How one mum reacted to her daughter’s happiness at purchasing her first g-string.
“Look, Mum.”
My 13-year-old daughter’s eyes shone with a sort of mischief as she called me in from the hallway. I stood in her doorway and watched as she opened her top drawer and proceeded to hold up the teeniest, tiniest g-string I’d ever seen.
Momentarily halted, I just blinked. I’m assuming my face froze unnaturally (or maybe I just dropped the laundry basket, I can’t remember) because she added quickly, “Don’t worry, I got it on sale.” Good God. How was my head supposed to explode off my neck when she was following my cardinal rule?
I drew a breath, nodded and did what any other mum would do: turned on my heel and left. I needed a mum moment. For sure.
It’s not that I feel year 7 is entirely too early for g-strings (I do), and it’s not that I don’t particularly see the need for invisible panty lines in high school (I don’t). The bigger issue, as I see it, is the undeniable and intrinsic empowerment of a g-string. Any female that’s ever donned one knows there’s a hell of a lot more going on than invisible panty lines.
It’s as if there’s a secret sexual revolution going on in your pants. I guess I wasn’t expecting a g-string – and everything that comes with it – in high school and worse – from her.
She’s hip. She gets it (only mothers of teenagers who don’t get it fully understand this phrase. Trust me, my eldest teenager, a boy, does not get it. That’s an entirely different article…). But my savvy, sassy daughter? She’s confident. And reflective. And beautiful.
Not beautiful in the kum-ba-ya sense that “all kids are beautiful,” but beautiful enough that our friends nod knowingly and offer “yeah, good luck with that” condolences or “got the shotgun ready?” inquiries whenever she whisks through the room. The truth is she doesn’t need a g-string.
I only wish she knew that.
My daughter might disagree (quite loudly, I imagine) but I happen to think I’m a fairly cool mum. My hair’s not stuck in a time warp, I tend to favour high heels with just about anything and I’m incredibly adept at the muffin-top-camouflage. Still, even the coolest parent will grimace when their baby girl wants to be sexy. I’m not a soapbox-standing mum who’s going to blame the demise of teenage morals on MTV or say the world’s going to hell in a handbasket because some emaciated Barbie traded her bikini top for peanut butter on Survivor. I know sex is everywhere we turn, but I also know I’ve instilled some pretty good values into my little girl’s head. So why the sudden need for the inner strength of sexuality?
Having been a teenager myself, I remember the gradual ascent of provocative dress. In high school, my Nautical Blue eyeliner was smuggled into the roller rink undetected in my Jordache pocket and was wiped clean off my face before pick up hours later.
