Ok, this is premature, because my daughter is only 3 months old.
However, when she is 6 and I won’t let her don Bratz chic, and the questions of ‘whyyyyyyyyyyyy?’ rears it’s ugly head. Is it reasonable for me to say, “Because you are too young to dress like a whore.”
Only if there will ever be a time when you consider her dressing like a whore age appropriate. Just tell her bratz/barbie/etc is fun for dolls but real people shouldn’t wear clothes like that.
new parents are soooo cute.
“daddy, please, I reaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyy want it.” Let’s just say I’m of the school of thought that there is a high probability you won’t think that way when she is 6.
As she grows. and if you’ve done your job correctly until that point, there should not be any need. My 8 year old is doing a punk - goth thing sometimes, but with pretty summer dresses and purses on the side. I respect her individuality. She’s a good kid. Vive la differance.
I’ll bet it won’t be Bratz and it will happen before she’s six. Practice the following: “Because I said so, that’s why” (or why not). Get her used to this phrase. Someday she will be a teenager and it probably won’t work at all, but it’s worth a try.
Mine are 7 and 2 at the moment. I actually told the older one, when she wanted Bratz, about the objectification of woman and how some people, all through history, have only valued girls for their looks and that Bratz is a sign of that.
Now she says she wants to be a scientist and blow things up. I told her chem and physics are her real options there depending on the size of the boom she wants to make.
Just tell your kids WHY you object to some toys. You’ll be amazed what they can understand. I think one of the biggest mistakes parents make is thinking their kids can’t understand things they can. Play straight with your daughter and she’ll likely reward you with being older than her age. She’s got a human brain and that’s an amazing thing.
-Jonathan ‘The kid just brought home straight As for the entire frigging year’ Chance
Show her lots of Audrey Hepburn movies during her formative years and indoctrinate her quietly.
Can I get an “Amen”!!
My mother was usually very good about giving me the reasons why she told me to do or not to do things, and it worked much better than the “because I said so” line. If she told me something I didn’t understand, I asked questions. She always treated me as if she knew I had a functional brain.
My daughter never was interested in wearing the trashy stuff that a lot of her friends wore – it was simply because she was brought up with taste that wasn’t tied to television. Either I am just lucky that my kids just aren’t interested in television for the most part, or it has something to do with the fact that I was always involved with them and never used the television as a babysitter, but whichever case – my kids developed their own sense of style that had nothing to do with emulating television characters.
As for if (when?) a why comes up, it is simpel enough to answer with “that kind of style doesn’t look good on you.” Then take her to get some really sute (and more modest) clothes that do look good on her.
FWIW, my daughter is 14, and while she sometimes picks outfits that I don’t particularly like, they’re usually tasteful and cute. She’s got a great sense of style and I figure if her worst fashion faux pas (in my book, anyway) is a denim skirt with a sweatshirt, then I can live with that 
I wasn’t allowed to have Barbie dolls when I was a kid because “Barbie is sexist.” I couldn’t have a Nintendo because “it isn’t educational. We got you a computer.” I wasn’t given army guys either because Dad didn’t imagine I’d want to play with boy toys either.
I played mostly with cardboard boxes.
You could always say, “Because I said so.” 
Seriously, you teach your daughter values and morals and it will come on her own. Ivygirl, on her own, decided Britney Spears was a tart and didn’t want to listen to her music anymore.
Remember, you have the money and you are the parent, therefore you have the power. Just because she pitches a fit doesn’t mean she gets a vote.
I’d start with figuring out which of your values are really important to you. Those will be the ones worth fighting with your daughter about. Are you really concerned about modesty? For example, if you really don’t think a bare midriff is OK on a 6 year old, then look at getting her to wear a leotard under the top. (There is actually a whole modest girls’ clothing marketing push out there, if this is really of concern to you.) Or is your concern with commercialized TV-driven characters? Then figure out how to capture a cute look without the Bratz. There will come a time when fitting in with her peers is more important to your daughter than your values. You may find yourself better off compromising except on your most closely held values.
I say this as someone who was raised with an overload of extremely complex values explained to me at an early age. Kids do get it, but it’s possible to go overboard and providing a positive alternative is key. Giving the kid a chemistry set=good. Telling the kid to enjoy doing chores instead=not realistic. Living out my mom’s values really distanced me from any peer group at all for a while there. And then all hell broke loose and I was the one you would warn your daughter about…Now, I am fairly normal. Keeping that in mind, a young girl’s experimentation with attention-getting styles of dress really does not deterministically prevent her from achieving great things as an adult.
Heh. I have two daughters, currently 6 and 4. I know all about this one! Clothes, toys, TV shows–all of them are trying to turn your daughters into small tarts. Bleck.
It does help a lot that I don’t let them watch much TV, and they see almost no ads. Also that many of their friends have mothers that don’t like Bratz either (though a lot of them do have Barbies, which I also object to, even though Bratz make Barbie look like Holly Hobbie). So they aren’t really being told that Bratz are cool, which is nice for me. My oldest has mainly said things about Barbie, and when she was younger (4) I just said that I don’t like Barbies and we’re not going to have them. I have told her that Barbie doesn’t look like a real person and other stuff like that. I appear to have done a better job of articulating my reasons than I thought I did, because one day she explained the whole thing to a child care teacher at the gym and did it very well. About Bratz, I’ve pretty much just said that I really hate them and they’re worse than Barbie!
We’ve really had more problems with clothing, because it’s really hard to explain to a 5-yo who just wants a pretty sparkly skirt that it’s based on one of the sluttier teenage fashions. (At least, my 5-yo, who wants to know why and then I’m trying to explain feminism and the commercialization of sex and…oh heck.) We’ve talked about dressing appropriately and not immodestly (lots of self-respect ideas), and I’ve worked pretty hard at finding her pretty clothes that she likes, that are also appropriate, and comfortable to play in. It’s something of a tall order, but I like Lands End and now Kohl’s (which just opened here), and if I was rich I would love Hanna Anderson’s.
I’m supposed to be making waffles, so I’ll continue later. My kids are going to eat each other if I don’t get moving.
Wait, doesn’t that give her the message that a)it looks good on some people, just not her, and b)that by extension there is something she’s lacking wherein she could look good in those clothes if only x, y, or z were true?
Mr. Chance, I admire your views and wish to subscribe to your parenting newsletter.
Slight hijack, but I was surprised to see ads for the live actionBRATZ movie. Of relevance to the thread is that if the movie is released this year then by 2013 they’ll probably be as dated as Rubik’s Cubes (though the follow-up SLUTZ may be harder to raise a daughter without).
We don’t have kids (yet) and I’d never heard of Hanna Anderson, but I just checked out the site and some of that stuff is really cute. And look! A 50% off sale!
Strive for moderation. As **Harriet **says, kids can be alienated from their peers because of their parents’ ideals. That’s not to say you should abandon your ideals, but find a way to temper them. Glittery nail polish instead of a sequin tube top, or jelly sandals instead of plastic pumps, for example. Explain that, just like all those muscles on the Tarzan doll, the fashion on Bratz dolls are over-the-top. They’re not how real people are built or how they look. Pull out some safe, pre-screened images from websites or Parenting magazines or Land’s End catalogs and let her show you what sort of things, from your preapproved list, she likes. If it’s all hopelessly dorky, then get her to describe what isn’t and find a way to make it work (I really like the tube top over the leotard idea!)
Frankly, I’m not real clear where people are *getting *tramp clothes for six year olds. I’ve never seen it in stores (I’m pretty much a Target, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart shopper) and only occasionally seen something “sexy” on an actual child. Maybe this is one of those cases where being in the Midwest is a good thing. Is it worse on the coasts?
And yes, sometimes you do have to use “Because I said so, that’s why”. I swore I wouldn’t, and of course I do. But I try to keep it to a minimum, and even joke about it: “Because I am the Queen Mama and my will is capricious.” “What’s ‘capricious’?” “Go! Away! To the dictionary, my minion!” “What’s a minion?” “Dictionary! We need a dictionary!” At that point, the kid is often distracted enough to let it drop (and then we play the Dictionary Game for a bit - kid opens a random page and tries to stump me with a word.)
On the other hand, sometimes you just have to say, “Eh, why not?” The world will not end if she goes to preschool wearing her pajama top and a tutu. Better to win the battle over eating some protein at breakfast than to battle over the tutu.
My kids (I have a seven year old daughter) know the words “Mom (and/or Dad) does not believe that is age appropriate for you.” Yes, we actually say that.
With Bratz, my daughter knows I won’t buy them. She knows that she will be veto’d if she buys them with her allowance. But for her seventh birthday she did get a few (some Mom’s call and ask - those I said "I wouldn’t buy them for her). Having a few of them has removed some of the glamour of them. And we’ve talked about how Mom thinks the Bratz dolls have too much makeup on and Mom doesn’t think that’s good.
They are old enough to start understanding (my son is eight) the idea of objectificaiton and sexualization - and “grown up things” (which are sex, drugs, drinking) and “grown up choices” (when you are a grown up you can drink pop for breakfast if you want - and in college you probably will - it will rot your teeth and make you fat and be bad for you - but you can make those choices. While you are a kid, you will have a glass of orange juice). They’ve put together the idea of “sexy” and “sex” and have functionally figured out (I think) that Mom believes Bratz dolls are sluts - or presenting themselves as sluts (an important distinction I don’t think they will grasp) - though we haven’t said that in so many words.
Try Limited Too. Justice. Kohls (which was wonderful when they were little) is bad. But it has become much more modest - when my daughter was three we had a hard time finding non-midriff bearing shirts at Target in the little girl section - the trend was just for that sort of look. And look in the 7-14s (and remember that WhyBaby is small) - my daughter hit size 7 in first grade - and she isn’t even a big kid for her age. The size 4-6s are still pretty modest and cute, but the 7s (and it has gotten better - two years ago I’d wonder if I was going to have to learn to sew properly when looking at the 7s) are pint sized versions of junior fashions - and junior fashions are trendy - and the trend was slut.
(I don’t like Hanna Andersen’s quality - their clothes can be cute (and high quality), but so often the fabic feels like it came from the sandpaper factory. After being in their stores a few times, I wouldn’t ever order anything without touching it)
Oh my golly, our stores are filled with them. Target is not good–I shop there, but very carefully. January is a great month for Target, because the spring things are often really cute and fine for summer without being horrible. Wal-Mart is the worst offender, but I never go there anyway. Mervyn’s was so terrible for a while that I stopped going there and wrote them a letter; there wasn’t a single thing in the girls’ department that wasn’t sleazy and cheap. It’s improved some since then, but now that Kohl’s is open I don’t bother with them much.
Now that I don’t object to. That’s dressing like a kid. It’s dressing like a scantily-clad 18-yo that I don’t like.
One thing I think you really have to do is advertise your lifestyle. I try pretty hard these days to dress in a fairly classy way; I have a nice haircut, I dress modestly yet fashionably myself, and so on. If a kid’s mom looks like *she’s *trying to wear the sluttier teenage fashions, what kind of example is that? And if she looks frumpy and plain (but modest!) what kind of example is that for the lifestyle she’s trying to teach? Appropriate dress has got to look better than the competition to be appealing.
An interesting link: The Modesty Zone blog and website has articles on, essentially, anything in the news about girls and women and how modern society treats them. (“Modesty” in their usage covers a lot of things besides clothing–self-respect, dignity, freedom to make choices against the mainstream…) One of the blog sponsors, Wendy Shalit, wrote a book in '99 called A return to modesty, which is a great book. You can really tell in spots that she was about 23 when she wrote it, and I disagree with her on some points, but on the whole I want to read bits aloud to every girl I know. She’s got a new book coming out this month–Girls gone mild.
There are a lot of good books out there on commercialism and advertising to kids. Consuming kids is one I remember, and there’s a newer one that’s really good–Born to buy.