Why are all the shorts so short??? They should not be wider than they are long!
It makes me so furious every time I have to buy summer clothes for Emma, the wretched selection of singlets and underpants masquerading as shorts that I have to choose from. And it’s not a modesty thing either, not a ‘she must shield her body from the world!’ reaction. It’s a practical reaction. Ems likes to wear shortie undies, and some of the shorts are seriously shorter than her underwear! The singlets…we live almost directly under the hole in the ozone layer! Would something with sleeves that might protect the child’s skin against skin cancer be too much to ask for?
It bothers me so much. The size range that Emma wears is for girls roughly aged 7-12. These are children. They should be encouraged to be active, to play on the play equipment at school and the park if they want to, to do cartwheels on the grass, to be able to sit cross legged and crawl around on the floor playing with toys without having to be conscious of their shorts riding up their butts and showing off their crotches to the world.
We should not be telling young girls that this is what it is to be a girl- that your clothes are about showing off your body, that you are not dressed for your own comfort and pleasure but for the way you look to others. Why is it that long before girls are discovering their own sexuality they are already being conditioned on how the world expects them to express it? Why are we taking young girls and putting them in clothes that tell them that they are supposed to be small and slim and sparkly, to wear pastels and glitter and sit prettily? And they absorb this lesson and grow up to develop eating disorders and self hatred because they don’t fit anymore, but there’s nowhere else for them to go.
My daughter’s body is HERS. I want her to learn to love it for what it is and what it can do. I want her to feel comfortable in her own skin and know that she can take that body and make her place in the world her own, no matter what it looks like. I want her to know that she can be thin, or she can be fat, or she can be somewhere in between and it’s all okay. She can take up space. Her body is HERS, and if it makes her feel good to wear short shorts and singlets and show it off then she can do that. But if she wants to wear cargos and shirts then she can do that too, and it doesn’t make her any less of a girl.
There is no dichotomy here- being a girl can be whatever you want it to be. But that’s not the message society is sending our little girls, and that’s heavy baggage for a child to carry as she moves towards adulthood.
Well, I wrote all that this morning, clearly had some strong feels on the issue. As is obvious from my previous rant, I went shopping this morning to fill in the gaps in Emma’s summer wardrobe and found it a somewhat enraging experience. Apart from Emma’s things I bought cat food, the Guinness Book of World Records 1915 (to go away for Nicholai’s Christmas present) and summer pyjamas for the boys.
I’m sick of clothes. At least Emma’s summer stuff is done. I still have to sort out the shorts the boys will need for summer, but that will require a lot of shuffling items between their drawers and making them try things on, so it’s hard to get enthused for doing that.
The kids are having a sleepover at Steve and Jean’s tonight, and Troy’s still installing updates at work. So I’m just hanging out at home by myself watching The Block. I like the Block, but I think two seasons a year is too much- I’m kind of just waiting for this one to finish because I’m a bit tired of it.
Feeling the Sun From Both Sides 