The Clothes We Wear

Have you ever walked over to your closet and become confused by what you are supposed to wear? Looking at all the styles, do you question what is “age appropriate”? While the line continues to be pushed further back and we continue to challenge the establishment with our definition of youth, we may be sending mixed signals to our girls.

When my daughter was six or seven, the spring weather was warming up and it was time to go and find her some new shorts for the coming summer months. After visiting many stores, I could only find shorts with messages written on the backside. Not thinking much of it, I selected the shorts I thought were the cutest and brought them home so she could model for daddy.

My husband’s reaction surprised me as he was adamant that his daughter not wear shorts that had any kind of words on the backside. I was confused at first until he pointed out to me that there is no reason for eyes to be drawn to the bottom of his little girl. I had never thought of it that way, but as a man, he understands how the male mind works and what contributes to putting both girls and men in compromising positions.

I respected and understood his position, but when I attempted to find cute shorts without lettering, I had only one type of short to choose from and I was discouraged. Then, the more I looked around, the more I realized that many of the clothing options available really weren’t appropriate for my daughter to wear. Sure, she was tall for her age, but many of those items were even too “grown up” for girls entering junior high.

The available clothing for young girls has been an ongoing frustration for moms and dads for a while. A featured USAToday blog referred to this trend in 2007. What was most interesting is a comment someone had left referring to parents sewing their own children’s clothing because they can’t find anything appropriate. I have not known anyone to do this but would be interested to know if it is actually happening.

ModestlyYours.net refers to the challenge of finding age appropriate clothing in its blog. A Topix forum welcomes opinions about this topic. One contributor asked if this story was taking place in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. While that is an interesting observation, I don’t think what is going on here is an example of repression of women, but instead objectification of our daughters.

Like it or not, people will judge you and your daughters based on how you dress. If you have a strong desire for your daughter to grow to be respected and to respect herself, start with her clothing.