to not want DD(14) to have this T-Shirt

[SqueamishMum]

Need a sanity check here (have name-changed so this isn't linked to other threads as I may be identifiable here)

A couple of weeks ago, DD(14) and I went to a thrift shop. I had given her some money to spend. She came up to me holding a T-Shirt balled up in her hands so I couldn't see the design, saying she was going to buy it.

Once she had bought it, she said to me "mum, you're not going to like this" and showed me the design on the T-Shirt. Basically it is a cartoon of someone getting their arm shredded in a blender with their eyes popping out. It is quite stylised and cartoony, but it is, in my opinion, gory (lots of cartoon blood).

I was unimpressed and said to her that I wasn't happy with her having it. She then said to me "oh well, too late to return it now" and swanned out of the shop.

I was pretty angry at her attitude and called her back. I went up to the counter with her and said she was to return it. The young woman behind the counter looked at the T-Shirt and said "really? I like it". I repeated that it was to be returned. She turned to my daughter and said "do you want to return it?". I said to her again that it was to be returned. My daughter was saying "it's my money!", but then relented and said she would return it.

The manager had to be called. The T-shirt was returned. My daughter went back into the shop to find something else to buy. I was feeling really angry, with my daughter for trying to get one over on me, but more with the attitude of the shop assistant undermining me, so I waited outside the shop.

My daughter came out with a couple of non-gory T-shirts and we left.

It has since transpired that the shop assistant, feeling sorry for my daughter, gave her the gory t-shirt free of charge.

My daughter confessed this to me, then said she had worn it out, and her dad really likes it, his girlfriend really likes it, her friend and her friend's mother really likes it. It's only me that doesn't like it. (Her dad btw utterly despises me and will take any opportunity to undermine me with her).

I personally feel it's really antisocial to wear a t-shirt like that out at the park (as DD has been doing) where there are small kids. It's a nasty image and it makes me feel squeamish every time I see it.

I've told DD that I don't want her wearing it around me. She said OK . This weekend she came back from her dad's wearing it. I told her to change and she said "it's fine, I'm only going to be wearing it upstairs where you can't see".

I'm not generally draconian about my daughter's style choices - I just find the image on this T-shirt inappropriate. However, it seems the shop assistant and other adults she's talked to about it since think I'm over the top.

I'm willing to accept that maybe I am being - but feel DD's testing boundaries on quite a few things atm. I'm generally a bit of a pushover and was trying to be less so this time.

Would be really interested to know what others think

Thanks

I think of this is all you have to worry you are doing well, just let it pass ✌🏼👍🏼. The more you deny her the more she will want something. She is developing her own style and the young girl behind the counter likes it too so. So don’t worry too much.

her fashion - her choice although at 14 you still have some say in it i guess. But i was a goth/grunger at that age (hell i got my first tatton then too!) so i can see where she is coming from. Teens go through quite dark phases as well as being rebellious and this top is most likely just that - a button pusher .

That said - as parents we have our boundaries too. Despite my dark goth background i too hate gore. I'm fine with skulls and stuff but absolutely nothing grotesque, violent or sexual. My biggest issue is guns - ever since my son was born i was very open that there were to be no toy guns, nothing with guns on it. Yet i was fine with him being a knight with a sword which is still a deadly weapon but somehow my brain is fine with sword and not with gun.

Personally i would say it was over the top but at the same time not - ive just had the same chat with my son. He has put a game i dont agree with on his birthday list and i said i wouldnt be getting it. My mum went behind my back asking what is he going to do if someone else buys it for him and he said he will have to take it back and get a refund. I felt really sad. I mean he was doing the right thing in respecting my boundaries but the though of him returning a present he really wanted broke my heart. So i decided to have a chat with him about why i hate guns so much and how the world is going to hell in a handbasket over them right now. I said that because of what i believe i cant by that for him, but if someone else did buy it i wouldnt make him take it back as long as he didnt play the game around his younger sibblings. He was fine about that. I also told him that i was mega proud he respected my feelings about the issue and glad we could come to a compromise.

Thing about teens is - once you ban something that makes it all the more attractive. I wasnt allowed my ears pierced but my sister was - so i did them myself. I wasnt allowed out on my own for ages then when i was i went to the worst places (like ones that tattoo 14 yr olds!)... tell her she can wear it as long as you cant see it then you both win.

God, when I was 14 I spent my Xmas money off my great gran on a T-shirt that said “I love Satan”, I was just being a zany teenager and I clearly wanted the shock of my elders and the awe of my peers. Anyway, I got both.

I also bought a Slipknot Hoodie on another occasion that had “People=Shit” on the back of it, got it confiscated at school but largely carried on wearing it outside school.

My parents didn’t like any of it, but they got over it, as did I.

I'd be very sceptical about whether the assistant gave it to her because she felt sorry for her - more likely that she bought it herself and wanted you not to have a go at her/ make her take it back a second time.
I would let this one go - one day she will be mortified at the thought of it and you will have the moral high ground

NotExactlyHappyToHelp
Are you my daughter

Let her wear it, but she'll have to deal with the consequences. Just as with swear words or sexual images, private businesses can and may ask her to leave. She might re-think it when she's turfed out of Costa.