Leah Hardy in the DM about the sexualisation of children

[MmeLindt]

with comments from Justine

"Growing numbers of mothers like me are appalled at what is happening to the way our children, and particularly our little girls, are being pushed into ever more adult, ever sexier styles of clothes.

We worry how our growing daughters will learn to regard themselves, and how some adults will look at them. And most of all, we worry about how fast and how much their childhoods are shrinking."

A leotard and tights is positively tame in comparison

blu - hey i'm glad its not just me with the high heels!

i'm in two minds about the ballet outfits. if you consider them as what they are -skin tight leotards which leave little to the imagination...but they are culturally accepted as the appropriate attire for dancing classes. a dancing class is a closed environment......little girls in leotards are not trying to emulate (sic) grown up ladies whereas that noah cyrus child clearly is.

Ballet outfits are for ballet, just as swim suits are fir swimming, and have been designed to facilitate taking part in the activity.

Pole dancing outfits, ditto! Which is what makes pole dancing outfits - and activity - totally unsuitable fo children

kids are all around the place dressed in way too tarty stuff too young

end of

needs addressing

i blame the parents

I don't like heels on toddlers. Wrong on so many levels and no need at all. Suri looks ridiculous.
I like all the traditional stuff that jojo maman et bebe do and will dress dd like that for as long as possible.

I dont like bikinis on young girls, I think they they just look wrong. Why does a 2,3,4,5,6,7 year old need to cover her top? A young girl is just the same as a young boy, by wearing a bikini top it suggests otherwise.
We take my daughter shopping mostly shopping in H&M and occasionally to Zara, and never have a problem getting her trendy, non slutty clothing

We recently went to a 6 year old's Birthday party,and I was shocked to see off the shoulder tops and make up on 5 & 6 year olds.I've never seen anything like it.The dds seem oblivious to it all,dd1 doesn't know who Miley Cyrus is thank goodness.,she is more interested in dinosaurs.She did come home last week saying that a year 3 boy had been calling her Cheryl Cole.I asked her who CC was,and she had no idea.I wasn't sure how I felt about my lovely dd being compared to her.

glint,my dds were fitting models for NEXT.When dd1 was 6 months old,we had to go for a fitting and they produced a bikini for her to try on!I was pretty horrified,it was a black one with a triangle style bra top.They asked me if I'd buy one if I saw it in the shop and I told them in no uncertain terms what I thought about putting babies in bikinis.I don't know if it ever went into production,as I don't shop in NEXT.

I do generally worry about this but what I worry about is the edging toward the idea that a DD's body is something to be ashamed of, afraid of and concealed - and it DDs are not in burkas then it's their mothers' fault if something bad happens to them.

I think there are a few items of clothing that should be banned (anything with the word 'sexy' on for a start), unfortunately my DD has a knack of taking the most sensible clothes I can find and styling them so she ends up looking trashy (and she's 6yo). However I do keep her more extreme outfits indoors.

Clothing is only part of the sexualisation of children though, and parents do need to be aware of how their DD appears to the outside world.

I remember being shocked to see a pair of 6 or 7 year olds at a Baby Show doing a carefully choreographed dance routine on stage to 'Sandra Dee'. Their parents were thrilled and egging them on. But I was mortified on their behalf when they were gyrating to 'Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee. Lousy with virginity. Won't go to bed til I'm legally wed.......'

lol and urgh - Last year I went to Park Dean caravan club and their entire end-of-week "production" was a 90-minute staging of Grease acted by their mascots (a giant lizard and a seagull). They were saying things like "Come on kids, join in! Have you seen the film? Do you know the part where Danny feels sad?"

And I wanted to shout: "DO YOU KNOW THE PART WHERE THE CONDOM SPLITS AND THEY GO ON TO HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX?" but I restrained myself.

However, they performed the production once a week all summer and I doubt any parent complained.

I totally hate sexy clothes on kids those boots on that Noah child are hideous!

DD is 10 now and it is increasingly difficult but not impossible to find what i consider appropriate stuff - that is pretty and grown up without being skimpy/revealing or plastered in cute/cheeky/sexy slogans

i have said it before and will say it again - I WILL NOT buy anything which requires someone to read a slogan on DDs backside

Of course it is the parents fault - it annoys me when other mums say it cannot be helped, they are just buying what is out there. if we did not buy it they would not make it! if I am shopping for her and i cannot find anything suitable, i leave that shop and try elsewhere. and if someone else were to buy her something i really disapproved of, i would make the reasons known to her and allow it only to be worn in the house or under a coat! thankfully I am not a fashion victim myself, DD does not have any real grasp of celeb culture or have any role models in the media - again, that is down to the attitude in our home and her own realisation that all that is irrelevant tosh

dont even get me started on playboy stuff

and as for this

poor baby!!

Actually, I agree with Aitch - on 4yos it is just naff. On 9-10 yos it is starting to attract the sort of attention I would not want my DD getting.

A (child-free) friend was telling me the other day about her DNeice - age 11 - who came to see them (so going to Aunt & Uncle's house, not to a disco) looking, in friends words, like a particularly slutty 16yo - her concern was that said child is not bright enough to keep herself out of the trouble that she seems bound to attract. When I met the friend in question when we were 18 she typically wore micro-skirts and DMs so she is no prude (I add this because I was the most naive and frumpy 18yo imaginable so I try not to judge teenagers by my standards).

They also had French friends staying at the time and they were at how this child was dressed - the French don't appear to have this problem and continue to dress their children as children for much longer.

Personally I don't have a problem buying dd (13) "decent" for want of a better word, clothing.

Really you don't have to buy "sluttish" clothing.

I do object to the constsnt dribble of images mainly on R&B videos and in the media which portray women as nothing more than submissive prostitutes. This pisses me off.

But really children should be allowed to experiment and feel comfortable in clothing without being somehow blamed for their emerging sexuality. As others have said, if you find a child sexual then YOU have the problem, noone else.

(I am reminded of Ed Byrne's sketch about the girl with "gorgeous" on her arse. Very funny punchline. Check it out on Youtube if you've not seen it.)

Part of me agrees, but part of me thinks it is very easy to blame some kind of "culture" and attack easy targets like Cheryl Cole. Glamorous women who appeal to little girls have always been there - when I was at school all the girls in my class wanted to be Charlie's Angels or the girls out of Bucks Fizz. They didn't all grow up to be prostitutes.

There are some truly hideous clothes for little girls out there, agreed. We know they are hideous and that's why we don't buy them.

If you are daft enough, or have so little taste, as to dress your 7-year-old in a crop-top saying "sexy" and a pair of spangly hotpants, then you deserve what's coming to you, frankly. Don't blame "society", the media, retailers or The Saturdays.

"If you are daft enough, or have so little taste, as to dress your 7-year-old in a crop-top saying "sexy" and a pair of spangly hotpants, then you deserve what's coming to you, frankly"

The whole point is that "you" who buys these things aren't going to get what's coming to you. The child or another chid, perceived as sexually available is. It's not about the adults buying the stuff - it's the effect on the children.

My dd's are nearly 9 and 10 and if it were up to me they would be in very normal clothes like jeans and t shirts etc, but they want to wear skinny jeans, leggings, knee boots and sparkly stuff in black rather than the pink I would pick out for them.

They cover themselves inmake up which they are not allowed to wear when we go out and they have high heeled shoes which they begged for but aren't allowed to wear when we go out much to their dismay.

I didn't encourage this at all I wouldn't choose for them to dress this way, but I do buy them a few outfits that they like to wear because it's hard to constantly say no especially when they are getting older and are getting ideas about fashion etc.

I draw the line at halter necks and off the shoulder tops or skirts which are too short unless worn with leggings and things like that.

But they had things stuffed up their tops one day to look like boobs and asked when they could get a bra I said well when you're older because you only get a bra when your boobs grows enough to have something to put in the bra!! They were very disappointed and want the cropped vests which are sort of like bra, I said no, not yet.

I'm dreading the teenage years (which aren't that far away)

it is not hard to find decent clothes that arn't "sexy"
dd is 14 and disabled so I have to be careful in what she wears.(tarty clothes would just be odd) so I don't buy them, never have.

Looking at that picture of Suri it looks like there should be a ankle strap on the shoe which is more obvious when she has the picture from the back.No wonder she couldn't walk in them.

Also that picture of Noah in the boots.The boots look too big for her, almost as if he foot is slipping down the boot.

GrimUpNorth - I didn't quite mean "get what's coming" in that way - obviously!! . All I'm trying to say is that it is very easy for parents to blame a "culture of sexualisation" when, to an extent, they create that culture by buying into it. If you don't agree with pre-teens wearing inappropriate clothes, don't buy them. And set examples through other role models.

I agree Unquietdad.

My dd is taller than me but she has never held out for anything inappropriate clothing wise.
The main problem I face is that a lot of things she likes are very expensive! For example she would much rather be in a pair of Ugg boots than high heeled patent thigh boots. I guess it also depends on what your peers are wearing too.

For me it's about girls being taught at an increasingly young age that the most important thing in life is to look pleasing and sexy to men (and to go out and buy loads of products their whole lives) rather than being about random peadophiles leering at them because they're wearing 'sexy' clothes.

Every time I see Suri Cruise I just itch to shove some nice warm socks and proper shoes on her! I tut inwardly imagining her cold toes and inability to run about with those silly shoes on.