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When I say, "It's Book Review Wednesday!", what I mean to say is that I am reviewing a book, and it happens to be Wednesday. As a very profound person once said, "The creative spirit cannot be enslaved by the oppressive chains of reason and logical thinking." (Who said that? Oh, yeah...it was me.) And by "review", what I mean to say is that I highly recommend this book, because it's flippin' hilarious. (End of review.)
I will now share with you a brief passage which I hope that you will appreciate as much as I have. More so now than when I first read the book, considering that I have recently had some of the very same thoughts and conversations that Ms. Rivenbark writes about.
The princess had just graduated to a size 7 when everything went to sh*t. We headed for our favorite department store, ready to take that leap into the new world of 7-16. Bye-bye, 4-6X, I thought to myself with a tug of sadness. My baby was growing up.
And apparently into a prostitute.
"Where are the sevens?" I asked the sixty-something clerk who wore here glasses on a chain just like me.
"You're standing in 'em," she said.
Oh, no, I thought, looking around. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. "There must be some mistake," I said. "These are, well, slutty-looking. I'm talking about clothes for a little girl in the first grade."
"That's all we got."
"But these look like things a hooker would wear!"
She smiled sadly. "You have no idea how many times I hear that every day."
Okay, breathe. This is just some weird marketing experiment. Right?
I went to my second-favorite department store and was invited to peruse the awfulness that is Tweenland! A better name would have been Lil Skanks!
Sequins, fringe, neon glitter tank tops with big red lips on them, fishnet sleeves, scary dragon faces lunging from off-the-shoulder T-shirts. Whither the adorable seersucker? The pastel floral short sets? The soft cotton dresses in little-girl colors like lavender, pale pink, periwinkle blue? This stuff practically screamed SYRINGE SOLD SEPARATELY!
I get it. Now that my kid is practically of childbearing age (is six the new seventeen?) I must choose from ripped-on-purpose jeans and T-shirts that scream things like BABY DOLL and JAIL BAIT, not to mention a rather angry GIRLS RULE AND BOYS DROOL! where an embroidered flower with buzzing bee should be.
When did this happen? Who decided that my six-year-old should dress like a Vegas show girl? And one with an abundance of anger issues at that?
And why are parents buying this junk fashioned from cheesy fabrics that surely leave your dryer's lint filter full of glitter and fuzzy sequined balls?
I hope you won't take this the wrong way--you, the mom on the cell phone flipping your check card to your kid so she can buy the jeans that say SPANK ME on them --buy you're going down, b*tch.
No, really. I'm taking you out, putting you on notice, slapping some sense into your sorry *ss.
And speaking of dressing your six year old like a skank, has anyone seen this show on TLC? It literally makes me want to hunt some of these parents down and beat them to a bloody pulp! (In Christian love, of course. Always in love...)
17 comments:
Yeah, and wait until they get to high school. It only gets worse. (I have no fear of calling out the young women who are on my volleyball team about their skankfits when I walk through the halls.)
Oh, and that show - I can't watch it because I get so ticked. I'd like to slap each parent at least twice. Ridiculous.
What a sorry*ss sinful world we live in. Instead of protecting those little angels from predators, they are dressing them to entice! It makes me so angry I could scream. As a matter of fact, I think I will. Excuse me. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
No. I do not feel better. But it had to be done....
Lil Skanks :s yikes
ps. because of them there's an std in my captcha :( *mistde*
Someone needs to be whunked with a fryin' pan. A Jesus frying pan. Now excuse me while I go comfort Helen.
My daughter is 5 but turns 6 this summer. I am happy to say there are places that currently offer nice clothes for young girls. We do a lot of shopping at Children's Place and they seem to have an ample selection of clothing I would be willing to dress my daughter in a few years from now. Also Disney seems to show that girls can dress in layers allowing for fun clothes over the top of things that actually cover them.
As for the Tiddlers in Tiaras. My wife loves a few shows on TLC and tends to watch them while I'm reading or blogging or whatever. To my knowledge this isn't one that she watches but I've seen the commercial many times. It reminds me of a lady that no longer attends the church. She had ... creative differences with the pastor and myself. She was very into the show and puts on concerts and such around town in other churches. They are always showy gospel things that pretty much no one but Christians will attend.
There is nothing wrong with that but when all of our time and resources are tied up in show after show like that then we fail as a church because we aren't reaching out. Anyways, she looks like some of the mothers and treats her kids that way and watching rehearsals is just like watching those ladies with their kids.
Yes, Nick, Children's Place rocks. I have an 8 year old daughter and it's the only store left I can appropriately outfit her in. So sad isn't it?
Vicki Courtney (or the "other Beth Moore" as I like to call her) blogs on this sort of thing all the time if you'd like to go rant there too. It's very cathartic. You guys should go check her out.
That video was truly scary. How do the parents think the kids are going to develop a healthy self-esteem and self-respect if they are getting treated like objects from a super young age? It just ain't healthy.
Not only am I for school uniforms, I say we only allow kids to wear uniforms all the time. Little Boy and Girl Scouts running around everywhere spewing oaths at each other.
True, homosexual kids would be left out...but then they'd be easy to spot for ritualized hazing...'You ain't got no uniform. You a homo-se-tual. You are going to h...e...double hockey sticks.'
Can't you just feel the love...well...social order in such a perfect society?
Tony C... um... You must not hide that sarcastic gift under a bushel basket.
I've seen that book passage before... Maybe it was excerpted in a magazine. And I totally thought you photoshopped the cover when I first saw it. I must get that book.
I don't seem to have much trouble outfitting my girls in normal clothes. No butt-cheek spelling lessons, no off-the-shoulder tops. But I have to admit that I bought my girls the "Girls Rule; Boys Drool" tops.
I'm sorry Nick and Tony. But it had to be done. Everyone knows it's true, at least until boys are past puberty.
WV agmsh
Hungarian for anguish.
"Helen's agmsh was so intense that she simply had to scream and hit the store clerk with the Jesus pan. Can't we plead insanity?"
Steph,
I encourage my kids to think the opposite gender is icky.
Tony C,
On Monday a girl in my daughter's Kindergarten class (in a Christian school) told my daughter she was going to hell. Not nice at all.
I'm so glad I had boys.
I totally agree with you.
If you need some help slapping people around in Christian love, call me.
First, yay for Children's Place! And you, too, Kathy! My daughter loves the clothes her daughter outgrew. :) And I don't care what style my daughter wears as she grows up- I wore some pretty crazy stuff and my parents loved me anyway- but you'd better believe it will be modest.
Second, I tend to get very sad about this stuff. When I worked at the youth center, I saw many young girls(I'm talking girls 5-10) dress inappropriately for a woman at ANY age. I saw six year olds do pole/stripper dances. I heard many of their stories of sexual abuse from out of their own mouths. You want to dress children like prostitutes? You want the media to raise them? You end up with girls who think that sex is the only value they have. Unfortunately, many of their mothers have the same mindset, and there is no father around to love them, so how can you expect the parents to teach their children differently? At some point, that girl and that family need to be shown a more perfect love. Just all goes back to Jesus...
So I really try hard to compliment girls based on their character, their intellect, their good decisions, and their creativity despite what they are wearing. I know that is obvious to all of you, but I think that's the first time many of the girls I knew got a compliment like that. Like I said. Sad. And being the token female on staff at the youth center, I spent a lot of time explaining WHY clothes were inappropriate and covering girls in t-shirts.
Yeesh, sorry. I'll just write my own post next time.
beth,
Today I put together a dance mix song for a game. Basically there are 8 songs from 8 vastly different music styles including polka. One of the styles I was looking for was billboard top ten music. The number one song right now is Right Round by Flo Rida. It has a great beat but the lyrics ... um yeah I found another song on the list. Basically the whole song is about watching a girl work the pole at a strip club. Even if it is a stupid game I'm not promoting it.
Annie - I can't watch it either. I have a hard enough time not throwing things at the tv while watching the news.
Helen - yup
Kathy - dang, that's gross/funny
Candy - violent yet compassionate. that's why I dig you.
Nick - yes, Childrens Place is great. I'm going to have to strongly disagree with the statement "there's nothing wrong with that". I think there's all kinds of things wrong with it.
Marni - thanks! love that good ol' Texas gal blog.
Joanna - exactly
Tony C - I'm trying not to laugh. It's probably a good thing you didn't hear me when I first read your comment. That aint right. (snort)
Steph - The entire book is chock full o' funny. She's from GA, btw.
Sherri - you have no idea!
Beth - you know I welcome your input on topics, especially this kind of thing. I know I make light of it in this post, but I struggle with the same things. I'm still sort of amazed to talk to pre-teen and teenage girls. So many of them equate their self worth to body image. I suppose it's always been that way to a certain extent, but the over-sexualized overtones are so very sad. I blame much on Bill Clinton. (And I'm not even kidding.)
Kat,
When I said there is nothing wrong with that I mean that there is nothing wrong with having gospel concerts. The problem is when that becomes the focus of a church or part of a church. We need to be reaching out more and more as a church not reaching in more and more. Still, having things from time to time that people in the church enjoy is a good thing, so long as it doesn't become the church.
Nick - Oh. That's very different. Nevermind.
But seriously...I've been to several concerts put on at churches by Christian artists. Watermark played at my old church (yes, they were awesome). That's great and all, as long as we're not trying to fool ourselves into thinking that it's some kind of evangelism tool. For the most part, the place is full of Christians!
Ok. I have never actually watched Toddlers and Tiaras. But, I've seen promos for them like the one here and I am disgusted. And I truly wonder what The Learning Channel is trying to teach me with this series.
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