Why, oh why...

[ladywhitehart]

is it that people have this tendency to take a good idea and make it sound so totally hokey and sappy?

One of my facebook friends, knowing I have three girls, sent me the link a website promoting age-appropriate preteen girls' clothing. Here I thought was something decent to check out, and it was... to an extent. Secret Keeper Girl has the basics

Comments

[sevvy_o]

If you ignore the preachy aspects, I really liked that Truth or Bare quiz! I still follow those basic guidelines and I'm 25. LOL! But yeah, I totally agree on the whole age-appropriate clothing thing. It's so frustrating (and sad) to see young girls dressing up like little prostitots. *sigh*

[ladywhitehart]

Oh I agree that overall the advice is great, but my gripe (for lack of a better term) is once you make it purely for Evangelical reasons, even people who otherwise tend to agree with the movement start tuning out. I want the same things but not for the same reasons.

I've seen how some of my girls' pals are allowed to dress, and it's just inappropriate.

[babsbybend]

Oh, man, that's just plain creepy. Someone with his or her mind in the gutter when they wrote that, and worse, thought it was "cute".

[ladywhitehart]

Oh good, I thought it was just me! Creepy isn't cute or inappropriate, no matter what the motive is.

[roseofthewest]

You might light this one better: http://www.purefashion.com/ It's aimed at a slightly older age group and the cost is pretty high.

I think the whole ho-look is a massive conspiracy. Low rise jeans, crop tops, and Daisy Dukes take much less fabric to make. Less fabric means more clothes per bolt of cloth. More clothes per bolt of cloth means more money in the pocket of "the man," to borrow a term that the hippies used back in my childhood. Our children are being turned into hootchie-mamas so that some businessman somewhere can reap a fatter bottom line.

[ladywhitehart]

Thanks! I'm not so much interested in the programs themselves as I am the guidelines. Right now, I'm trying to help a mom in a Junior GS troop get together some kind of a program for her group of girls. Not all of the girls are Christian or even religious. It's not about 'offending' or being PC, but it is making the program relevant for all.

I wouldn't be surprised if you aren't too far off the mark. The sad thing is 'the man' is probably some capitalist Republican. Ironic much?

[veradee]

Maybe it's because I don't have children, but I didn't even know that these things, i.e. websites and advices, exist. Actually, already the first couple of sentences under the heading "What is an SKG?" make me want to hit the back button. If I had a child, I hope I'd use common sense. This missionary approach of the Secret Keeper Girls freaks me out.

[ladywhitehart]

From what I've seen, there are a lot of people who don't use commonsense when picking out clothes for their kids. Onesies with HOTTIE printed on it? Shorts for six-year-old with JAILBAIT across the bum? I just wonder about the companies that make them and the people who buy them.

[veritybrown]

This does seem to go over the top in a number of ways--not the advice, but how it's worded, as you pointed out.

I guess, for me and my family, this is a total no-brainer, because modesty is emphasized so strongly in our church. So when we go clothes shopping, we just don't even look at skirts that come above the knee or anything sleeveless. And because my daughter and I are both very long-waisted, we're already steering away from tops that are even slightly too short.

But this test, sans the weird commentary they make on the questions, seems like a useful way of demonstrating *why* certain clothes don't make the cut to young ladies who don't quite get what the problem is.

[veritybrown]

Oh, and another thing...it seems to me that it's a bit late to start teaching this to girls when they're *pre-teens.* By then, if you haven't taught them any better, they'll have absorbed the "show everything possible" philosophy from TV and movies, and it's going to be like pulling teeth to convince them that you can be "cool" *and* modest. Especially when there are so many "cute" clothes out there that are designed to make pre-teens look like sluts!

My daughter was taught to scrutinize her clothing choices for modesty as soon as she was old enough to decide for herself what she was going to wear that day. She's 10 now, and she makes good choices on her own--the only "clothing" fights we have are about whether what she has on is clean and/or still fits!

[ladywhitehart]

LOL on the clean enough to wear arguement!

In our household of fair-skinned fry-babies, modesty isn't the main reason for covering up it's sun protection. Does my desire to protect me and mine from skin cancer make my reason less valid because it's not about praising the Lord? Is it less valid that I teach my girls that men won't take them seriously if they're too focused on cleavage or thigh to actually listen to ideas than it would be if I told them to save it for the man they marry?

My oldest has always been told to protect her skin from burning as part of sun safety. IMO focusing on how intoxicating bellies and cleavage are would only make it appeal to potentially rebellious natures.

[veritybrown]

Isn't that the truth!

It's sad that, ultimately, much of this issue (aside from the skin cancer thing) *is* about men. :~P