"Sexy" means beautiful and thin according to my 5 year old daughters.

[sandyballs]

. They were dancing to a CD earlier and said "look mummy, we're being sexy" which freaked me out slightly, so I asked them what they thought sexy meant and that was their reply .

I presume they've picked this up from school somehow, but I find it worrying that 5 year old girls already think along these lines.

I was flicking through Junior magazine at the soft play this afternoon and was surprised at the quantity of make up the girl models were wearing. The OTT designer clothes are just as slutty as the matalan equivalent. I like to see children dressing and acting like children. I also prefer a smile to a pout in a photo.

Bratz aren't much worse than Sindy/Barbie. At least it's showing little girls that there are hair colours other than blonde & Sindy/Barbie have their share of tarty clothes. Also the Bratz with their almost alien shaped heads are more cartoonish, whereas Barbie/Sindy is a more human looking shape, just a skinny busty female . Baby dolls are just as bad IMO - I see it as saying to little girls that your role is to produce & look after babies!

I've never actually seen the playboy stuff marketed directly at little girls - I've always thought of it being marketed at teenagers, hence why in catalogues it's in the adult sizes rather than childrens sizes.

Do disagree with tarty clothes with sexy slogans for children & thongs in children's sizes, but having said that I have several friends who are still able to wear age 13-15 clothes (not anorexic or anything, just very petite) so in their case it is perhaps a good thing some more grown up items are sold in children's sizes.

My line is that if you don't like items then don't buy them for your children, but if others want to then it's their own choice. Can see the problem with xmas presents from others though, but you could always ebay unsuitable items or take them back.

Awful that 5yos are worrying about being beautiful and thin. I know we all tend to idealise our own childhood but I am absolutely sure I didn't worry about my appearance at that age - was more concerned about climbing trees.

Yes I agree with your last post. Do they really manufacture clothes for kids with the word sexy across them??!! Then again, children only lose their innocence when we adults imbue these things with meaning. ie if we say you can't wear a tight top, it's not right, they'll only wonder why then it isn't right. That's the aspect I would hope to be able to delay a few years.

I'm afraid a paedophile could well be leering after your little one whether they are in a tight top and skirt or jeans and a baggy t-shirt.

It doesn't seem like they actually know what sexy means from their comment so I'm not sure if I'd go so far as saying they're worrying about looking sexy at 5.

I'd probably say that sexy means attractive & that you can be attractive whether you are fat or thin, blonde or ginger, whatever you look like. It's likely that whoever they picked it up from has no idea what it means anyway.

What worries me is not so much the clothes, but the pressure on really young girls to be stick thin.

A friends daughter aged 3.5 who had just started pre-school was taunted by some other girls for being fat when she is a completely normal size!

I worry about the stick thin thing too a bit. I just hope that it will all change in a few years. Shapes and sizes go in and out of fashion. 80s popstars and actors were often quite normal sized for example.

I am so proud of my very sensible 11 year old niece who has on numerous occassions proclaimed that she "doesn't want to be a teenager because you have to act stupid and wear horrible clothes"! Whether she'll still be saying this in a couple of years I don't know.

On the plus side if you are a skeletal and ugly women at least you have something going for you

It does seem though that any female celebrities at the moment are stick thin and if they are even a size 10 or 12, they are curvy (ie slightly porky)WTF!!

christmasangel you are right about the 80s, if you see anything on TV from that time the women are much more of a healthy size and look good with it. Lets hope things change soon.

Sadly, they do market Playboy stuff at children. A couple of my 7 year old students turned up in sparkly Playboy t-shirts for the Christmas party the other day.

Speaking of which, I took my dd to her school disco the last Friday. There was a little girl, couldn't have been more than 7, dressed in black hotpants (which exposed her bottom cheeks), fishnets, gold heeled shoes, a halter neck top and a pearl choker. Could not believe it. I'm afraid to say she was easily matched up to her mother, who was dressed very similar.

LWRG, ds2 aged 8 said to me today on seeing teenagers "hanging out" at our local Tesco's, "Mammy, I don't 'get' teenagers".

Oh didn't realise that. Haven't come accross playboy specifically advertised at children. My DD's just starting to take an interest in clothes but luckily she's happy enough to go for funky but untarty clothes & I would never buy playboy items for her at 8. It is getting harder to avoid tarty clothes while out shopping so try to distract her attention with prettier items.