Alison Godfrey, News.com.au

CJ is once again wearing “no pants”. He’s got a red Thomas the Tank Engine shirt on under a red Spiderman hoodie. But on the bottom he has his blue stripped speedos (ready for swimming lessons). I tell him that he must wear trousers. After protesting, he gives in, but insists they must be tracksuit pants - not the funky grey cords with a motorbike patch that I have picked out. I explain that all his tracksuit pants are in the wash, but he doesn’t believe me. He hunts through his drawers and finally finds a pair I had forgotten about. They are red. So that’s a red shirt, red trousers, red jacket. I’m not impressed and try to tell him that you really shouldn’t wear one colour all over. But then his dad steps in. He tells CJ, of course you can wear red trousers, “they match, CJ” he says.

Beaming from his win over mum, he pulls on the tracksuit pants and parades around the house. I shouldn’t be surprised. Dad often does some very dubious dressing. His outfits always make me laugh.

Last week I picked CJ up from preschool and noticed he was wearing red tracksuit pants with a bright yellow T-shirt, a blue hoodie that is a little bit too small and bright green socks. He honestly looked like the rainbow serpent threw up on him.

I talked to a few of my girlfriends about the “dressed by dad” phenomenon. They all said the same thing. Dads pick out hilarious outfits.

Over the last few months I have seen CJ resemble a tree (brown trousers and green shirt), a McDonalds chip packet (all red and yellow) and an upside down traffic light (red pants, orange shirt, green jumper). One of my girlfriends reminded me today that my husband used to send CJ to preschool looking like an old man in socks and sandals with tracksuit pants.

While it drives me to distraction, my husband quite correctly states: “hey, at least he is dressed”. Yes, that’s true. But I just wish he didn’t look so ridiculous so often.

Strangely my husband always manages to have Amelie looking good. When I asked him why he said: “girls are easy, you just put pink on pink and it will always be right”.

Still it could be worse than dressed by dad. Loads of kids I know insist on dressing themselves.

One of CJ’s friends very regularly insists on wearing two different socks and having his shirt on backwards.

His awesome mum just laughs and says “there’s nothing I can do.” I told her she is absolutely right and luckily her son is very popular, “Just wait, soon all the children at preschool will be insisting on wearing their shirts backwards to be as cool as him,” I said.

But what do you think? Does the dad in your life pick out good or bad outfits? Tell us the worst you have seen.