler, precious as it is, should express something true about the child wearing it. A farm-obsessed tot with wee green tractors and pink pigs across the gathered placket of his T-shirt? Magnificent! A preschooler with a seafood allergy wearing lobster-smocked gingham overalls? That’s either a dark inside joke or a thoughtless offense to the child’s selfhood.

Now consider a gaggle of fourth graders in elaborately smocked outfits. (See also: place-mat-sized lace collars; helicopter rotor hair bows.) Personally, I’m conflicted. On one hand, my God, the needlework! On the other…some nine-year-olds look more like twelve-year-olds, and preteens look mighty silly wearing elongated versions of what they wore when they were three.

My rule: When a kid starts to resemble less a soft, oval cherub and more a vertical being with a human skeleton, taper off the smocking. Start by limiting it to special occasions. Even a child who prefers sweatshirts can be taught that certain events—an Easter parade, say, or an uncle’s wedding—require a concession to tradition and artistry, a garment one might not wear to run errands or visit the zoo. (Although if one did wear it to the zoo, it would be smocked with monkeys eating bananas.)

If in doubt, pay attention the next time you’re browsing a local kids’ boutique. Notice how the adorably tiny smocked outfits make you feel all warm and fertile. Observe how that feeling fades as you thumb past the toddler rack and the sizes go up. When you get to the smocking that would fit a middle schooler, you know in your heart: That ain’t right. If it’s time for a bra, it’s also time to leave smocking behind.

My mother, she of the impeccable taste and astounding fine motor skills, hand smocked breathtaking dresses for me throughout my childhood. When I look back at family albums, I can pinpoint when my body stopped cooperating with her efforts. I see my angular, preteen limbs sticking out of a billowy, flutter-sleeved dress adorned with smocked daffodils, and I vaguely remember wanting a drop-waist getup from Limited Too instead.

Now that I am a mother whose children have grown up and left home, I realize my mom probably just wanted to keep me little for a while longer. Honestly, I wish I still had some of those beautiful things she smocked for me back when I was an extension of her. When I was someone’s baby. But we have to let go of babyhood at some point if we want to respect and enjoy the emerging person.

So if you’ve wrangled a ten-year-old into one last smocked outfit for a family photo to match her toddler siblings, okay. If you’ve considered smocking disco balls on a prom dress, put down the needle and slowly back away from the embroidery floss. It ends here.

Have a conundrum of your own? Email editorial@gardenandgun.com