Ok, but showing a difference in national teenage pregnancy statistics isn’t necessarily indicative of the welfare of children either.
Good point. Do you know, the guys who live and work around here always seem to have time for a coffee or smoke break outside at just after 3:00 Monday through Friday? Oh, wait, except for Martin Luther King day or Columbus Day or other school holidays. Gee, I wonder why that is?
Look, adolescent girls are attractive and sexy. Whatever they wear, by definition, becomes attractive and sexy. If we put them in plaid skirts down to the knee and button up shirts with sweaters, then plaid skirts to the knee with button up shirts and sweaters becomes sexy.
I don’t like extending this downward in age - I don’t like teen fashions on pre-adolescents, but someone is always going to push the envelope and her boundaries with her parents.
And for the actual pedophiles, it doesn’t matter what a 6 year old is wearing. Again, by definition, it’s sexy. For the rest of us, it doesn’t matter what a 6 year old is wearing - by definition, it’s NOT sexy, it’s ridiculous. Do you really think a normal person is going to get turned on by a 6 year old in a glitter skirt and tube top?
Surely there are real problems out there worth tackling, aren’t there?
You would be horrified by certain people I know, who dress their 3-year-old in elaborate gowns and apply very heavy makeup to her face, including bright red lipstick. Only for special events, of course–like family parties. They make her look as much like a miniature woman as humanly possible. And Christmas gifts like black lace panties for the 7-8 year old set is not unheard of.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that children dressing provocatively encourages pedophilia. I don’t see how that is any more valid than saying women dressing provocatively encourage rape.
However, I am in complete agreement that children become sexualized at an increasingly younger age and it is probably not very healthy. If they view their bodies as a sexual object long before they start puberty, I think there is a potential for serious boundary issues.
But legislating clothing for children? Not on board with that. And hairstyles and jewelry? There is nothing inherently provocative about jewelry or hair styling. The idea of passing a law strikes me as very silly.
I do think that children are becoming sexualized at younger and younger ages, and it is harmful to them. There are a lot of young girls who learn to act in a way that mimics an older sexual sophistication that they do not actually have–they develop a veneer of sexual maturity. AFAICT that’s not a healthy way to grow, and it can easily lead to real sexual activity before a kid is ready for it.
I don’t like ‘sexy’ clothes for 6yos because I think that encourages that trend of sexualizing kids. (Just like Bratz.) Although we *shouldn’t *look at a 6yo in a short ruffly skirt and see sexual sophistication, the fact is that our society encourages us to. Look, for example, at styles from 50+ years ago; little girls routinely wore skirts that barely covered their bottoms, and it was considered childish and cute and innocent. A skirt that length no longer symbolizes innocence and childhood, so little girls wearing very short skirts are subjected to a completely different symbolism–and I think that it affects them eventually.
So yes, I do think it’s worth worrying about. Although obviously it’s not a matter for the law.
I loved the TV ad a few years ago - I think it was for a department store - in which a little girl steps in front of her dad and the football game on TV to show off her rather slinky outfit. She says, with air quotes, “Dad, do you think this look is too ‘third grade’?”
The look on the dad’s face was priceless. 
“Let children be children.” I thought playing dress-up WAS being children.
Oh, I agree. When I said “Surely there are real problems out there worth tackling, aren’t there?” I meant through legislation. Bad on me for not being more clear. Yes, I do think individual parents ought to be more willing to say “no way” to tramps for tots.
That’s a good point. Although babydoll dresses that are very short but innocent looking up top still seem to symbolize cuteness/innocence, even when older women wear them.
No worries Guinasta but in case anyone else has any doubts about me I was actually cycling along a dual pedestrian/cycle path and if I hadn’t had seen them I would have run them over.
Personally I think Kiddy Fiddlers should be executed as I dont think that they ever change their ways.
Apart from anything else I just think its a shame that kids cant enjoy their childhood nowadays but instead seem to be pressured from all sides to be “pretend adults”.
Childhood is so short and they have years and years to do the Grown Up thing.
I think in part I’m motivated by a young school girlcalled Minnie Driver who disappeared a few years ago on her way home from school and who has never been seen since.
Though only a kid she habitually wore Micro skirts apparently with her parents blessing.
I cant help thinking that she might be alive today if she had dressed soberly,but that is something we’ll probably never know.
To answer points by some other posters I believe that the U.K has the highest number of underage pregnancies in Europe.
My understanding of the word “Pikey” is not a term used to describe Gypsies but non Romanys who live in their vehicles and travel around.
As I’ve said before I’m not puritanical by nature I love sex myself but I do feel very strongly that our children have more protection then they do now.
When they become adults let them do what they like and good luck to them.
I just feel like this is a really dangerous slippery slope to go down. I mean, yeah, you can say this, but where does it lead? A woman who wears a tube top and miniskirt–is she any less more to be a victim? What if she’s wearing jeans instead of a tube top? I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere, but I don’t think the problem has anything to do with what the victims of crime are wearing, but rather with how we think about crimes of rape/murder.
I’m going to say something that’s going to sound like a disagreement but isn’t, really. Bear with me.
This IS how children enjoy their childhood. They like to dress up in pretty things, and I don’t really see anything wrong with that. When my daughter gets old enough to play “Hannah Montana” or whatever is in fashion when she gets there, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I don’t see why, in the privacy of our own home, wearing glittery shorts and tube tops is any less fun than wearing a tiara and pretending to be a Queen or a green cape and being a Tyrannosaurus Rex or wearing mom’s old leather vest and being a Hippie. All of them are dress up make believe fun childlike things to do.
BUT, that’s at home. That’s as part of pretend play. Here’s where I spin it around into agreement: you didn’t see these girls at home. You didn’t see them pretending to be anything. And I agree that a child’s actual identity, and actual clothing - as opposed to costumes - should be something that says pretty unambigiously CHILD. If for no other reason, so they don’t have to deal with sexual advances by those who are bad at guessing ages.
But the second you get into legislation territory, then you start making it the girl’s fault if she’s dressed “inappropriately” and is harassed or assaulted. And I’m not willing to go there.
True, although I didn’t expect the discussion of the statistics to be quite this in-depth! It’s distracting from the main issue I had with your earlier post: “Bottom line, children this young dressing and acting this way is harmful to them.” While it may be true that there’s a relatively high incidence of some harmful behaviour among British kids, it doesn’t automatically follow that their clothing is causing it.
Going off on a tangent slightly, but its one of those words which has various overlapping meanings, depending on context. Sometimes exactly what you describe, sometimes meaning all travellers of any ethnicity, as the verb ‘to pikey’ (opportunistic theft), and so on.
Not automatically in a ‘if you wear this bracelet you’ll be hooked on crank and knocked up by 16’ kind of way, but when a correlation between clothing and attitude is strong don’t tell me there’s no proof of causation.
Would you let your 12 year old daughter go out dressed like a hooker?
No, correlation is not proof of causation.
And that’s a thoroughly disingenuous question - are we talking about kids dressing and acting older than they are, or kids dressing up as sex workers? You can’t object to one simply by describing the other.
For many children they are the same. The OP wasn’t talking about a young girl dressed in a buisness suit so lets cut the crap.
‘They are the same’? 
Are you really saying that there’s no difference between attempting to emulate the way a typical young woman dresses for a night out (which is the OP’s description) and attempting to emulate the appearance of a stereotypical prostitute?
Some of the philosophy I see expressed here sure will put a crimp in next Halloween.
Well I wasn’t really thinking along the lines of enforcing my sartorial standards by definitive legislation as in the “2008 forbidding children to wear low cut tops and padded brassieres act” but more along the lines of child cruelty/neglect guide lines that Social Services are supposed to operate under.
When it comes to sartorial elegance,when my generation were post school teenagers we basically dressed like CoCo the clown under the impression that we were well hip.
Block heels,huge collars,flared trousers with TURNUPS!All nicely set off by our acne.
If you ever want to blackmail an Englishman of my generation just get your hands on some pictures of him when he was 17,(mothers are disturbingly helpfull on this score)and he’ll obey your every whim in return for your silence.
But I digress.
If you see kids wandering around on their own in the early hours of the morning or drunk or whatever then its parental neglect.
I’ll grant you that children dressing in a sexually provocative fashion is not as serious as that but it all comes under the same ambit.
In England not too long ago kids did not dress the same way as grownups,there was and still isn’t any genuine need to.
There wasnt any bullying because so and so didn’t have the right designer lable polo shirt,or kids getting traumatised because they were wearing something that was SO last year.
Poorer parents didn’t have to make serious sacrifices so that they could afford to pay for this months trendy trainers(which the kids are going to grow out of in no time at all and it is so uncool to wear hand me downs so when the fashion changes the hard earned shoes are binned)
Also kids didn’t get mugged for top of the range designer gear by other kids or have their stuff deliberately ruined by those children who were bigger,poorer and envious.
But this all changed when some seriously switched on ad men and clothing manufacturers targeted children and their gullible not incredibly mature parents
into treating their offspring as glorified dolls.
And then the sensible parents were forced to follow suit because of child peer pressure.
Planned obsolescence aint in it.
Children wearing makeup?their skin doesn’t need it,their childrens lifestyle doesn’t need it and I would guess that it is actually bad for their skin over a period of years.
Personally I think that we are too fond of giving our kids what they think they want rather then what they actually need.
A few noes now and again would probably equip them for life much more then the large number of yesses or weeeel alright then that so many parents feel that they have to make or else their kids wont love them.
As for me being a nobody,then perhaps I am .
I’m not a pop singer or a soap actor or someone who entertains the public by playing at sports ,but get enough of us nobodys together and we elect the somebodies to hopefully implement our wishes.
I was born working class on a very rough,crime ridden Council estate in England and although I earn a reasonable wage despite the rapacity of the Inland Revenue,am still working class,living in a working class area,indeed,some of my best friends are working class
(That was a JOKE before anyone jumps in) and have found that chav,ned and pikey (dont know charver)are terms used mostly by working class people and in the DEROGOTARY sense though some of my mates actually describe themselves as neds or townies.
So I wouldn’t worry about defending us poor old British working class from having our feelings hurt by those nasty middle class bullies.
We can actually look after ourselves and the chavs,neds and pikeys,leastways the ones I come into contact with wont have their feelings hurt because literacy not being their strong point(which would have to have involved some sort of effort while they were at school) they probably wouldn’t be able to actually read those words that you consider insulting and are PROUD of being known as chavs.(Dont know about Pikeys)
Cant vouch for the opinions on the other side of the Irish sea which guessing from your name is where you are/come from.
I think that’s moving into an entirely different area, where you’ll find far less disagreement.
How long ago are you taking us back here, to the magical time when one’s appearance did not matter to one’s peers?