Why is it that girls feel the need to wear such revealing clothes? Why do they pile on the makeup? When did we, as parents, start allowing our girls to leave the house dressed as they are? Lots of parents and even some teens themselves complain about the way teens dress and yet they do nothing to change the way they or their kids dress. Why can I not even sit down to watch Cartoon Network with my daughter without seeing commercials of oversexed tweens promoting oversexed toys? Remember when the Bratz dolls first came out? They were kinda chubby, anime-esque versions of the Cabbage Patch dolls from my generation. As their popularity grew they got thinner, started wearing stage worthy makeup and trampy clothes. They even developed oversized chests. Why? Why are we constantly sending such negative, unrealistic messages to our children? Just because they haven't hit pueberty doesn't mean they aren't picking up the message. My 8 year old cousin told her mom she wanted clothes that showed off her cleavage, which in her case is just her breast plate. Sick.
I am all for getting rid of the horrid stirrup spandex pants that my parents put me in and similar fashion disasters but that doesn't mean our 6 year old should start dressing as if they were 17.
Then we have the teenage girls. The ones who go to school looking like they were heading off to work at the local strip club. Parents are so over protective these days yet we allow our children to leave the house wearing little to nothing. Young ladies (I use the term lady rather loosely here) no longer wear skirts. They wear what I call transformers-skirts that also double as belts. If your butt is revealed when you bend over or you worry about going up the stairs then you should probably not be wearing that skirt. And shirts. I understand that most of the really cute shirts are ridiculusly low cut but that doesn't mean you should allow the world to see what you have. Put on a cute cami underneath. Does no one know that men are more often interested in what is left to the imagination? That is what keeps them coming back.
With teenage girls we also have to talk sizes. Girls are too caught up in the numbers. They would rather squeeze themselves into clothes that are too small and unflattering because they are a lower number. It is just a number. Your body looks better when it is in clothes your size. Clothes that are too small or too tight or too clingy show all the faults, every roll, every dimple of cellulite. They also tend to create more issues (i.e. causing the love handles to spill over the top of your pants, creating rolls that aren't normally there, making your butt look smaller and flatter than it actually is, the dreaded uniboob). If you have to constantly readjust your clothes they are the wrong size. You need to dress YOUR body, not the body society makes you wish you had.
Boys and young men's clothes are typically less offensive. The only thing that bothers me is the "hip-hop" style. I don't understand it. The baggy, sagging pants that make me wonder if they are wearing pants, shorts or some odd capris for boys. They just look silly and sloppy. Then there are the oversized "tall t's". I don't understand the appeal of looking like a little boy lost in daddy's shirt. And all the stupid jewelry. There are better, more important, more useful things you could spend massive amounts of money on. Plus most of it just looks silly. Then there are the funny hats that they don't really wear, they just sit the hats on top of their heads making their head look oddly shaped. Can't forget the silly "do-rag" thingy that goes under the hat. Exactly what is that things purpose?
The worst part of it all is that people need to feel like they fit in among their peers. Thus, if parents restrict their childrens attire they are also stifling them socially. We need to make a concious effort to change the messages the media sends so our youth doesn't continue to think they need to dress like tramps or fools in order to fit in.
