{"id":769,"date":"2012-07-18T20:02:40","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T00:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.positivelyparenting.com\/?p=769"},"modified":"2015-12-04T12:51:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T17:51:56","slug":"trashy-clothing-and-parenting-linked-forever-in-epic-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/childhood-behavior\/trashy-clothing-and-parenting-linked-forever-in-epic-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Trashy Clothing and Parenting…Linked Forever in Epic Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
If you have an eight-year-old girl, you probably have had, are currently having, or about to have fights about clothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not to say that boys don’t care about their clothing…<\/p>\n

But let’s face it; they don’t.<\/p>\n

The parenting\/clothing correlation to boys is “the guns and weapons” fight.\u00a0 The difference being, that, your boys will eventually stop wanting to shoot fake guns.<\/p>\n

We hope.<\/p>\n

But clothing and girls?\u00a0 Well, this fight goes on forever, doesn’t it?\u00a0 I can remember standing in dressing rooms with my mother, hot-faced with embarrassment and annoyance.\u00a0 Couldn’t she see that all I wanted was to look “cool?” Which essentially means, “like the other cool girls?”<\/p>\n

My mom still critiques my clothing.<\/p>\n

And the only reason I ever started working (at age14) was so I could buy the Guess Jeans my mother refused to buy me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mothers and daughters and clothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that I am mother of three girls, I am hearing myself say the things I never thought I would.\u00a0 You know, all those parent-y things.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“The clothes never looked this slutty when I was younger.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0“The sequins?\u00a0 On the bathing suits?”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0“Why does a 4T shirt say, ‘I’m a flirt on it?\u2019”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I recently chatted with a friend, who is also the mom of an 8 year old girl, and she reiterated my story.<\/p>\n

“What do I do,” she sputtered, “about the inappropriate clothes?\u00a0 Our shopping trip was rife with tears, struggles, and arguing, and I worry for the struggles in the future. But some of these clothes she wants are too mature, too short, and too, just too much<\/em>!”<\/p>\n

The parent coach had answers and advice for her.\u00a0 The mother in me drew in a long breath and heaved the heavy sigh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if you are a stripper, with a long and storied career on the pole, there seems to be a “trashy-clothing” threshold that is innate to almost every mother (toddlers and tiara moms are completely and utterly excluded).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It makes a mom shudder to watch their four year old become sexualized, and now with an eight year old?\u00a0 It’s getting worse.\u00a0 She is not simply cute any more; my daughter is becoming pretty<\/em>.\u00a0 She has lost of all of the little “kid” about her, and her bikinis are starting to make me nervous.<\/p>\n

Of course, she is only eight.\u00a0 She is only on the cusp of her body-awareness and I don’t want<\/em> her to think about her body.\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 Not ever.\u00a0 But when I watch her playing on the beach in her tiny bottoms, I cringe a little.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People are going to start to look<\/em> at her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t want to fight with her about her clothes.\u00a0 I don’t want to make her feel ashamed of, or embarrassed by, her cute, ballerina, figure.\u00a0 I don’t want to lay the responsibility of the guilt or the worry of leering and pervy men at her<\/em> feet.<\/p>\n

She will have body-awareness issues…she is a female.\u00a0 Isn’t it unavoidable?\u00a0 I just want to mitigate how truly crazy it can be.<\/p>\n

So, I have a couple of nonnegotiable (there are a some pieces clothing I cannot even consider), but I cannot fight every battle.\u00a0 I cannot sacrifice my relationship with my child over an aesthetic or a fear<\/em> of the futur<\/em>e.<\/strong>\u00a0 I know my battles are based in fear about her getting older<\/em>, and me forcing her to wear long skirts is not going to stop that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, oh the shorts.\u00a0 Can they cover her bottom?\u00a0 Just a tad more?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

{{Sigh}}<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have an eight-year-old girl, you probably have had, are currently having, or about to have fights about clothing. This is not to say that boys don’t care about their clothing… But let’s face it; they don’t. The parenting\/clothing correlation to boys is “the guns and weapons” fight.\u00a0 The difference being, that, your boys will eventually stop wanting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[263,499,445,195,447],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childhood-behavior","tag-anxiety","tag-body-awareness","tag-clothing","tag-control","tag-daughters"],"yoast_head":"\nTrashy Clothing and Parenting...Linked Forever in Epic Battle - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/childhood-behavior\/trashy-clothing-and-parenting-linked-forever-in-epic-battle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trashy Clothing and Parenting...Linked Forever in Epic Battle - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you have an eight-year-old girl, you probably have had, are currently having, or about to have fights about clothing. 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