FashBlog.com

My husband calls it Slut Wear. I am talking about the trashy styles that young girls from about age four and up have adopted in recent years. Apparently the parents think it is cute. How else can you explain why a four year old has her stomach sticking out with glittery crop tops and an overall trashy appearance? She certainly doesn't choose her own clothing and it is a little hard to believe grandma is buying her these things. No question they see Brittany and the young pop stars dressed this way, but even so, why do they think that you should dress a child as a teenager or even an adult? Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but dressing a child as an adult is ridiculous, unattractive, and even risky.

What happened to pretty in pink? Children grow up way too fast as it is. Little girls should be encouraged to be, well, just that, little girls. You would think that the Jon Benet Ramsey case would have been a wake-up call to parents that enabling young girls to look older than they are and to act older than they are is dangerous mistake. However, that was so long ago now that I suppose many of these mothers weren't much more than young girls themselves at the time. But there is so much concern for child abduction and Amber Alerts that somehow you would think parents could put two and two together on this. Lets be honest here, perverted men are attracted to sexy little girls.

But I guess the parents must see this as a fashion statement more than they see it as exploiting or endangering their child. Certainly they do not purposefully do something that they think could be dangerous. Some schools have rules but I even see articles in the paper where the parents sue the schools so that their children have the right to wear a T-shirt with a vulgar slogan so I guess personal freedom is more important than safety or just being a nice, neatly dressed person.

It is hard, even as an older adult, to find a pair of slacks that come anywhere near the navel, let alone the waist. The zippers must be about two inches long and not only do they look ridiculous with your whole middle sticking out above but they are highly uncomfortable as well.

Speaking of which, not only is it risky to dress a child like a street-walker, but what kind of lesson is this? As a parent you have the responsibility to teach your child right from wrong. This includes just about every aspect of daily life including fashion, if you will. Not so much fashion as style. They need to learn what is correct for what event. Clothing can reflect not only your taste but also respect for others. Certain occasions used to command a more respectful style of dress such as church or a funeral. Even this seems to have fallen by the wayside. Is there anywhere some people do not think it is appropriate to wear jeans?! But that is another subject!

Being a parent today does not look easy to me. I thought it was hard to raise a teenager in the Eighties so I do not envy parents today. I actually cringe when I think of the constant exposure to sex that even young children are exposed to on a minute-by-minute basis on television. Even your clothing catalogs, like Abercrombie, have been highly criticized for their sexually explicit poses. But then the catalog is a hot seller and the clothing flies off the shelves and the slightly risque nature makes the store that much more popular.

The Limited Too (now Tween Brands), Aeropostale, etc., that market to these young children make it very hard to steer clear of these styles when that is all they show and that is what is for sale. We all know the power of peer pressure. In talking with parents of some young girls recently we heard that they see a trend to move back to a little more conservative styles. It will take the collective purchasing power of the Soccer Moms to say no to these styles and no to their children. Together they need to creatively take some of the cute things and fashion them together in a modest but stylish way for these young girls. Let girls be girls, but let children be children too.