to be ? that a teacher told my dd (6yrs) to wear cycling shorts under her summer dress if she was going to be doing cartwheels?

[mulranno]

?

Euphemia the girls are not hanging upside down all day like bats! They are dressed in conventional clothing that covers all required areas unless they do a handstand, which if you were crap at handstands like me, would be never.

These glimpses of pant material or a bra can also occur when adults move about- if someone bends down, if they are wearing a thong with jeans, sometimes if a man reaches up to get something you see their stomachs (nice if toned, not if beer belly), you can often see women's bra straps. For goodness sake, it is not normal to care about this stuff, and even less normal to see it as salacious when it is pants on a 6 year old girl. I'd also say that trousers on girls do not prevent pant exposure anyway, as little girls have no hips and a lot of them are cut very low, my dd's were always exposing their pants in their trousers (from a well-known store previously mentioned) and we used to laugh at this and wonder why they didn't make the waists higher! Pant exposure for a brief second is just a non-event.

"Pant exposure for a brief second is just a non-event."

This, this, a thousand times this.

It really was a silly idea to build the school there. I see secondary school girls walking on their own down there after school sometimes and I just think "ohhhhhh" because I don't want something else awful happening. Unfortunately it's a massive route through this whole side of the town so you can get to a wealth of places in half the time if you're willing to take the risk.

Hopefully I will have a little tomboy and she will just want shorts anyway, and she won't want to wear the tiny skirts when she gets to secondary. Not that I'm paranoid about a child I don't have yet

I'm not even sure what the girls in this town wear in summer normally though. I never see my neice in school uniform and my little cousin lives about an hour away and I don't know any others(everyone else has boys). Might be worth asking SIL and friends what their DDs wear just to get a picture of whether I'd be the crazy overprotective mum.

What a complicated issue, I'd never even thought about it before!

Jackie maybe more girls in dresses would be doing handstands if they were well covered up below?

I'd love for my DD to wear school shorts as part of the uniform - but A its not an option and B I'd never get her in them if it was an option. She likes dresses and skirts. So wearing shorts underneath works.

She spends all day sitting on mat crossed legged, running, jumping, climbing, swinging, doing handstands and cartwheels. This morning in assembly she sat facing entire school with her legs wide apart wearing a skirt. She is 5. Would this be an issue if she was a boy in a skirt/dress and flimsy undies?

She also loves to strip off but we've taught her about 'privates' and that you don't see people in their undies or naked walking down the street & there are reasons for this and so we dress and behave appropriately in public. You know, put your rubbish in the bin, look both ways when crossing the road, keep your privates to yourself when not at home - it's all about keeping a child safe, knowing ones limits, treating the environment and each other respectfully. She also knows that other people aren't to touch her there - which is a good place to start for her with other people, as it sets out clear guidelines are to what and where is an acceptable touch.

We started doing the shorts thing when she was potty trained and would wear knickers and often be legs akimbo in the buggy like kids often are. The knickers just didn't seem enough and often gaped - I've seen other young girls completely exposing themselves to the wider world and wonder why their parents don't simply put shorts on them? Or do they think it's OK for their daughters to be put in this position? I don't. I wouldn't walk around in just a bra or with my knickers on show - why should we expect more vulnerable people like children to do this?

I'm not overly prudish at all - my main aim is that DD can feel OK doing anything she wants to do at all on a daily basis, without being teased, or exposed, or without giving anyone an eyeful. She is liberated from any clothing constraints simply by wearing cotton short shorts under her dresses. Seriously, what is the issue? It makes sense to me.

the girls are not hanging upside down all day like bats
Give DD a bar and she will be hanging upside down on it for as long as possible.

I have a memory from my early primary school years, but think I was older than 6.
There was a very popular good-looking boy in the playground, who said " All you girls twirl around and the one that twirls out the most will be my favourite." We all twirled like mad and mine swung out the most, and declared his favourite. I was very shy and was over the moon.
Told mum as she had made my skirt, how proud I was, and she said " He only wanted to see which girl showed their knickers the most".

I was knocked down to earth, as I thought he really liked ME.

BeCool I think lots of people have already explained what they feel the issue to be.

I have a boy (and am expecting a second boy) so it is unlikely I will actually have to face this issue.

I'm sure when your DD comes along, as she gets older things will get easier as you will meet other parents of girls and just kind of slot into the norm IYKWIM.

If the area is that bad there is no way they should have built a school there. :(

This is slightly off the point and may be misunderstood by some, but this discussion has made made me recall, that I actually enjoyed revealing my knickers when doing cartwheels and handstands at some points as a child. Maybe I was about 10yrs at this memory?

But I do recall enjoying the frisson of excitement of a public display of what is usually covered and a group of us girls enjoying this display hoping boys would notice. I regard this as a totally natural and unconscious example an emerging sexuality (braces self for misunderstanding of use of sexuality and children in same sentence, but hopes some more considered posters will understand what I'm saying).

Not sure it's relevant here, as I think 6yrs is probably too young for these types of feelings and is more about a lack of adherence to social norms at this stage, and not sure how it would relate to schools and show of knickers anyway.

Just thought it was vaguely relevant and interesting.

I've seen other young girls completely exposing themselves to the wider world and wonder why their parents don't simply put shorts on them?

I've also never seen this.

It is overly prudish to introduce a new rule, which most of us growing up with didn't have imposed, that primary school girls knickers when doing handstands like at least two generations before us used to do, are so taboo, we have to remove the sight of them by making girl children wear an extra layer of clothing. This is a new modesty which didn't exist in the past, and we have to ask why it has come about; other aspects of this new modesty are discomfort at very little children running around naked and primary age girls wearing bikini tops instead of just shorts on the beach. I did both of these in my childhood, but would feel too self-conscious to do them now given the prevailing climate (which weirdly can tolerate the display of adult women's bodies in a state of undress almost constantly as a normal feature of the media).

Absolutely right Euphemia. Think this is a real first world problem

It is not awful to flash one's knickers at 6yrs old but there is not a defined line where it does become inappropriate. More people would agree covering more may be a good idea for a 10yr old with sanitary products visible than this example.

When my DD was at junior school the older girls all asked for shorts under their dresses and many of the younger ones did it because the "big girls" did. Two of the girls in DDs year started their periods at 9 so it was nicer for them that everybody wore them.

I'm afraid I'm in the get a grip camp on this.

I've seen other young girls completely exposing themselves to the wider world and wonder why their parents don't simply put shorts on them?

I have also never seen little girls exposed in this way, a few boys' willies when doing a wee in public (whole other issue), and sometimes girls pants exposed if a dress is pulled up, but not their bits, never in public not that I can think of -is this really a common problem?

I'm firmly in the 'get a grip' camp too

squoosh & soveryluck I've not made it up & I've seen it more than once.

I'm also in the get a grip camp
just on the other side of the river!

WTF?

yeah I come on MN to talk about my life and make up lies about little girls?
FFS!

Some girls may be hanging upside like bats or holding handstands against walls with their skirts over their heads in endurance trials, and good on them. But it can result in knickers galore in a summer playground, which in a sane world where nakedness and underwear are not caught up in complex and irrational social rules would not be a problem.

But there are social rules for underwear exposure so people get twitchy.

To the example posed to me: an unintentional bra strap flash at work would be gracefully ignored without comment. A wearing of a dress revealing substantial proportions of my bra would make many feel uncomfortable in a meeting, and persistence of revealing more than the unspoken code deems appropriate could cause problems.

Of course it depends where you work.

It's madness of course, and complex to nagivate this socially constructed world we live in.

But to pretend underwear is not given this weirdy, covered in public status, is just trying to pretend the madness doesn't exist or that children are exempt from it. Sadly in public theyre not. They're given more leeway but thats all.

Amazingly this is the nicer end of the town!

I had a whole post lined up but it was completely off topic.

Future DD will be wearing either a)what she is happiest in or b)what makes her safe in her environment from shady characters. All somehow complying with school uniform policies.

I dont see why anyone says a skirt is restricting.
The Royal Highland Regiment all worn skirts to battle in WWI and it didn't seen to hinder them in the trenches.