Anger Management
October 10, 2008
This post is for the latest edition of Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper. If you haven’t checked it out, you’re truly missing out. This week’s topic: Anger Management.
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What makes me angry is everywhere. I see it daily. It’s made me angry for a lot of years, but having a daughter has introduced me to a new emotion I can only describe as “anger verging on panic.” Mom101 and Ace is the Place have both talked about it recently; the comments left on their posts showed me that there are a large group of women who feel the same way. So why is this still happening?
I’m talking about the sexualization of little girls. I’m talking about dressing them in outfits suited for club-hopping 21 year olds, giving them toys dressed as hookers, pushing them into a culture and age level that’s inappropriate at best. I’m talking about robbing our little girls of their childhoods.
I never thought about what I looked like when I was a little girl. I read the Babysitter’s Club book series and rode my bike. I went swimming and played Barbies and hung out with my sisters in our clubhouse in the yard.
I want the same for my daughter. I have watched the channels that she will soon seek out as her own: the Disney, the Nickelodeon, even the Saturday morning cartoons on basic television. None were free of the advertising that sickens me, advertising that’s designed to flood her brain and make her feel lesser-than. Advertising that’s designed to teach her that she’s nothing if she’s not pretty, not thin, not just like the girls featured on television.
I want her to play, learn, to grow at her own pace. I don’t want her pushed too soon into a mindset that’s focused on boys, glitter, makeup, and precocious pants with JUICY written across the backside.
What makes me angriest is that, in this culture, I don’t know how to assure her childhood.
Oh, Beth I hear you! I wrote about this back when I first started Sprite’s Keeper and I had just been in a store in a very well visited resort in Hollywood, Florida. I thought the store was for kiddie clothes, and saw lingerie in size 2T. It made me nauseaus to see shirts for little girls with “Big Boobs” on it even though a bird very similar (on purpose) to Big Bird was prominent on the graphic. Sick.
I don’t let Sprite see tv a lot since the guilt would kill me, but I have found Playhouse Disney in which none of the programs are cut by commercials and the only advertising besides it’s own shows is by Chuck E Cheese and even then it’s subtle. So she gets Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Minnie freak) and The Imagination Movers, a kind of throwback to the Monkees which I’m really digging myself. I have a post coming out about it soon and therapy soon after that! Great spin and completely right. I’ll put my soapbox right next to yours! You’re linked!
I’m so with you on this one. I’m afraid to let my daughter have any girly things for fear she’s going to want to dress like a prostitot! Seriously, marketing is disgusting these days, they put out things like Bratz dolls and slutty children’s lines. I think I’m going to convert and we’ll raise our kids with the Amish. Except I want to be able to bring my computer and electricity with me…
Luckily my girls are past this stage. Neither of them got into dolls much, although they enjoyed dressing up in my clothes, playing with make-up and such, it was never inappropriate. There was never this fascination with pop stars and glitz. Your anger is completely justified.
Yeah, I definitely hear you on this one!!! I read a post on another blogger’s site about how she found toddler THONGS and LINGERIE at one clothing store. It’s unbelievable to me. I can remember my mother always telling me, “when you’re older, when you’re older,” I can’t imagine how hard it is going to be to maintain that argument with my own daughter with all the messages in our culture today. Ridiculous.
Oh, after reading the above comment by Sprite’s Keeper I see it may have been her post I was reading about that!! ha!
Heather: Ugh, I heard about the thongs – that was Abercrombie, wasn’t it?? So disgusting. I hate their sizing as well – I’m really hoping that they are completely out of style by the time Maddie is old enough to know.
Oh, I wish she could stay in Carter’s forever!!
::off to search Sprite’s archives::
This is what makes me want to move out to the country where my daughter can run around barefoot on our acrs of land, picking wild blackberries and swimming at the local Tarzan hole, instead of watching TV. I know this is just a fantasy (though growing up in Oregon I know lots of places where we could go and make it happen), so I try to limit her exposure. It’s so hard in today’s society.
It’s horrendous! And shame on the parents that allow it! My daughter is 15 and is not allowed out of the house if her belly is showing. She cannot wear spaghetti strapped anything to school and her skirt or shorts can’t be more than four inches about her knee. And I’m so fortunate that those are the school rules!!! So, there won’t be any changing in the girls bathroom either.
My stepdaughter was 16 during a vacation to Key West. She had her shorts on over her bikini bottom and the shorts were unzipped and then the band was folded down. I had a fit … but of course, I’m not her mother so it fell on deaf ears.
I can’t imagine what would possess a mother to dress a little girl in that garbage.
And BTW! YOUR IT! To find out what I’m talking about copy and paste the link below into your browser and then follow the directions. Have fun!
http://buzzinby.com/2008/10/10/im-it/
Totally agree with you. We were visiting someone at a hospital the other day and a nurse commented on my DD’s sexy jeans…we don’t call them sexy jeans at 15 months. We call them cute. A prime example are the Bratz dolls, what the hell are they about? There’s no way my DD will ever have one.
And the pants with words agross the ass….oh I hate them!!!