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Friday, December 14, 2007

Barbie and modesty


We had a humorous incident with Barbie the other day.
I don't know what to think about Barbie sometimes.
Some people have super, strong feelings about Barbie dolls.
I probably haven't fully thought it through, because my daughter is mostly too busy playing with animals to think about Barbies. (I fear she prefers animals to people sometimes.) We've never actually bought her one, but other people have, so we have a few around the house.
Well this particular Barbie had on a long sleeve top that was cute, but a super short skirt. It was a rare occasion that Emma was playing with it, and I asked her "do you see anything wrong with Barbie's clothes?" She looked for a minute, and then I pointed out that Barbie didn't have much of a skirt on. So Emma went in search of something to make Barbie more modest. She tried to change her into some pants off of another Barbie, but the pants wouldn't fasten at the top, so Barbie's bottom was completely showing. We were on a quest to make Barbie modest now, so that wouldn't work. So Emma put the skirt over the pants, and put together a stylish outfit that was modest. Way to go Emma!
Emma and I have been talking about modesty a lot over the past year. Especially when it came to swimsuit season last year, and we even talked here on the blog about modesty during swimsuit season,and had a great discussion! But I am trying to instill in her the Godly quality of being modest for the purpose of obedience to God's Word and godliness.
How do I show her this in practical terms, without sounding judgmental of everyone we see dressed immodestly?
Well we dont point people out in the grocery store and say "SEE HER? THAT'S HOOCHY-MAMA! NOT MODEST, NOT MODEST!!!!!"
But I do make observations on TV with her, clothes in a store, and even dolls like the dreaded Brat dolls who are all dressed Brittany Spears, or Barbies wearing bikinis, showing their middle, or wearing not much of a skirt. Emma knows we are not going to show our middle, no matter what age she is. She purposefully changes clothes if something gets too small for her so that her belly won't show, on her own! She also often puts legging pj pants under her nightgowns so that they're not too short, on her own. I am trying to carefully show her what modest choices of clothing are, as I am prayerfully figuring it out on my own! God has been teaching me, and is still teaching me about modesty! I am pretty sure that Emma would call me out if I wore something inappropriate at this point. Cleavage, IF I had some, never okay. I was the most modest I'd ever been this summer, and I enjoyed swimsuit season like never before because of it. (I work a tank top and a cover-up skirt over my swimsuit all the time.) I took the wise advice from my Mom to NOT wear a swimsuit, even a modest one by the world's terms, in the presence of other men, and as confining as that may sound to you, it was so FREEING! I never worried about how I looked! I enjoyed our beach vacation so much more! Thank you Mom for shooting straight with me! I became much more careful about my work-out clothes. God is surely not done teaching me about this, but I am SO glad for what He's taught me already. In turn, I can teach my daughter at a young age.
Anyone else have ideas about teaching their kids about modesty? How are we dropping the ball on this, like allowing our little girls to wear things that we would definitely not wear? I'm even mindful of certain websites for girls, like the Barbie website, and these "fashion for girls" websites. (Praise God, that's SO NOT my daughter's interest anyway!) Thoughts?

3 comments:

Laurie said...

You mean, you don't want her to wear a unit's belt as a skirt??? Why in the world not? ;)

I have a lot of thoughts on arguments for modesty, but no time to formulate them right this second. But, I look forward to reading the discussion.

Laurie said...

I will say that the other day Anna came out wearing a swim suit where the bottoms were like shorts and the top was like a tankini. (Madeline refused to wear this during swimsuit season).

She told me she was a contestant in "Dancing with the Stars," the ONE show we watch on T.V.

So, yeah, she went and found the most skimpy thing she could find to pretend to be on the show.

It made me laugh and simultaneously freaked me out.

Darrell Bacak family said...

We prefer to walk around the mall with the boys, bring a loud "fashion alert" horn, and turn that baby on with audible screams of "HOOCHIE-MAMA!!" and "BOXER BOY!!". Makes for fun Christmas family tradition. More laughs than a trip driving to see neighborhood Christmas lights sipping hot coacoa any day of the week.