parents

Bras, make-up and high heels for 3 year olds. Much wrong with that?

What do you think of this image? Sexy? Scary? I’m going to go with scary. In fact I’m going to go further and say appalling. It’s an ad that appears in an issue of Vogue Bambini, an Italian magazine that’s imported to Australia and is described by magazine retailer Mag Nation like this:

Children’s fashion gets stylish makeover in Vogue Bambini as these mini models strut their stuff, sporting the latest threads from Pellino to Iza Gran to Diesel to everybody’s favourite, Osh Kosh (B Gosh!). These angelic cherubs are so adorable it’s ridiculous, and there’s a nice, even variety of girls and boys’ clothing with every style conceivable – retro, grunge, cutesy, gaudy, preppy – so you can be guaranteed that no matter what you want to dress your own little cherub in (or what they let you dress them in), they’ll be the coolest kids on the block.

Ugh. Except the pre-pubescent girls in this ad are not portrayed as ‘angelic cherubs’, they are portrayed as music video skanks. And how old are they…. maybe 9? 10?

I’m in the middle of reading an incredibly confronting but important book at the moment called Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls edited by Melinda Tankard Reist.

It’s a terribly bleak but necessary look at how we are eroding what was once the sacred space of childhood with a bombardment of appalling imagery and sexually suggestive ideas aimed at children, particularly at girls. From music videos to fashion, breakfast radio as a parent it can sometimes feel like no space is safe for your kids to look or listen to.

I’m going to post more about the book and its contents in the future. Right now I’m trying to digest its many different points.

In a News Ltd report today,Gemma Jones & Clementine Cuneo write….

Child development experts said young girls were now entering their “tween” years between being a child and a teenager at the tender age of six – five years earlier than previously. Experts said that by age six, girls needed branded clothes, at seven they wanted styled hair, by eight they were beginning diets, at nine they were styling their hair and by early teens were engaging in sex or sending sexually explicit text messages.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday found crop-top style bras for toddlers aged two to three on sale at a major department store, sparking outrage from parents.The alarming trend is taking a heavy psychological toll, Professor of Developmental Psychiatry at Monash University Louise Newman said. “I’ve seen children suffering from clinical depression in primary school because they don’t feel they are pretty enough or thin enough or able to be popular,” Dr Newman said. “The girls are worried they won’t get boyfriends, girls have started defining their self worth in terms of themselves as a sex object.”

Dr Newman said young girls had always played dress ups in their mothers’ clothes but that this trend was different. Dr Joe Tucci, the CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, said unprecedented numbers of young children needed psychological help. “In an unprecedented way this generation of children are being exposed to adult concepts far earlier than they are ready to understand,” he said. “Kids as young as seven are worried about the way they look, whether they’re attractive to boys. They lack self esteem and confidence. If they don’t feel like they fit into those messages, they feel like they are not as good as other kids. An impact is depression and anxiety which we are seeing an increase of in unprecedented levels.”

Child advocate Julie Gale was outraged to find bras for toddlers on sale at stores including Target. Target defended the sale yesterday, arguing it was up to parents to choose whether they buy the baby bras. “It is totally unnecessary. A two-year-old doesn’t need that,” Ms Gale said. “They are tactically marketing eye shadows, make-up, nail polish and little bras. It is mini me.”

I have arguments with people about this all the time. Yes, little girls will always want to play dress-ups. Most little girls’ predominant role model is their mother. It’s totally normal and appropriate for little girls to want to clomp around the house in Mummy’s high heels or play with Mummy’s make-up, even try on Mummy’s bra. Who didn’t do that?

But that is a totally different thing to putting on make-up and high heels and bras that are MADE for kids. That are MARKETED to kids. Little girls playing with Mummy’s make-up know that it’s Mummy’s. It’s part of playing pretend. Having make-up of YOUR OWN at age 3 or 6 or 9 is different altogether. That says it’s appropriate and normal for little girls to wear make-up. That says it doesn’t belong in the realm of fantasy or dress-ups or playing pretend AT HOME but that it’s acceptable an even expected in the real world.

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And think about that for a moment. I acknowledge that it is sometimes hard to separate valid concerns about the sexualisation and acceleration of adulthood for young girls with every parents’ desire to freeze our kids in time as carefree and innocent kids. We want to cocoon them from life’s harsher realities and keep them in the safe bubble of childhood.

Inevitably, they have to grow up. But not like this. Not with bras and lipstick and high heels in kindergarten and primary school.

As for the argument that “if you don’t want your kid to wear it, just don’t buy it”, well, if only it were that simple.

As a parent, you cannot always control what comes into your child’s life. In fact you never can. It’s not just about pester-power and your inability to say ‘no’ 400,000 times. It’s about well-meaning but misguided friends and relatives who give your children gifts for their birthday or Christmas that you would not choose to have given them. And once your child has opened said gift, it can be difficult utterly impossible to make it ‘disappear’.

That’s how inappropriate clothes and make-up and high heels and t-shirts with awful slogans find their way into the lives and wardrobes of so many little kids. It’s not right to just put the full responsibility onto the parents, the manufacturers and the retailers have to also take some responsibility for what they sell.

What do you think? Who are the major culprits in this whole realm of the premature sexualisation of girls and how can we combat it?

This isn’t just an issue for parents or parents of girls. It’s so much bigger and more important than that and requires the interest and attention of all sectors of our society…..so speak up. What do you think?