A tweet and a blog post by Sandy Calico of Baby Baby Fame about shag bands today really got me enraged and started me thinking – not a good thing.
I read about these horrendous things a while back, but thought that they hadn’t reached the UK yet and I have to say they really upset me, there is a post in The Times about them. I know that we can not shield our children from sexulisation, but we can hold it back for as long as possible.
I have long been a mum who doesn’t like slogan tshirts and tops, especially ones that sexualise children or even say things like “here comes trouble”. Now my boys are not angels, but I dont want them wearing a top letting people know that they are little monkeys or here comes trouble and also would hate to see it becoming a self fulfilling prophesy.
Why would you want to put a child in a tshirt stying that there job is to create mayhem, or lock up your daughters, or god forbid a girl in a playboy tshirt. They are not clever and they are not funny.
But it often seems that I am in the minority these days and I am seeing more and more children wearing these terrible tops. I have even seen ones that say “I have done F*** all today”, “They Beat Me”, “ASBO” and “Botch job” what message is this passing to our children?
Now I will admit that I am an older mum and that my idea of a funky tea shirt is one with bungle from rainbow on it and the thankful thing is the the mini’s wont wear anything that they can not read.
I Think that children should be children for as long as possible and it is our jobs as parents to protect, shield and discuss these things with our children when necessary. We should dress out children like children, leave the knee high boots, spaghetti straps and mini adult clothes for the older children, what is wrong with the more traditional wear. Well for one thing the shops which sock the style of clothes I want the boys and my nieces to wear are expensive.
GAP, Boden, Fatface, MiniMode have lots of age appropriate and lovely clothing, but it is often three times more expensive if not more than, George, Tesco and Primark. This is the first year in four that I have been able to find good value plain tops in Marks and Spencer for the boys. I can not be the only mum who is facing this dilemma.
I think that sadly it is a symptom of today’s shock media and also the fact that parenting has changed dramatically since I was younger. I didn’t even get my ears pierced until I was 13.
So what can I do to change or affect this, well it has made me very aware of my responsibility as a mother of two boys to do my job correctly and raise my boys to respect woman and girls. To teach them that sex is not a cheap object to take from someone just because you can. To help them put a real value on girls.
I hope that the fact that MadDad truly respects me that they have a good role model.
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