Get dressed, head tells the pyjama mamas

So many women in Belfast take their children to and from school while still dressed in their pyjamas that a headmaster has appealed to them to show some respect.

Joe McGuinness, principal of St Matthew’s primary in Short Strand, a Roman Catholic working-class enclave of East Belfast, was moved to action after seeing as many as 50 mothers arriving at the school gates in their nightwear.

In a bulletin to parents, Mr McGuinness wrote: “Over recent months the number of adults leaving children at school and collecting children from school dressed in pyjamas has risen considerably.



“While it is not my position to insist on what people wear, or don’t, I feel that arriving at the school in pyjamas is disrespectful to the school and a bad example is set to children.”

The women are colloquially known as “pyjama mamas” or “Millies”. Their pyjama ensembles are often complemented by large, gold hoop earrings known as “budgies” – because such cage birds could swing from them. They also sport “scrunchies” to create the “Turf Lodge facelift”, in which the hair is scraped so tightly to the back of the head that it pulls the facial skin taut.

There is even a dress hierarchy among those suffering from APDS: the wearing of silk-effect, baggy pyjamas with fluffy, mule-type slippers contrasts, for example, with the traditional dressing gown and hair rollers.