Kids These Days: Fashion

I did a Google search for "teen fashion"
and this is one of the first photos
that popped up

I am so happy that I did not grow up in the world today. And Holy Balls Batman! am I scared for what the world will be like in 10 years for my children. I have had a post brewing in my head for months now, about how different the world will be for my kids compared to how it was when I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I have so many different areas that I want to touch upon, that I have decided to break it into a few smaller posts...today's topic being fashion.

As Seinfeld might say, "what's the deal with the way girls dress today?"

I feel like when I grew up there was no pressure for girls to dress provocatively. We never wore crazy short shorts (unless it was in cheerleading practice), we never had cleavage showing, and I don't remember wearing make-up really until I was in college.

EXHIBIT A

Please look to the left at Exhibit A, a photo of myself from high school (circa 1994). In this photo you will see me wearing my favorite pair of shorts ever (I wore the crap out of those circus tent linen bad boys) along with a simple crew neck Gap pocket tee. What you don't see, due to the blousing of the t-shirt, is my awesome leather braided belt. Now keep in mind that I was cool. In 1994, this was a respectable outfit for a young lady of 16 to be wearing. Oh and if you were born after 1990 you might be wondering what that awesome bracelet I have on my right wrist is - it is in fact a (homemade) scrunchie, which is a fabric covered pony tail holder. I had one to match every outfit - I repeat, I was cool.

The point of me showing you this photo is to show that when I was 16 there was no pressure for me or any of my friends to be sexual in any way. We wore t-shirts when we hung out on the weekends. We could be found in men's button down oxford shirts (I actually owned this one seen in Exhibit B). We shopped at the Gap and J. Crew, but we were buying henley's and v-neck cable knit sweaters.

EXHIBIT B

It must have been so comforting for my parents that this is what girls were wearing when I grew up. Have you seen what middle school girls wear these days? Could the shorts get any shorter? Why must we see your ass cheeks hanging out of your shorts? Or your pockets dangling below the actual hem of the short? The underwear I wear on a daily basis has more material that most girls' shorts these days (I know, sexy right?)

I saw two pre-teen girls waiting for a school bus this morning wearing aforementioned shorts, paired with tops so tight and revealing they might as well have been naked. And neither of them had the body to be pulling off this look (not that I am encouraging any young woman to dress like this). Why do girls feel like they need to dress in these awful fashion trends? If your thighs are touching below the hem of your shorts, WEAR LONGER SHORTS!! Who wants all those naked bits sitting on germ-covered school chairs, anyhoo??

Even when I was in college there was no pressure to dress a certain way. When we went out to bars we wore normal jeans (not tight - thankfully skinny jeans came out way after I graduated) and some sort of v-neck top or sweater. And we did ok for ourselves with the fellas! In fact my favorite outfit to wear out when I was a senior in college was my wide legged normal-waisted jeans, paired with this hot pink 3/4-length sleeved sweater. It had a boat neck collar - no cleavage exposed - just my forearms and wrists. I know, sexy, right?

And labels? The fanciest purse I saw while in college was from Dooney & Bourke. When I went back to college for a football game, probably around 7 years ago, I was shocked when I saw what the girls looked like - they were all in skinny jeans, hair did, full make-up with Tory Burch flats and Louis Vuitton purses! HUH???

I am so thankful that skinny jeans didn't come out until I was out of college. Ladies, you should only wear skinny jeans if you have SKINNY LEGS. Skinny jeans are not for women with thighs like me. And leggings as pants? I want to kill whomever started that trend. I am all for leggings under a dress, with some boots, but leggings in place of pants with a short top? You have just given up being part of society at that point. WEAR PANTS.

EXHIBIT C

Speaking of pants, you want to see what kind of pants I was wearing in middle school (we're talking around 1990). Please see Exhibit C. That's right friends, Z. Cavaricci's. And they were awesome. Tight at the (high) waist, pleats starting right at your lady bits and pegged pant legs - you know it. I wore my black Z Cavs until they were light gray. They were the polar opposite of a skinny jean. Who wants to wear tight pants when they can wear these bad boys, making themselves look at least 30 pounds heavier than they actually are. I did, and so did everyone else in 1990.

Jesus, my mother had NOTHING to worry about.

I fear for the day that my girls don't want to wear what I want them to wear. And I fear even more the day that they want to buy their own clothes. If this trend of clothing getting smaller and smaller, and more revealing and sexy continues my girls will be wanting to wear bikini tops to school, with thong bottoms.

Damn I should have held onto my Z. Cavs because they will probably be back in style in about 5 years.  I bet Justin Beiber already has a pair of them and thinks they are "retro."

Please fashion Gods, be kind to my kids' generation. Make it cool for my girls to wear baggy t-shirts and pleated baggy pants, or make them want to wear long Laura Ashley-ish dresses to dances and not these tarted up options that they sell today. But please, don't bring back the scrunchie. We are fine without it.

What is Father's Day Without the Irony?

Last year on Mother's Day, my baby girl, who learned to walk only weeks prior, fell down the stairs in our home. I was so proud on that day, until I wasn’t. It was as if the loud thumping of her new Asters (http://www.asterchaussures.com/?lg=en) hitting each hardwood step on the way down was in protest to the whole day, which had been set aside to honor mothers across the globe. Obviously the next day we installed a safety gate at the top of the stairs.

This year on Father's Day I found some irony (tell me if you agree) when our (5-month-old) car ran out of gas on our way to brunch with two generations of fathers manning the controls and two babies (plus me, mom) in the backseat. Obviously the lesson learned from this is just too obvious to print...

Again today, I was teaching my diaper-wearing 2.3 year old about using the potty and wearing underwear and pulling down the underwear and peeing in the potty when … she peed on the couch. She was curled on her back in her white dress with no bloomers, legs splayed in the air, fingers gripped around her toes, when her face turned to a stunned look and I heard hard liquid hitting the leather couch. The flow made a tiny gushing noise as it carved out a path between the cushions. Was this some cry for attention; some deliberate means of communication? Never has her diaper failed and never was there a more timely opportunity. Here I am thinking she doesn’t ever listen to me so what do I always go on about; well not only was she listening but she was demonstrating her comprehension and then some... Obviously potty training is to commence immediately. (And hopefully the “Queen of Potty Training” is accurate when promising us a three-day turn-around… (find Lora Jensen’s method at www.3daypottytraining.com). )

Then again today, another story of irony… I was at the playground with my baby and toddler talking to a neighborhood mom of twins about how difficult it is to watch two children at the city playground; how they run off in different directions; how we have learned better than to bring a handbag that also needs minding (lest we allow the Gucci or Goyard to divert our watchful eyes from their primary focal point, the children). All this discussion around how much we’ve learned when abruptly a twin disappeared. She had been on the large play structure, until she was not. Her mother was calm, until she was not. Five seconds passed and the mother asked me to stay with her son because she couldn’t see her daughter. She darted in one direction and then another. I screamed her daughter’s name out loud. Two other mothers in the park spanned out to look for a little girl with tiny braids and a shirt of I don’t remember what color. The further the mother ran in one direction the more I trained my eyes in the opposite direction. Until slowly, like a timid deer hesitating at a sunny clearing in the forest, I could see the little girl emerge from the bushes near the church and clamber back to the play structure where she had last been seen. Obviously I will try not to get lost in deep conversation while minding my children in a large, open public space.

I don’t know what are supposed to be the lessons here from these ironic incidents on important parenting days but something is being received; they do seem to make me a better parent; or at least a more experienced parent... or maybe I am just paying heightened attention on these days... One thing I know is that the terror, then relief, then embarrassment that follows these incidents are feelings only good parents experience; and are only one fraction of one reason why the good people of old created a day for mothers and fathers; to recognize and respect the daily toils of parenting. 

To that I say thanks for the recognition and a big loving thanks to all the diaper-bag-toting; Baby-Bjorn-wearing; sacrificing; juggling; doting; playful dads out there – Happy Father's Day!

• Two Father’s Day blog articles I definitely enjoyed:

http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/Parenting_Blog/post/The_Importance_of_Fathers/

http://bostonbabies.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/a-dads-survival-guide-6-tips-to-tame-your-toddler/#more-1231

•   For an interesting history of Father's Day, read on from here:

Father's Day is a celebration of fathers inaugurated in the United States in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting.

Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, who was born in Arkansas.[3] Its first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910.[3][4] Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father's_Day)