Day 22: What are your thoughts on the way media portrays body image to young girls.
*Dusting off my soapbox* and this will probably be all over the place because I am very passionate about it. These are my personal opinions.
This is a huge sore subject for me. I have a daughter in that prime age right now. Do I let her shop at Victoria Secret? Absolutely not! Do I let her wear thong underwear? Absolutely not! My daughter does not even wear spaghetti straps without either a tank top to go under or a cute little jacket or crop sweater to go over it. She either wears shorts or capris under skirts (yes still at 13). Luckily for me my daughter CHOOSES to dress modestly. The media is horrible as well as retail. Why market push up bras to preteens?? NO NO NO! As my husband pointed out when I commented on them at Target; he said "Well somebody is buying them and we know it isn't the kids holding the money." Why would mother's want to sexualize their daughter's that way. Nobody asks for their kids to be kidnapped or raped, but when you dress them to portray them as older or provocative...it attracts the sickos. The worse case I have seen this as was at a Miley Cyrus concert (we bought the tickets for Elexis 11 months before the concert, she didn't even like her by the time the concert rolled around). Little girls were paraded around with high heels, very low cut shirts, skirts, and full makeup. I am talking 5 and 6 year olds. And the moms were proud of this??? Girls that are in the media today are too skinny and too sexy. I like girls to look like girls. They have their whole life to be women.
In our house we choose words like healthy and active. We don't use the F word. Too many little girls go around calling themselves fat because they hear their moms saying the same thing about themselves. I am very proactive in making sure my daughter has a good self confidence and self value. We tell her she doesn't need a boyfriend to be popular or successful. We tell her that brains are way more important than beauty. We never want her to dumb herself down to get a boy to like her. We tell her to embrace her smartness. Yes, we tell her she is pretty but we follow that right up with you are smart and talented too. I love that Elexis has good values and morals that she has instilled in herself. She has self imposed rules that she follows that are good. I really just hope that she continues to live by these and we nurture it as much as we can. At Elexis' second musical; the lead girl was about 13 at the time. Her parents were sitting behind us and we heard the mom tell the dad "Camille is going to make someone an excellent trophy wife someday." I don't care if she was joking or not. Kids hear that and that is where they get their self worth. I was sickened by that comment.
The media and retail need to let girls be girls. They need to use natural girls in advertising and stop marketing sexy clothing toward children. If it is not available, they will not know it exists until they get older. Parents also need to step up and take a stand too. Stop buying the crap!
This doesn't just pertain to girls either. Media is causing boys to have image issues as well. They are basically marketing that boys are not successful unless they have muscles or a certain brand of t-shirt, or a jerk towards women. Both girls and boys need positive role models. Those that have initiative and drive to be work hard and be successful. There is too much you tube syndrome of "look at me, I want to be popular or famous".
Ok, I will step off my soapbox. I will end with saying the media and retail piss me off when it comes to kids being kids. Parents protect your children that is your job!
Photo Day 22: A cool drink
Yeah, I would rather show you the pictures of the fruit I took this morning. It could be made into a smoothie later (when I remember to buy yogurt or juice).
