I am re-opening this conversation.
Originally this article was published in 2009, but last night a photo appeared in my stream on facebook (from a public business facebook page) of an approx 2-3 year old wearing a triangle top, jean shorts, white boots, and one of those “model” poses that stick your chest out and hands on the hips. I personally found it highly inappropriate. I re-shared the link from the page (as did some others) and there were quickly some opinions riled up on it.
On some level I get that a parent would want a cute shot with their child in their home, but then to get professional photographs of an outfit I wouldn’t wear as an adult and stick an unsuspecting child to be strewn on a page of 6,000 followers blows my mind. I feel like modesty starts at an early age. At 7.5yrs old my daughter knows, without me telling her, that shorts belong under a dress if she is outside playing. I instilled that into her at 3. Recently I saw a graphic running wild on facebook the other day (I can’t find it, I wish I could) that showed a parent laughing at their child saying a cuss word, then encouraging them to booty dance, it goes on and on and at the end of the graphic she was a pregnant teen and mom was saying “Where did I go wrong?”.
Please note that I am not saying that a child that wears a bikini will be a pregnant teen, but it does provoke the question “is it too much, too soon?”
Maybe it’s the posing or maybe it’s the marketing or perhaps the internal ‘ick’ factor for me on little girls in triangle tops, but….
OK, enough said. You know how I feel.
How do YOU feel?
~Trisha
