Little for a Little Longer

I am a self confessed Gymboree addict. I love their clothes. They last forever, you can wash them all the time and they look brand new. And all the matchey matchey collections, especially for little girls, are so sweet. For years I have been putting Little Britches in Gymboree swing tops with cute leggings, and sweet tee shirts with adorable skorts. But suddenly she is resisting. She wants a more a "big girl" look. And while I knew this day would come, I can't believe it's come so soon.

So I took her shopping, and what I found made me want to throw up. I found belly shirts. Off the shoulder shirts. I saw spaghetti strap tank tops and pleather leggings. Almost every store had some kind of mini skirts and low waist jeans. One store sold thongs... as in thong underwear... for little girls. It was awful. Most of the stuff I found I wouldn't have let a teenage daughter wear much less my five year old. When did it become acceptable for little girls to dress like teenage sluts? Don't we want to keep our little girls sweet an innocent as long as we can? And who is buying this stuff for their five year olds? I can't be the only Mom who doesn't agree with the style, but apparently I am one of the only Mom's who says "No freakin way" and leaves the stores, because it's SO MUCH harder to find appropriate styles.

Some where along the way our society has deemed it appropriate to over-sexualize children, especially our girls. Her clothing options clearly reflect that. It was especially noticeable on Halloween, I saw a couple of tween slutty nurses but not one young woman dressed in scrubs as a doctor. Our celebrity obsessed culture has tabloids with teenage girls going clubbing in booty shorts ( I'm looking at you slutty Cyrus, I mean Miley) on the cover. It's kind of unavoidable that they will be exposed to this. But if I want Little Britches to value her body for more than her sexuality, I have to show her there is more to dressing for school than looking cute (and older than she is). So I asked her questions while we shopped, like can you run in it? Will you be able to paint? Can you swing? Because she needs to feel good about what her body can DO, not just how it will look to others.

So you know where we ended up? Yup. Gymboree. I told her to pick out whatever she wanted, and thankfully she found a few shirts she liked, a dress and a pair of pants. Then I took her down the way to Gap Kids to complete her outfits where we found some plain tee's, leggings, jeans (with a normal waist thank God) and a hoodie. She can make her own outfits out of the clothes we picked and she can PLAY in everything we bought. And she will look like a little girl for a little longer. I can only hope she continues to feel like one too.