Do the clothing choices your mom pal makes for her girls get in the way of your friendship?
I know that may sound ridiculous, but I keep thinking about Abercrombie’s new push up bikini top for girls as young as seven, and as vile and disgusting as I think it is, I wonder how many of my mom friends would agree?
Obviously friends have different opinions. Just like we teach our daughters, we are all supposed to be different, and those differences should be celebrated. But if one of my good friends came home from the mall all excited about the new push up “Ashley” bikini she just bought for her seven-year-old, I would not be able to hold my tongue. And more importantly, I would have to think twice about continuing our friendship. Yes, really.
To me, this goes way beyond two moms simply having a difference of opinion over, for example, when ear piercing is appropriate. If you are ok purchasing a bikini with built-in boobs for your second grader, you’re probably also fine with her collecting Bratz and watching Glee. Those particular choices (while I find them to be outrageously revolting) are not necessarily friendship deal-breakers for me. But the “Ashley” is. Playing “pretend” with a supercurvaceous skanky doll is bad enough, but encouraging your daughter to live out that kind of image and to yearn for her body to develop long before it’s ready, is a whole ‘nother story. That’s not pretend play. That’s real life.
What do you think? Have you ended a friendship with another mom for similar reasons?
2 Comments
Seriously? A pushup bikini for a child? What’s there to “push up”?? And why do we have to start making children feel inadequate earlier and earlier? I can’t say I have ended a friendship over similar things because I have found it very difficult to find other moms who share my feelings on parenting enough that we could get to that point; but if I were friends with someone who thought the Ashley was a good idea, I would really question their overall judgement and sanity.
I think it might be appropriate to not encourage your daughters spending time together just because you and your child and every person in the world has a tendency to become like the people they choose to surround themselves with and while your children are young it is your responsibility to choose those people and teach your daughter to choose those people carefully I’m not saying don’t be friends with everyone because we should be kind and gracious and be able to get along with everyone but if your values reflect not sexualizing children then you want to spend time with people who share that value not that you say hello daughter please shun this mom and child from now on because they are bad people and her daughter will eventually teach you/pressure you to be a slut just schedule your play dates with someone else