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Dressing up
June 14th, 2010 Posted in The Art of ParentingIn London, parents decry high heels for little girls as another instance of oversexualizing children. Their opponents say that little girls simply want to be like grown-ups.
Which seems to be precisely the point of the protest. But in an age when we’ve hypersexualized everything, and then refuse to see it as such, the logic breaks down. When suburban moms dress like strippers, but call it “fashionable,” it’s hard to find any traction when one suggests that little girls shouldn’t follow suit.
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3 Responses to “Dressing up”
By Micah
on Jun 14, 2010
Strippers = high heels?
Not what you’re saying, I know. But it seems like there should be some room between “more grown-up” and “sexual.” For my kids, at least, the former is not even remotely connected to the latter.
By Mark Lenz
on Jun 15, 2010
Amen, Tony. We have a whole generation of girls growing up looking elsewhere for the love they never got from their absent or detached fathers, willing to meet the “needs” of a whole generation of boys growing up without learning from their absent or detached fathers what a “real” man should be. And if these boys can get their “needs” met without commitment, what incentive do they have to become real men?
By Grant Goodvin
on Jun 15, 2010
My first impression of your comment ventured into the territory of having girls look like girls and boys look like boys. The line has been blurred to the extent that sexual identity is confusing. Are we talking more about sexual identity or sexual manipulation?