Why Can’t My Daughter Look Like a Girl?

As we all know, Easter is coming. And that means Easter clothes. I had no trouble at all finding something for my sons—I generally get them matching polo shirts and they just wear their usual church pants. I walked over to the display, decided on red, pulled out a small, a medium and a large, and I was done.

But then it was time to find something for my daughter. She’s turning thirteen this year and has always been a little small for her age, so she’s just now teetering on the brink between girls’ and juniors’. I walked through the girls’ department and saw rack after rack of darling dresses. Lace, taffeta, ribbons … they were all too cute. I crossed over into the juniors’ section, and it was like getting slapped in the face by a blanket of rags.

I wandered around, wondering if I’d stepped into some sort of fashion twilight zone. Shirts that looked like handkerchiefs with neck holes. Dresses that were cut down to the navel and up to the thigh. Worst of all, the chosen fabrics were all so ugly. They looked like a tie-dye job gone bad, and since when has a tie-dye job ever gone right?

I probably spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to do. I’ll admit that not every teenage girl wants to wear lace and ribbons, but you know what, some of them do. My daughter is one. She’s a very girly-girl and she would enjoy having a lacy new Easter dress, but I didn’t have that option. Instead, I was faced with a selection of limp, drab dust cloths.

Would it kill the clothing manufacturers to produce just one little rack of pretty dresses, just one? And where are they getting the idea that once a girl hits her teens, she should start dressing like a boy? There’s nothing wrong with being feminine, and feminine doesn’t even necessarily mean lace and ribbons. It can mean a pretty color, as opposed to dishwater brown and khaki olive green. It can mean a flattering cut, as opposed to hanging off the body like a wet leaf. Where are the clothes for girls who take pride in the fact that they are girls?

I’m not saying that every girl should put bows in her hair and ride around on a Hello Kitty tricycle. But I believe there should be clothing options that address different styles and tastes, and those choices should include clothing for girls who happen to like dressing like a girl, instead of trying to put every girl in the nation in the same gender-neutral stuff that doesn’t show just how beautiful they really are.

And if you’re wondering what I ended up doing – I found a tank top that matched a skirt she already has, and then found a sweater to go over that. Took me an additional ten minutes, though.

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