AIBU about DD's gym knicker "shorts"?

[RiderGirl]

DD is just turned 13 and has taken to wearing "shorts" that I can only describe as looking like 1980's gym knickers in length, the literally sit in the crease of her buttocks. AIBU in saying that she isn't allowed to step outside the house wearing them? We keep falling out about it but I think they're wildly inappropriate!! To make it worse she wears them with a large t shirt and it just looks like she's in a t shirt and pants 🙈

I think it's bizarre to pick the most sexualised clothing possible - clothing that literally puts your arse and genitals on display- then complain about men looking at your body.

All these people saying oh it’s what they wear these days what can you do?
Stop buying it.
Stop giving your children access to enough cash they can blow nearly 30 quid on a pair of shorts that are little more than underwear that are only suitable if you can also afford 30 a month on gym membership, which kids also don’t need.

I'm really torn with stuff like this because I feel girls/women should be able to wear whatever they want without it being sexualised or made a problem because of men. But I understand why you don't want her to wear them. I wouldn't want to make her feel like she is the issue here.

I like this article, OP:

Women should be allowed to wear what they like.

A 13 year old girl is not a woman; she is a child.

But those shorts, while being shorter than fingertip length, as per the article, are not the same because they aren't the tight fitting thin material that the OP talks about that show the outline of the genitals and buttocks.

And just for the laugh: (I could have continued my crotch-crunching time travel, but this is enough 😂)

1970s, Salisbury, UK
1960s, Fartown, UK
1972, Southwest Airlines stewardesses, USA

We didn’t allow Dd to wear them but our ring doorbell informed us she had taken them with her and changed at a mates house. So “not allowing” a 14 year old to do something is easier said than done.

The point wasn't the style of the shorts but the mother's thought process.
I find it sad that so many of you are eager to shame a child and/or teach her that her clothing makes her sexual prey. Maybe read the article, I think she expresses herself well.

Get some for yourself and tell her you're excited that you can match, if she intends on wearing hers out of the house go and pur yours on. They are underwear or gym wear a male in similar also wouldn't be appropriate

@Threenow I replied to someone else upthread but by “sensible” clothes I meant Tshirts, jeans, trackies, hoodies etc. That’s what my 15 year old wears. That’s what her friends wear. That’s what she would buy if I let her loose in Primark with her own money.
If she came home with some of those shorts like the OPs daughter then I wouldn’t let her have the independence of shopping for herself for a while.

I wouldn’t let my DD out of the house in thee.
part of the reason it’s become the norm and everyone is wearing them, because so few parents say no, and don’t take up the responsible side of parenting - which includes saying no!
I see girls wearing them, young teenagers and can’t help but stare at them on the street. I cringe to think how many paedos and rapists are among the other people staring at them too.

Kids are given WAY too much freedom to do what they want or what is in ‘fashion’ Unfortunately Fashion trends are shoved down our throats and normalised by kardashian types and influencers.

Don't forget also: body positivity and also parental beliefs in autonomy. There is a very noticeable shift in how parents are parenting. In some cases it really feels as if the parents have stopped actually acting as any kind of elder/authority figure. Parenting is guiding and protecting. Not blithely letting things happen cos 'everyone is wearing them.' It's like boys only wearing expensive trainers etc, parents likely pay for them and thereby enable choices. There doesn't seem to be a line in the sand anymore. The one between parent and child, the one where we are responsible.

This must have been what was being worn by a teen waiting at a bus stop, opposite a pub in a seaside town we visited a few weeks ago.

We’d stopped off for a drink and there was a guy sitting at the bar, obviously a local, chatting to the staff. He’d turned around and started laughing loudly, as did the staff, about this girl at the bus stop and her ‘shorts’! One member of staff said that she knew her and she was in Y8 at school. Didn’t stop him carrying on about her.

I think regardless of age, gender etc. If you go around wearing these shorts, you will get attention, good or bad, men ogling, or taking the piss.

@DisquietintheRanks nailed it.
it’s a crazy world we live in and we’re all too busy justifying our bad choices and weak spines where we can’t make a decision!
parents should actually parent!

@MattRifesFutureWife problem is that you can’t control what others do so pervs will always be out there - male and female pervs.
The bit that you can control more, is how your young child dresses and can teach them to not attract the wrong type of attention - whoever it is from.

We didn’t allow Dd to wear them but our ring doorbell informed us she had taken them with her and changed at a mates house. So “not allowing” a 14 year old to do something is easier said than done.

So what sanction did she face for blatantly ignoring you?

@GarlicGrace i read that article before and disagreed with it at the time, I still do. No girl or woman is responsible for a man deciding to attack them. Women and girls are sexual prey to some men because they are female, nothing more, nothing less.

Our girls need to know how to keep themselves safe, how to recognise when their “spidery senses” are tingling, how to set boundaries for themselves and recognise when those boundaries are being crossed, how to tell a guy to fuck off and mean it, how to fend off guys who have comment to make about their body and their appearance. To know that it’s not flattery if some guy keeps looking at your arse, that your body isn’t a commodity.

Until those skills are developed, keeping kids out of sexualised situations and clothing is in my mind the sensible thing to do because sexualised clothing is designed to draw attention to a body, to a child’s body in this case, and clothing that leaves your arse cheeks out and your vulva outlined is sexualised no matter what it was actually sold to you as.

exactly this. Also none of us can wear what we want outside. My son doesn’t go out in his pants or skin tight leggings. If he did I would stop him if he was 13 or advise him of the consequences if older. Boys and men in the U.K. choose not to wear speedos because they don’t want their private parts defined. If my dad went out in a dirty string vest again I would question his decision. If my mum went to work at the local council wearing Nike shorts I think she would be asked to change. I can’t wear flip flops, string vests, shorts, or swim wear to work. And it’s the same for men. It’s also about standards, decency etc.

Out of interest do you think men should ne able to wear what they like without it being sexualised? So posing pouch, cod piece, gimp suit, dildo butt monkey = it's a free country, look away if you don't like it?

If teenage girl went for a run in a pair, would that be ok?

irrelevant to this debate.

“We didn’t allow Dd to wear them but our ring doorbell informed us she had taken them with her and changed at a mates house. So “not allowing” a 14 year old to do something is easier said than done.”

why did you buy her clothes you wouldn’t allow her to wear??
Seems like a bit of a false economy considering all the clothes that are available to buy which are suitable for all manner of activities which don’t show off your child’s genitalia and arse cheeks?
why spend £30 on clothing your kid can’t wear most of the time??
more money than sense maybe?
I do have to spend £30 a piece for some of my sons cloths now cuz he’s massive and I’m paying men’s prices but I certainly would not be paying that for anything he couldn’t wear out of the house without being sexually harassed.
I take it you pay extra for your ring door bell to have x ray vision into your child’s bag?

'However now some females are being told it's ok to dress in as little clothing as possible because "fashion" and girl power.'

Yes it's funny how 'female empowerment' now translates as wearing as little and/or as revealing clothing as possible, removing all body hair, and offering your body up to whatever sexual practice or kink men desire.

Why is it irrelevant as she is still wearing them in public.

Dd1 just wears them for sport, after I pointed out they actually looked like pants with a T shirt when she put them on to go to the airport when we were on our way to holiday. That’s the only time I’ve actually directly said no to them.

She wears tiny denim shirts instead, but at least they look like shorts not pants.

They weren’t 30 quid either, the kids ones that go up to XL which is the equivalent of a ladies size 8 are cheaper.