I’m not for frivolous (sp?) lawsuits, but I kind of hope that some day the parent of a child who is molested by one of the pedophiles mentioned earlier sues the hell out of a major department store chain for only offering “slutty clothes” so they take that stuff off the racks. Why do designers and store buyers want to sexualise kids that young?
I don’t understand it either. It’s bizarre the way we’re treating our children as sex objects. Good luck finding good clothes–I’m wondering if we’ll see a backlash, or changes in fashion, or if it will continue. And can it possibly get worse?
Most of my friends do manage do dress their daughters like normal children, but it’s not easy. You spend a lot of time looking through stores, rejecting 85% of the stuff just on grounds of modesty. And little girls don’t get the concept of inappropriate clothing–they only see the sparkles and the twirliness of the skirts, so you have to say no a lot.
In general, the cheaper the store, the worse it is. Wal-mart is awful, Target and Mervyn’s mostly terrible, and Gottschalks’ merely bad. If you’re rich, you can order from Hanna Andersson as well as Lands’ End. I throw away the catalogs so I won’t want things I can’t have!
I agree with you 100%, but that’s a sig-worthy quote, right there.
Why the hell do the parents buy it? Seriously, if ever there was a time for people to learn how to sew, this is it!
True, but have you looked at fabric/pattern prices lately? It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to buy at Wal-mart, and most moms don’t have that much time or money–and they can’t sew anyway. (OK, I can and do sew, but I mean in general.) I may start a personal letter-writing campaign to stores, though. Anyone want to join me?
But I don’t think you can really sue clothing stores. You’d have to sue the whole culture, and parents really ought to know better anyway. Maybe most of them are just too tired, or don’t know better, I dunno.
OTOH I was just talking to a woman I know the other day, who gives sewing lessons to girls that go to our church (well, anyone, but all the ones I know are from church). It’s become so popular that she’s overwhelmed with girls who want to sew–they wear the stuff and look really cute, and stylin’ as well. I wonder if it will catch on?
As I re-read this, I thought of something. Is it possible the outfit she had on was a nightgown, rather than a dress? Maybe Dad said, “Let’s go get some donuts. Sure, just go in your jammies, it’s okay.”
And as others have said, he didn’t realize quite how skimpy or revealing it would be in the daylight?
Just a thought. I sometimes see kids out early in the morning and late at night in their pajamas.
I have a friend who at the age of 10 was wearing a 34-C cup and wasn’t finished developing yet. She’s a five foot ten inch Norweigian woman who finished with a daunting bosom. So…age is irrelevant. There are kids in my wife’s Grade 3-4-5- chorus with bosoms as large as hers and they’re in the fourth grade. That’s usually age 9 in the US.
Stop seeing sex everywhere? Sorry, but I will respectfully disagree with this. I have a 13 year old daughter. She’s a lovely child, the apple of my eye and has attained all of the usual accoutrement of most 13 year old girls. Hips. Boobs. Pubes. Attitude that could stop a batallion of battle-hardened Marines at 50 paces. The usual. She has been raised to understand that the coin of the realm in her kingdom does not need to be her body, or how men may or may not find her appealing. It’s 2005, media saturation and sexualization of everything makes this difficult but I try.
Her belly is NOT on display. If she puts on a shirt that appears to be showing more than a sliver of belly, I mention it to her- and she usually changes without argument. Therefore, we shop ( well, the wife shops with her… ) with an eye towards fitting in fashion-wise without giving away the store. These days it is rough. And yet, she wore shorts all summer and capris and not one pair of shorts was too short or tight.
It is possible to desexualize the appearance of a child you do not wish to be sexualized. Because you know what? When SHE is comfortable with her sexuality and wishes to present herself as appealing to others, then it’ll be my issue to struggle with. Right now, she is very modest and aware. Then again, she asked permission to wear a bikini this year for the first time. She chose a very not-revealing outfit, but she wanted to try wearing one and we were game.
I am glad my kids were little kids before this trend hit. I am grateful the teenage Fem-Bot is modest and aware of how she presents herself. I abhor the entire trend. And… I pity that little girl in the OP. I am sorry, but here ya go. It isn’t cause he’s a Dad and therefore somehow genetically stuuuuuuuuuuupid. It isn’t because he likes dressing his child like a slut. It is because it has become the acceptable method of presenting your children to the world. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs.
And yeah, thank god for Land’s End.
As a natural tangent and hijack to the OP, it is dismaying to see a young woman ( let’s say, 14-18 ) dressed in her skimpy sluttiest who catches my eye and then gives me the classic " what the fuck are YOU looking at ??? " stare.
You are angry because men look at your body parts that are blatantly on display because you put your body parts blatantly on display and men looked.
It’s called having a level of self-respect and self-awareness that is appropriate to the moment. My daughter just went off to Wildwood, NJ with her girlfriend and g.f.'s parents. She left an hour ago. --sniffle-- Off on a trip without me. Man. So, she will be sitting on the beach in her bikini. That’s her choice, it’s an appropriate bathing suit for the beach. As I said, a bit more modest than most. The rest of her clothing is normal, and not revealing. At 13 1/2, she has learned what is appropriate and what is not. For her. For her mindset and point of view, and sense of herself.
For those wimmin who are reading this who feel I’ve brainwashed her or robbed her of her sexuality, I’d ask you how you felt when 43 year old men were skeeving you out by ogling your bodies nonstop when you were 13…12…14…15…whatever.
The designers of clothing for non-beachwear have somehow crossed a serious boundary. Girls are women, therefore we should look. It’s not about being proud to be a woman, or not being ashamed of their bodies ( though I suspect this is the straw man that designers would throw out at critics ). It’s about sexuality when sexuality is appropriate, and childhood when childhood is appropriate.
I spent a lot of time with the kids when they were babies. Days and days, day and night. Such was my career at the time. Precious times. I shopped for their clothing frequently. ( More than I do now, actually ). I virtually never found my daughter underpants in a color other than white, but found the Man-Cub little briefs in all colors imaginable. But really…if the girl’s top and underpants had perfectly matched the color of the sheer outfit, the sheerness still would have revealed her underclothing. That’s the disturbing trend. You’re 14 and at a formal dance, and your dress is sheer and your slip covers everything below the dress and above the bra and panties? That happens alla time. But, to design an outfit to be so sheer, for a small girl to wear, smacks of issues that kind of go beyond whether or not Dad was on the ball when he dressed her or not.
It’s disheartening.
Upon reading through my post on Preview, an added comment. I feel like I sound remarkably controlling and prudish up there. My goal has always been to educate both kids, make them aware of themselves. For my daughter, I have spent a lot of time along the way teaching her to own herself. On all levels. This has produced an incredibly stubborn opinionated smart young gal. Wouldn’t have her any other way. It’s also given her the beginnings of the tools she will need as a woman on this planet. One day, she will indeed be an adult woman.
I’ve told her that’ll happen just after her 25th birthday. 
Cartooniverse
This raises another point. Just as Mom or Dad in the OP may now be clueless to as to what is appropriate for their little girl, they will likely remain clueless. My neice ( another apple in my eye ) is now 24. She came to visit once when she was…aaahhh…say, about 13. She was pretty much done with puberty, and endowed with a chest that required a G Cup bra. Yes. The letter G. I felt awful for the girl, she was completely incapable of handling the attentions of adult men. Anyway, my (now ex-) sister in law was a total nitwit. This child was crammed into bra’s she’d been wearing for over a year, when she’d been showing perhaps a B or C cup chest.
My wife took her bra shopping. The girl cried. She was So glad that she didn’t have to deal with such discomfort, such visually discomforting things as having your breasts squeezing out over your bra cup top, etc. I mean. My gosh. It’s her body. It’s hard to learn to negotiate your own body no matter what gender you are. And she didn’t even have decent underwear. -sigh- Parents do not serve the needs of their children by bein in denial. Their children become teens and young adults and then adults. It’s our job to guide them with love and care, and not put on blinders when things get too prickly for our mindsets, whatever they may be.
My neice didn’t wanna dress like a slut. God, she just wanted to wear a proper bra. Her mom couldn’t handle how womanly she’d become ( I am guessing ) and so wouldn’t take her shopping.
For some reason, my son and nephew ( more apples for my eye… 
) have escaped this trend entirely, as have all men. Except for men who still insist that we all have a deep-seated need to view their boxer shorts and so yank down their jeans in the back so that most of their boxershort-clad buttocks are on display.
Oye. I’m old.
I don’t think you sound controlling and prudish. I think you sound smart, and like a good parent. FWIW, coming from a person who says merciful heavens.
I’m not sure I like the precedent of “She was sexually abused because of the clothes she wore.” It;s a little beyond frivolous.
The only person responsible for the sexual abuse of anyone is the person who sexually abused her (or him). There’s no way to sever that liability. It’s all the rapist’s.
I have a little boy as do my closest friends. One is pregnant again with another boy, and we were shopping in the mall together looking at the little baby clothes. I saw an adorable little baby dress and remarked that some day, one of us needs to have a girl so we can all indulge in the cute little clothes. Then I turned around and saw the girl’s section and the tiny tops and skirts, and said ‘never mind.’
The other day I was at Target picking up some pictures and I saw a girl there who had just had photos taken at the portrait studio. She looked like Paris Hilton, makeup, hair, low-slung tight jeans and tiny top complete with distainful pout. She could not have been more than 12 or maybe 13. Her mother was a 40 year old version of same. (Mom might have been younger but over tanned skin made her look in her mid 40’s). I figure mom and daughter both picked 19 as the age they want to be and are hoping to meet in the middle.
My beautiful 18 year old niece was here in NJ visiting me this past half-week. I took her to the Mall at Short Hills. We made the fatal mistake of stopping in both Bebe and Guess!.
I wanted to ask the clerk at Guess! what they were paying her - since she could obviously only afford half of an outfit. The skirt she was wearing was a jeans skirt that was made to look like they had cut off a pair of jeans just about the crotch level. The white cotton pocket linings were hanging below the hem of the flos…skirt.
Who wears this crap? My niece is a healthy corn-fed Southern girl from Kentucky - thank God she couldn’t fit in any of it.
I’m no prude, but my God…it was frightening.
VCNJ~