Pet Peeve!

                                                                                                       

I hate the way the fashion industry/marketers/society expects me to dress my sweet baby girl.  They want me to dress her like a grown up.  They want me to put her in skin-tight leggings and spaghetti straps and even in little bikinis!  They want me to invite the world to view her body as a showpiece, as something to be looked at and admired.  They want me to put her in clothing that forces people to objectify her as a specimen for examination to be judged and sorted into some societal category of acceptance. I hate the way they do not do this to baby boy clothing.  Baby boy clothing, cut with generous backsides and legs and cut with room for undershirts and socks. 

I  hate the way the expect me to just be ok with this, as a mother and a fellow woman. I hate the way society is seemingly "forcing" me to encourage my daughter to subscribe to their objectification of her body by simply assuming I will dress her in the manner they dictate. I also hate the way that I sometimes succumb and put my daughter in outfits similar to those I described in my above rant and how it always makes me feel so hypocritical when I do this.  Isn't there time enough when my daughter gets older to be shaped to care about how she looks to other people in certain outfits?  Shouldn't that be something that comes with early adolescence and not now, not when she is not even 1 year old?