Shorts under skirts for girls - a new thing?

[Biggrizzlybear]

A discussion on a school parents chat has brought up something I'd not thought about. Apparently a number of parents of September reception starters (girls) are looking for shorts to go under their daughter's school dresses "to make sure they're decent." I don't remember this happening when I was at school. Is that not what pants are for? I don't know what to think about it. On the one hand, I don't want my daughter to look indecent in comparison to everybody else. But I don't want to teach her that how she looks and dresses is indecent when she's fully dressed. If her dress is long enough, surely she'll be decent. I doubt she'll spend more than a minute or two a day with her dress over her head!

Do little girls wear these nowadays? Am I being silly or neglectful in some way?

This thread has really shocked and saddened me.

One of the nice things about young kids is they are so un-selfconscious and not sexually aware.

They don't have the hang-ups that older people have about showing off their bodies.

That comes later with puberty.

I wish all the posters here who put their girls into shorts under dresses could understand they are inflicting their own hang ups and insecurities onto their little girls.

I wonder how you will cope when they get to 15 and go out of the house with tiny shorts that practically show their vulva, dresses that hardly cover the gusset of their knickers, and tops that don't cover their breasts?

Let children be children, and stop sexualising something that is not sexual. It's in YOUR heads, not your child's.

My preschooler wears cycling shorts a lot under her dresses for a number of reasons. I can get more wear out of her dresses as they can be worn really short, almost like a tunic. Short dresses are more practical for her as they don’t get caught up around her knees. It gives her a bit of extra warmth. She actually doesn’t like wearing just her knickers. And yes a lot of her knickers are a bit too flimsy. I have tried getting her to wear her brothers boxers before but she isn’t interested as she says they are for boys.

Going forward for school I will try and find some sturdier girl knickers as I think cycling shorts would look stupid with a uniform. But I can see why people might get little shorts and if I can’t find decent knickers I would be tempted to try and find some pe type shorts.

My DD 7 wears cotton shorts under dresses and skirts as she has Disabilities and has a habit of lifting up her dress/skirt to sit down, and sometimes holding the hem up whilst walking.

It is common for the girls to wear them at her mainstream school.

I got them from Gap they are sometimes called tumble shorts.

School summer dresses are very transparent and very short. Regardless of where you buy them from

If they aren’t fit for purpose go to the school and refuse to wear them.

Ask for proper shorts or trousers instead.

I really don’t get all the angst about modesty and dresses, if you are that worried there are alternatives.

Why don’t boys have this problem? Why aren’t they all worried about people seeing their pants?
Because they have proper garments that prioritise function over “pretty”.

As for the sexualizing thing. I totally get where people are coming from but my argument would be I wouldn’t let my son flash his private parts in something so flimsy so why would I let my daughter?

Going forward for school I will try and find some sturdier girl knickers as I think cycling shorts would look stupid with a uniform. But I can see why people might get little shorts and if I can’t find decent knickers I would be tempted to try and find some pe type shorts

Have you thought about trousers or proper shorts instead of trying to find garments to make a dress more functional?

My kids were allowed to wear shorts. Asda do some cheap, plain cotton ones. Solved the whole dress issue.

They're not the cheapest but Boden do the best knickers. They actually cover the whole vulva and don't move around and get stuck up my dd's bum! They're nice and thick and wash well.

We don't do shorts yet, eldest dd is year 2. A couple of her friends do but I don't think it should be an issue yet. When she gets to year 5 I probably will as from experience as a teacher girls tend to get more self-aware around then. If she asks earlier I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Just let them wear the same as the boys? Climbing trees in skirts is hard. Entering a boardroom in skirts is hard too!

Perhaps parents of girls should stop buying pretty and start demanding practical.

I’m a primary teacher, and cannot think of a single girl at our school who does this. Decent pants will do the job, and no one gives a monkeys if they accidentally get flashed during a cartwheel.

In fact, even our Year 6 girls have been wearing skirts and dresses to school while we are off uniform, and not thinking twice about doing handstands on the village rec.

How many layers of fabric do little kids need between their vaginas and the outside world 🙄. Are knickers things that need to be covered? It's funny isn't it, boys can walk around literally with their arses hanging out, pants are made with a monikered waist band to flash aroundbut girls, even apparently from the age of 4 need to wear extra undergarments to protect their modesty.

Don't ask her, don't make it an issue.

As for the sexualizing thing. I totally get where people are coming from but my argument would be I wouldn’t let my son flash his private parts in something so flimsy so why would I let my daughter?

Again, why do you let your dd wear “something so flimsy” in the first place. Why not put her in the same type of clothes your boy wears that doesn’t need extra layers for “modesty”. It’s not the 1800’s and girls wear trousers these days.

Yes “ IDidntChoseThePondLife “girls can wear trousers, but most seem to wear skirt/dress and shorts. The old head brought it in as well as banning disco music at the disco in case girls gyrate ! 😥and I think it’s just probably stayed and nobody has questioned it.

Yes, the NSPCC thing may have been aimed at what was inside their pants was private, but the just out of nursery kids who came out telling us parents about it didn't really understand it, it was very much 'pants (and everything contained within) are private' in their minds. Which was a good enough interpretation for three year olds.

Also, as someone asked, PE is done two year groups at a time in our school (small school) so boys use one class, girls use the other. So its never come up. When I was little we did PE in normal school clothes until juniors (different school) where we had separate rooms to change in anyway.

Even when my youngest DD wears pants, shorts, dress (her choice, btw, older DD has mostly always worn just shorts, which has always been fine at our school) her clothing still feels less thick than DS's as boys clothes are made from thicker materials in comparison.

Dd sometimes wears shorts under her skirts, uniform or otherwise, and says all the girls in her class do too and have for years (primary school). Her choice - so if they are doing cartwheels etc, people can't see their knickers. I don't think underwear should be visible really...I hate seeing 6 inches of boxers rising over low slung trousers, no matter what brand the boxers are! A flash of boxers when doing a cartwheel is different, can live with that.

It sounds uncomfortable to me but dd insists, must see would she wear the boxer style underwear linked above, thanks for that.

Once the school organised yoga but didn't tell the kids.. dd was wearing a skirt that day, no shorts under, so couldn't do half the stuff unless she wanted to show her knickers (she didn't).

This thread has big red flags all over it.

Oh, and for full disclosure, yes, I do buy cheap thin clothes for my DD2 for school - because they are the girls clothes available at the supermarket and she wants the girls versions to match her friends (and its not a hill I care to die on). DD1 and DS2 both wear the boys versions from the same shitty supermarket, because that is what they want.

OP there are summer dresses that have a cylotte at the bottom. They don't look very nice but at least they resolve issues around too much exposure and will allow her to climb and play without catching her skirt. Alternatively bicycle pants inside a dress will solve any issues. She can also wear trousers of course.

Also, a word of warning, unless your child is attending a modern, purpose built primary school with adequate ventilation (aka the Holy Grail of school buildings) you do not want to adding extra layers. The thermometer in my classroom regularly reads well over 30 in the summer terms, and that’s with me opening all the windows as far as they can go at 7.30am. All children are better off wearing the ‘flimsy’ dresses in May, June and July - regardless of gender or underwear choice!

Climbing trees in skirts is hard.

You'd be hard pressed to find a school that allows any tree climbing to begin with.

Don’t make an issue of it - it isn’t one . So what if you can see their knickers. Buy practical ones rather than stupid lace ones and it’s fine.

My little girl has an array of clothes including lots of practical shorts and t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms. As she has two brothers she gets a lot of their hand me downs. She is is very independent and chooses her outfit most days. She mostly chooses dress because that is what she likes. Sometime she chooses dresses with tracksuit bottoms under them as well ( and looks just a bit eccentric but I leave her to it). So yes we are not in the 1800s and in this modern day and age if she wants to wear dresses I will let her. And if she chooses shorts under them I will also let her. She has a right to dress girlish just as much as she has a right to dress in boy clothes.
When is comes to her school uniform I will probably try an array of things but I am pretty certain that she will choose dresses and skirts as that is what she like. So if she likes that and she likes shorts under them what exactly is the problem?

This is mad, shorts under dresses???? You're supposed to let air around your bits. Buy cotton navy knickers for school days like we used to wear so they won't show anything then.
Or lycra boxer briefs in navy or black just for schooldays, not layer upon layer of underwear.
Why are we punishing girls.....yet again.

Slightly off topic: i recently found a box with some of my old clothes from primary school in the attic. among them some knickers - they were what is now called boy shorts, a lot more material then what you can routinely buy now. Wide crotch, full bum coverage.
So it isn’t that girls now need more coverage than 35 years ago - but knickers seem to have gotten smaller

School summer dresses are very transparent and very short. Regardless of where you buy them from.

I must have magic powers then, being able to find decent, non-see through, knee length school dresses for my daughter. From a Supermarket.

Yes, the NSPCC thing may have been aimed at what was inside their pants was private, but the just out of nursery kids who came out telling us parents about it didn't really understand it, it was very much 'pants (and everything contained within) are private' in their minds.

I’d then have been educating my children that pants are there to cover the private parts rather than encouraging the idea that girls vulvas are so powerful/offensive that they need to be contained within layers and layers of fabric. My kids go swimming, do gymnastics and dance - the outfits for al of those activities cover to about the same degree as pants. There’s nothing immodest or indecent about children’s bodies and I won’t start body shaming my child in primary school.