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It is absolutely sickening to see little girls dressed like sluts. With their middles exposed, high heels on their feet and more eye makeup than any adult should wear, we constantly see them and wonder why their parents would allow them out in public in such wildly inappropriate attire. The thing is that the parents of these girls are simply choosing not to fight this battle. It is a lot easier on the eardrums and door hinges to spoil a child than to make and enforce unpopular rules. When clothing manufacturers deliberately market garments that look like clubwear in sizes to fit tweens and these clothing choices are allowed by some parents, an epic battle begins. Many parents find it hard to say no to their little snowflakes, and there it starts. When the "cool kids" are wearing inappropriate clothing, it doesn't take long for all the kids to want to also wear trashy clothes. No one wants their kid to be an outcast, so the pressure is definitely on. Kids grow up too fast all on their own. Now with the clothing, underwear, shoes and makeup options available to tweens, the process is accelerated to almost comical proportions. It would be funny, except that it's so troubling. In England, the Tesco stores now carry a padded plunge push-up bra for girls who are about 7 years old. The cost of this highly offensive rag? Only about 8 bucks. A child who desperately wants cleavage at 7 is troubling, but if there were not a market for this type of thing it would not have been manufactured. Tesco has marketed some equally offensive products in the past. In 2006 the stores carried a pole dancing kit in the toy section of its website. The pole dancing kit was removed after public outrage. So where's the outrage about other "sexy" products marketed to children? It's up to parents to take a stand. Stores are going to carry products that sell. If the slutty clothes for tween girls were not selling like hotcakes, they would no longer be manufactured. It's purely and simply the principle of supply and demand economics. Young girls don't have a paycheck, parents do. Therefore parents must dig in their heels and stop this exploitation of their children. Cool clothes don't have to expose skin and those little feet will develop much better in good, supportive shoes. Style doesn't have to be sacrificed, but a message has got to be sent that it's not okay for little girls to look like tramps. While we try to protect our children from predators in society, it hardly makes much sense to package them up and send them out dressed as a pedophile's wet dream. Yet that's precisely what is happening. Trackback(0)
Comments (8)
  written by Tiffany, May 28, 2008
"Tweens and young teens are going to have sex (and sometimes get pregnant or get an STD) regardless of how they dress."
I think right here you've summarized the roots of the problem--not that what you've written here is a fact, but that people seem to accept that as a given, throw up their hands, and move on to how to deal with the "fact" that tweens are going to have sex. Physiology hasn't changed, and for hundreds of years most people managed to make it out of eighth grade without getting pregnant. report abuse
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 written by Capt. Obvious, July 05, 2008
Perhaps we as a culture need to accept the fact that post menarche girls (around age 11) have reproductive systems that are rapidly getting up to speed. At age 16 most girls look the more like sexy celebrities and models that they ever will after age 25. We as a society are failing to accept what nature has already dictated, sexuality begins in the early teens. By denying that, we are failing to prepare or allow our children to move gracefully into sexual adulthood. Which is safer, a teen that can have sex in their own home, with a supply of condoms purchased for them, or teens having sex in the back of a car in the dark corner of a parking lot?
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 written by Jezzie, July 06, 2008
Why stop there, Captain O? Nature has also dictated that girls can reproduce at age 11, 12 or 13, so why the condoms? If we're going to accept the dictates of nature as to when it's time to become sexually active, why interfere with the natural process that follows?
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 written by Dr. Rob, July 11, 2008
Well written post about kids who want to grow up too fast and the parents who are helping them. Peer pressure makes stupid behavior seem palatable for tweens and unfortunately for some adults. Parents must set limits and stick to them. There's no good reason to rush kids into adulthood. Reddited and stumbled
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 written by Pam Baker, July 11, 2008
It is hard to allow your children to remain innocent today. Parents are busy,the children are busy and most homes have several t.v.s computers and video games allowing every one to zone out separately. All the while in the quiet, messages are being played over and over about how to act, dress, look; messages of happiness found, thrills and adventure, none of which is based on reality.
Our girls are playing with dolls that dress like hookers they color their pictures, their parents do not tell them their ideas about this or about life, and then they go to school with an Ipod, listening to music singing more messages,only to arrive at school for sex education. After school they go to the mall, usually dropped off with their own money, and there are the stores that sell what they have been programed to think makes them look good enough to be noticed. Our families are in trouble and so our children are at risk. report abuse
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 written by Wendy, July 12, 2008
So let them get a job and pay for their own clothes. Perhaps a little accoountablility and responsibility would help them out.
What ever happened to telling the kids what they can or can't do. It has gotten to the point of no parental control for parents at all. report abuse
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 written by Wendy Herdman, August 07, 2008
I believe the oversexualition of children also robs them of the milestone events that give them a social and familial context in which to recognize their maturation and changing social roles and responsibilities. Buying a bra, wearing your first high heels, starting to wear makeup,rolling a skirt shorter, these also provided safe "rebellions" for a young girl to begin to act on her growing sexuality. These events, however, become meaningless--and dangerous--when they become divorced from any real phsyical or psychological maturation. Having passed these milestones in elementary school, a girl is left with little to act out upon in establishing her independence and sexuality other than actual sexual activity.
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If you want to look at the root causes, I suggest you start with the physiological. Tweens and young teens are going to have sex (and sometimes get pregnant or get an STD) regardless of how they dress. You might also look at society's changing attitudes towards sex over the last 50 years or so.