Shopping ...

Yesterday the kiddos and I hit the local Gap store to see if we could find deals. Luckily for us, summer tops were already on sale - funny, since it's a mere 30-some degrees outside right now.
Anyway, I was thrilled to see so many shirts on the sale rack and instantly put the two girls to trying them on.
Although we found lots of shirts we did like, we found lots of shirts we did not like. And by we, I do actually mean we - thankfully my girls see eye to eye with me on the idea of clothes shopping.
Several shirts were meant to be worn with the stomach hanging out. Now you may be thinking, your girls are 4 and 7, it won't hurt them. Probably wearing a few short shirts over the summer won't hurt them. But it will teach them wearing those types of clothing is okay and when they hit 13, or 15 of 16 they will not understand my change in tune.
Also several shirts had that cut where the top sort of looks like two triangles (I wish I knew the technically name and I wish I weren't too lazy to find a picture to show you). Again, the amount of skin on top it showed, was IMNSHO, appalling and gross. Seriously, if they were older than 7 and 4 they would have had major cleavage. Again, they haven't developed anything but I still vetoed them because I want to instill these lessons in them young.
I recently heard that a girl learns her basic idea of what is okay/not okay and about sexuality between the ages of 8 and 10. Yes, 8 and 10. And that it is during that time, we as parents, can teach them in age appropriate ways about what is okay and not okay. I didn't want to believe it when I heard it. 8 to 10 seems so young, but I also remembered learning quite a few years ago most kids know by the 4th grade if they want to go to college or not, and if you don't talk it about it before then, it will be hard to change what they think they want to do. I guess the same thing applies to this.
I'm not saying I'm raising my girls to think their bodies are bad. Nor do I want them wearing long sleeve turtle necks with baggy sweaters over them and floor-length thick skirts that give them the shape of the box and cover every inch of their skin aside from their face. No, not at all. We even bought ::gasp:: some tank tops yesterday, nice ones with simple scoop necks that looked cute and age appropriate on them.
What I'm saying is I don't want my girls at ages 4 and 7 (or at 14 and 17 for that matter) to walk around looking like mini-prostitutes. There is a line there. And I don't want them to cross it frankly.

The good news in all of this was they both said before I could even comment they didn't like the shirts and how it fit them (yeah!). One shirt my 7 year old did like a lot but on her own she thought of the idea of putting a cute tank top underneath it so that it wouldn't show so much. I was very proud of them for being able to know what was okay and what wasn't for our household.

I have to also comment on one other thing. While we were shopping I song came I - one I have never heard before - but the girl was singing "I want to spend the night with you - and it wasn't too another girlfriend about a sleepover. My 7 year old specifically asked me "Oh, are the people in the song going to have a sleep over mom?" I simply said yes and then got back to picking out clothes to try on. Why was that song playing in a Gap kids store? Can someone please tell me? At least every other song we heard (and let me tell you, we heard a lot of songs because we were in there way too long!) was fine and okay. But that one did irk me.
I bring my girls to a clothing store where half the clothes are far too revealing IMO and there is a song playing about spending the night with your boyfriend.
Call me old fashioned if you will, although I will argue I am not, but it really all just bothered me a bit.

The plus side, they did get quite a few very cute shirts for summer for about 6.99 each. And they each got a pair of cute capris and as a bonus my 4 year old got a very cute jean skirt that was actually more than an inch long (and I won't even tell you about how most of the jean skirts were so short I can't imagine girls wearing them without there butts hanging out). So we were happy with the day. And I was proud of my girls. And it was fun overall =)