Why Is Shopping For Girls Clothing Getting So...

Shopping for little girls is becoming increasingly challenging for anyone with taste and morals who doesn't want to end up raising a Prosti-Tot. It seems like pigeon-holing children is getting more and more severe every month/week/day/hour, and there's nothing tasteful left. How sad is that?

Not the look I'm going for

My daughter is 7 years old. She was the shortest in her class for a long time (thanks to a certain sperm-donor who shall remain soul-less...) but she has caught up and even surpasses many of her fellow 7-year-old compadrés. Mostly in the legs. She's got long legs, and that is a great thing, because she puts me to shame in the running department. (I blame my asthma, but really I'm just exceptionally lazy and out of shape).

Her Amazonian legs also make it bloody impossible to find shorts that don't make her look like a Hooters waitress in training. Maybe it's because I have thick thighs (not hating on them, I loves my curves), but shorts never looked so... short on me. Until now, when the shorts they have out make my thick thighs look like I'm going for a Wonder Woman look.


Not that she doesn't look great...
















So instead of buying her shorts, with the exception of Bermuda shorts, I'm going to be practicing my useful (yet non-existant) homemaking skills by turning her pants that are too small (but only in the legs... remember, all her growth has been in her legs, not her hips) and turning them into "just above the knee" shorts. Much better. Maybe I'll get fancy and they'll end up with hems, maybe not. We'll see how courageous I get.




Seriously, she's going to end
up withlegs like this if
she keeps growing the
way she is...



Then there's the shirt debacle which has been fairly widespread across various types of media, from blogs, to newssites, to bloggy newssites, and beyond. It's shirts like this one that make me a little stabby in the brain, and also make me wonder WTF the designers are thinking. Then I remember that most of them are men (at last check, on average 90-95% of designers are, though I don't have a source for that ATM) and are clearly misogynistic (definition: effing stupid) and think that us ladies are stupid and good for nothing but looking pretty.



They forgot make-up and clothing!
















Everyone knows that girls don't need to be smart or unique or funny or even logical, they're just there for looking pretty right? That's why the size 6x for girls is too small for my daughter, but the boys 6 (note: smaller than 6x) fits her perfectly? Retailers: starting size complexes in children earlier than ever!

My daughter is a girl. She is even a girly-girl. She loves to dress up, and over-do it. She loves putting on those tacky plastic dress-up shoes, and she loves to throw a tiara on top of her head. She loves all things that are frilly and lacy and flowy and pouffy.

You think I'm exaggerating?
Yes that's a fluffy pink boa,
she used to have one,
she wore it out...

But that's not all. She also loves dirt, and frogs, and worms. She loves animals and plants. She loves to learn about the seasons and the stars. She loves music and dancing and singing. Art and painting and making the biggest mess possible just to see how far it will go.

Even more than that, she loves trucks, and comic books, and super heroes. And not those lame girl super heros that are really just eye-candy (you know the ones I mean.) but Wonder Woman, and Iron Man, and Thor, and Spider-Man and all of the Autobots (especially Bumblebee).

So why are a huge majority of the clothes being sold and marketed to her more appropriate for a teenager and up? I just don't understand. She's a kid, kids play in dirt, get messy, run around like tasmanian devils, and grow. Why on earth would I put her in clothing that wouldn't allow her that freedom, or that send the message that she is just a pretty face? She is very beautiful, I know this and have been told by many people. But that's not ALL she is. She's smart, caring, sweet, thoughtful, and sometimes downright ridiculously obnoxious just for the sake of making me tear my hair out. So why the focus on looks?

Why don't we focus on just letting them be kids? Why can't the kids section be amalgamated into one section, so that little girls can buy Iron Man t-shirts and little boys can buy shirts with cupcakes on them without feeling like the Anti-Christ? Because there is nothing more intimidating for a kid than "crossing the pink/blue line" even if it is to find things that they like better.

Shopping for girls, whether for children or for fully grown ladies (and also classy gals like me) is depressing, frustrating, and limiting.

That's all for now.