So, I was checking my email like ya do when I noticed a human interest story. What can I say, I'm a sucker for some of those things. So I click the link and lo and behold a group of parents are having a hissy because one of the big labels were selling shirts to the early teen demographic sporting logos such as "I love school-Not" and "Algebra Sucks".
Ok Parents don't want that message being sent out to their children I get it, but the more I Read the more it because clear they were not made it was on the clothing, they were mad it was only on the girls clothing. They argued that young women did not need to be encouraged to hate school and stay uneducated. This is where I started to laugh. Now I am all for the educational equality of young women vs young men, however t-shirts of this ilk are far from new and as far as I can tell, have never hurt anyone.
Even when I was a little girl in middle school one of my favorite t-shirts said "No Time for School the Malls are Open". No one had a fit back then because it was just fashion and everyone was a lot more worried about the children who were faking eye problems to get Harry Potter Glasses and the little girls who wanted to don mini skirts to look like Britney Spears.
I think this dramatic change says a lot for culture and not in a positive light. When I was that age parents were out raged that little girls wanted to grow up so quickly and wear high heels and low cut t-shirts. Last May I attended my brothers graduation ceremony. My sister and I had a jaw drop moment when a seven year old girl sporting an Iphone, full makeup, high heel boots, mini shirt with a slit, and crop top cut in front of us followed by her clone mother. We sat there dumbfounded for a moment before my sister said something I won't forget, "There goes a proud moment for feminists."
To say that people are striving toward the equality of men and women seeing little girls dressed like that breaks my heart. High heels at that age aren't healthy. Neither is the idea you have to show as much skin as the law will allow to be popular and pretty.
In culture, the extreme is swinging back into popularity as the culture grows more open and understanding. Just as you had free love and all that jazz in the 60's and 70's today's culture is about fads and seeing how far you can make someone's jaw drop. Everyone is moving out of the closet and onto prime time TV to air dirty laundry and as a result it's taking a lot more to win the one upsmanship game these days and unfortunately the people who are learning the most from this are the ones who understand it the least. Too many children have free roam of television and the internet and what they see is what they learn to imitate. Instead of parents raising their children the task is falling to day car centers and teenage children looking to make a buck, both of which are guilty of setting a child in front of the TV so they can have so peace and quiet.
My question to you today is, how young is too young? I've see this asked on internet forums and people will rage in response, but if everyone is so against the sexualization of young children why is it being encouraged? I've got a silly idea. Today instead of watching some show on TV or putting your child in a pageant or whatever it is you do, how about a family night. Talk to your kids see whats running through there minds. Play a game. Wasabi is a great one. I know some people are thinking I don't know what it's like to have kids there not that easy to communicate with and you know what, their right. I never said it was easy, I said I thought it would do some good if people took the time to explain their morals instead of guessing them off the latest celebrity list.
crabby girl in a corset signing off.
-Corset
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