This morning we got out of bed and went downstairs to prepare breakfast. Our daughters were already up and dressed, which happens more frequently lately. If you are more like me, a total B person, then it is hard to get up in the morning and I enjoy my late evenings with my husband. So the girls get up a little before us and start playing or watches a few minutes of TV. Sometimes they dress themselves and sometimes they wait for us.
When my oldest came into the kitchen and I saw the way she was dressed I told her that it looked strange the way she had put a tight tank-top on top of her dress. Thinking that she might have done it because she was a little cold in the mornings, I suggested that she put the t-shirt under her dress instead. She came over to give me a hug and told me that she put it on top, because she was otherwise not allowed to wear this dress to school. When wearing it the other day her teacher had told her that she was not allowed to wear a dress (or shirt of any kind, I can imagine) to school that fall a little off the shoulder. – I would like to underline that her dress only fell a little off one shoulder showing a little skin, but did NOT go as far down as to show a nipple or anything more inappropriate.
I was so shocked that I sat down with my daughter and made faces to my husband over her head!!! What was this all about? Why would you make a little girl (only just turned 7) aware of what is appropriate and not at such a young age. We don’t dress our kids in any kind of vulgar clothing and I would never have sent her to school if I had thought it inappropriate!!! I really like her teacher, but felt that maybe it should have been communicated to me or my husband about her clothing instead of to her directly.
Granted, both my husband and I are from Europe, so we might be a little more relaxed about what you show and don’t show, and we have realized a few times since living here that the culture is very different in certain ways. But kids are kids, if they are American, European, Asian, African or other and they should stay innocent as long as possible. If we start putting it in their head from early on that they should not show off a little shoulder skin or a little leg above the knee then they might well end up as one of those complexed kids that you see around the mall. Kids that suddenly go the complete opposite direction and will only wear miniskirts that hardly covers the ‘derrier’ and small tank-tops that stops just under the breasts and a big stomach sticking out underneath.
My daughters should feel good in their own skin and not have to obsess about what they are wearing when they are 7 years old!!!! Let kids be kids as long as possible in any sense of the word.
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