HOW outrageous is it that little girls are donning bikini-style underwear sets, putting on lip gloss, painting their fingernails and strutting around with handbags hanging off their arms?
Are you spluttering in disgust at the thought of such child exploitation, or are you, like me, struggling somewhat to see what all the fuss is about?
This week, national media outlets have carried worrying stories about the ‘sexualisation’ of young girls in modern Australian society and how it is leading to issues such as anxiety, depression and promiscuity just a few years down the track.
Parenting groups, children’s advocates and mental health experts have all been quoted attacking the evil practices being thrust upon today’s generation by advertisers, big corporations and irresponsible parents.
One major retail chain has come under fire for selling matching underwear sets for three to eight-year-olds featuring knickers and crop-tops that have been dubbed ‘baby bras’.
Another company is in the gun for hosting ‘makeover’ birthday parties at which pre-teens can get their nails and make-up done.
Apparently this is not just innocent fun for little giggle girls and their friends, it is much more sinister.
The ‘experts’ say this early exposure of children to adult concepts is totally inappropriate and use frightening terms like the ‘death of childhood’, the ‘overt sexualisation of girls’ to press home their point.
I always thought I did a reasonable job of parenting, but perhaps I am mistaken.
My kids are happy, healthy, confident, active and loved; they have clear boundaries, and there are rewards for good behaviour and reasonable consequences if they step out of line.
But my six-year-old daughter has two pairs of the offending underwear sets in her wardrobe, chosen by her and paid for by me on a ‘girls day out’ during the holidays.
There they were this week, pictured in full colour in the pages of a national newspaper above a caption that read: “Outrage: a toddler’s bikini”.
Does that make me a bad mother?
For the life of me, I see nothing wrong with the striped action-back cotton crop-tops that sometimes she wears and sometimes she doesn’t.
In fact, they are not all that different to the tops worn by young girls at dancing classes, or out on the little athletics track.
And don’t thousands of little girls parade around public swimming pools and beaches every summer wearing tiny two-piece bathers featuring matching knickers and bikini tops?
It’s obviously fine for them to put skimpy clothing on as outwear on a hot day, but not okay to have it on out of sight as underwear in any weather.
Little girls have been dressing up in grown-up clothes, raiding their mums’ make-up drawers, and tottering around with heels and handbags for years.
It should come as no surprise that some enterprising companies and individuals have cottoned on to the concept and are trying to make some money from it.
If you don’t like the idea of a make-up party or matching undergarments for the tween market, then by all means try to steer your daughters away from them.
Just don’t try to make me feel akin to a child abuser because I don’t share your outrage.
Having said all that, the same news reports made mention of one ‘trend’ involving pre-teen girls that did turn my stomach a little - allegations that some women were taking daughters to get their first Brazilian waxing at just 10 or 11 years of age.
I don’t want to believe that any mother would really do that, nor that any beautician would actually agree to perform the procedure on a child of that age. Asking around a few mums I know, not one of them considered Brazilians for little girls even remotely acceptable.
But several admitted their young daughters owned mini-crop-tops and junior make-up kits.
So maybe I am not on my own.
Then again, I went to a parenting evening in Bendigo recently and came away feeling very much like I’d been beaten over the head with a ‘bad parent’ stick.
According to the guidelines discussed that night, my kids do way too many after-school activities, spend way too much time on the computer or watching TV, and were given hand-held electronic games at an age way before they should have been.
Coupled with the fact that I let my little girl wear lip gloss and crop-tops, I have to wonder for a moment if I am doing anything right at all.
Opponents of the ‘sexing up’ of today’s children argue that little girls should just be allowed to be little girls.
But sometimes that is exactly what they are doing when they emulate adults.
I don’t hear any fury about kids playing mummies and daddies - pretending to cook and clean or having babies by pulling a doll out from under a jumper.
But it’s evidently a different matter if a little girl’s game of grown-ups includes eye shadow or bra-like tops.
The young miss of my house is a very girly girl, and quite different to her mum.
She likes nail polish and make-up, while I don’t even paint my face for work; she loves handbags, glitter and jewellery bling, while I don’t even wear a watch; she loves shopping (for toys and clothes), while I absolutely loathe it.
Such things often feature in her play and, as long as it is not becoming an obsession, I honestly don’t think it’s causing her great harm.
There are no guarantees how any of our children will turn out, despite our best efforts as parents.
But surely a healthy dose of encouragement and acceptance, mixed with good values and openness and served with lots of love will go much further towards enriching their lives than hiding the hairspray, maligning the make-up kits and burning those ‘baby bras’.
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