LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME…

One of our commenters, Patricia, and I were talking about girls fashions and how out of control they are.

Each of us has a larger size daughter and they have always had to buy a size or two bigger for their age, which means we didn’t get to dress them in those sweet, little, smocked,  dresses for very long.

It also meant that the clothes got nastier and nastier as the girls got older.  My daughter is only 11 but wears a size 6 in womens or a 7 in teens.  Try finding something to wear to church!  Heck, try finding something to wear to take the garbage out…

I’m not alone in my observations.  Rebecca Walberg agrees.

For a generation, conservatives have discussed the dramatic and oftentimes negative effects of cultural changes on our kids. In the book “So Sexy So Soon”, liberals join in and talk about the

So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids

the pernicious effects of the “new morality” on children from the perspective of the other end of the political spectrum. [1] Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College, and Jean Kilbourne, a senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, highlight the gravity of a hypersexual consumer culture: the insidious way in which advertisers and the media use sex to drive a wedge between children and parents, to create demand among children for provocative toys and clothes, and to redefine even kindergarten to include “sexiness.”

 

Let’s look at some of those fashions.  These are dresses from a Macy’s ad.  They come in sizes 7-16.

What 8 year old should be dressed in something like this?  What is wrong with our culture?  How do we fight this?   There are decent dresses out there, but they are hard to find and are snatched up right away.  So shop early.

Abercrombie and Fitch has boarded up their windows so that you have to enter the store to see inside.  In the doorway is a LARGE picture of a boy from the waist up, with nothing on.  I had to wonder if they were selling skin! 

For once, it’s not just the crazy right wing conservative nuts either.  Rebecca Walberg informs us that liberal moms are just as angry.

Levin and Kilbourne are certainly liberal—they point approvingly to parents who take their daughter to a same-sex commitment ceremony as an example of open-minded parenting, for example. But as such, they are carrying a message to those who most need to hear it, those who have outright dismissed cultural concerns, pretending they are part of some conservative conspiracy. In the end, an increasingly sexual world affects all of us. “Culture warriors” must partner with liberals in order to effect change, whether in private life or public policy. So Sexy So Soon highlights some of the elements of the culture wars in which traditionalists and liberals can partner for the benefit of our kids.

For once I agree with a liberal viewpoint…or perhaps they are agreeing with me.  Here’s a Halloween Costume marketed as “For Tweens”

I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I remember Judy Garland looking.  Exactly what kind of treats is this girl after?  Or is she looking to turn tricks?

Or how about those dolls? 

Walbergs article goes on to point out that it isn’t just clothes.  It’s a whole saturation of the culture. 

The authors describe a six-year-old, who asks his parents about pornography seen at a friend’s house, and a seven-year-old who cries in the bath because she thinks her body isn’t skinny or sexy enough. Issues that previously surfaced in adolescence are percolating down to kindergarten, and Levin and Kilbourne place the blame for this phenomenon squarely upon mass consumer culture.

The solution?  Start early, enforcing morals and standards.  Don’t back down.  Say no to that bikini.  Don’t give in to the stacked heels.  Communicate what being a woman is all about.  Get to your kids before the world gets to them.  It’s the only chance they have of not getting sucked into the void once they’re out there on their own.

My solution?   GET THEM TO A NUNNERY!

Or you could just let Obama teach them starting in Kindergarten…not.