What's Wrong With This Outfit, Mom?

[a mom]

What's Wrong With This Outfit, Mom?

By Patricia Dalton (washingtonpost.com)
Sunday, November 20, 2005; B01

I heard about it in my kitchen before I read about it in the newspaper: After visiting the expanded Tysons Corner Center this fall, my 23-year-old daughter said, "You won't believe how weird Victoria's Secret's gotten: It's all red and black with a bunch of mannequins that look like porn stars." Some shoppers were so outraged at the raunchy lingerie display that they threatened to boycott the store; others just yawned.

I've been hearing a variation on this theme with increasing frequency in my office. Mothers voice distress over the suggestive clothing their teen and preteen daughters are wearing, inside and outside the house. In fact, conflict over clothing is what prompts them to come in for family therapy. The daughters themselves may be imperious or sullen, but almost all employ the everyone-is-doing-it excuse. And an awful lot of girls are doing it.

Women once complained about being reduced to sex objects. Now, their daughters are volunteering to be sex objects. And while parents register disapproval, they often fail to take action. In that failure, they unwittingly place their daughters at risk by allowing them to bypass girlhood. When a daughter moves straight from little girl to woman, she's playing a role rather than gradually learning to live her own life. These girls may seem whole, but they aren't. There is often a lost girl inside.

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