After work today, I met my husband and daughter at the park and on first look I thought she’d left the house wearing only a shirt! When I asked where her pants were she assured me that she had shorts on under the shirt (which barely covered her bottom).

She knew I wasn’t pleased, though, and on the way home we talked about the need for wearing something on the bottom that’s longer than the top; but, she still had to get in a couple of comments about how her outfit was “stylish” and I wasn’t letting her be “stylish.”

Parent challenge of the day … how to tell a seven-year-old the difference between stylish, sexy and slutty?

The timing was interesting as earlier in the day I’d read a post on GamePolitics.com about a report out of the UK by Dr. Linda Papadpoulos (”glamorous psychologist forever popping up on daytime television“) in which they said she noted: “High street stores sell video games where the player can beat up prostitutes with bats and steal from them in order to facilitate game progression,” leading to the following “clear” message to girls that this type of media portrays, as interpreted by the doctor, “… young girls should do whatever it takes to be desired. For boys the message is just as clear: be hyper-masculine and relate to girls as objects.”

Games were actually only a portion of the media examined. Dr. Papadopoulos talks about the impacts of the Internet in this video.

One of the key recommendations in the report included ensuring that music videos featuring sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics are broadcast only after the “watershed” (which means 9:00 p.m until 5:30 a.m.).

Here in the U.S., I know sexual content can be found on our television at earlier hours than that. “Two and a Half Men” on at 8:00 p.m. in my time zone, for example, has plotlines that frequently revolve around the character Charlie’s womanizing sex life.

We do our best to avoid these shows (thank goodness my girl and I both like Food Network), but it’s impossible for me to shield her from sexual themes and images all the time.

So, how do you discuss what is appropriately stylish for a nearly tween girl to wear?

Is it weird to honor the first time your daughter gets her period?

I’m not talking about holding a rave or hanging a pinata, but the event is a kind of passage for girls. And it seems like it might call for… I dunno, something. But what?

A friend of mine — the mother to three now-teenage daughters — took each of her daughters on a sunrise hike up a mountain. Another bought her girl a special charm for her bracelet. I’m not sure either or those things are quite my style, but I can appreciate the gesture.

When I got my period for the first time, I didn’t tell my mother for days. In truth, I had no idea what it was, and I was more perplexed than worried. When I finally mentioned it, she nodded knowingly. Later that day, a box of Maxi-Pads appeared in bathroom. When I opened the box, I was horrified: Each pad was about the size of a twin mattress: How was I supposed to accommodate that?

Later, my mother asked, “Did you find what I left you?” “Yes,” I replied. And that was the extent of the only conversation we ever had about it.

I have a different relationship with my own daughter. I’m sure that’s true of many of us here — and in the larger world, of today’s parents in general. Times have evolved since then, too. Which brings me back to my original question.

So what about it? What will you do, or what have you done? How does it compare with your own experience?

Photo credit: evelynishere

Kthnxbi? It’s “internet speak” meant as a sarcastic goodbye to someone. It always makes me think of this old Saturday Night Live skit with Helen Hunt (that unfortunately doesn’t seem to exist in video online).

Today, however, I’m sending my completely sarcastic and uncaring “buh-bye” to the Bratz dolls. A California judge has ordered the company that makes them to stop doing so and to begin removing existing inventory from store shelves after the holiday shopping season. What not sooner?

Is there really anyone who will miss them other than the manufacturer that was raking in dough? Even those mothers that I know allowed their daughters to buy them seemed to not really like, but just generally tolerate them and their overt sexiness. Scholastic had stopped distributing their books due to parental pressure (or maybe not). They were a big part of the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (PDF), and a topic of discussion the world over. In Australia, they even came up with the term “corporate paedophilia” to describe this sort of sexualization of young girls (although Barbie Magazine bears more of the brunt in their report than Barbie’s rival Bratz).

Now, I totally agree that “the view our children have of the world and sex ultimately comes back to us,” but how much easier it would be for “us” to establish that view if we weren’t competing with so many external factors that don’t mesh with it.

Bratz are only one of many of those challenges we face as mothers trying to raise daughters. My girl doesn’t own a one, and yet while brushing her teeth one night she looks in the mirror and says “I’m fat.” That sort of body-image pressure won’t ease up if Bratz come off the shelf, but I’m still going to join many others who wish them a fond farewell:

• Mathman’s Ramblings: Barbie Kicks Slutz (oops, I mean Bratz) Dolls …
• Mysterious Creature: Goodbye Bratz!!!
• Bye Bye Skanky Bratz Dolls! « Welcome to Sarcazmo!
• things leaked out of my head - don’t [bleep] with barbie man