How much is too much when it comes to kids and fashion?
By Milah Antillon
The way someone dresses can sometimes be a little sneak peek of who they are and what they are into. For example, a teen who dresses goth-like is probably into rock music and a man who dresses in suits is probably involved in the business world. Clothing gives people the freedom to express who they are.
However, when it comes to children this should differ.
Children, specifically those 13 and under, are more vulnerable to this concept. This is because of all the creeps on the internet and in our own neighborhoods. I believe if a child is under 13 years old, they shouldn’t have access to the clothing that older teens wear such as crop tops, tube tops, or super tight and short dresses. However, if they are over 13 then they should be able to have the freedom of what they wear, but it should still be limited as predators still exist.
As children get older, they become more aware of the dangerous and sick world we live in. We would like to think that they take this into account when choosing their closets. But this isn’t the case with younger children.
Some kids are influenced by social media and they choose their style of clothing based on older influencers.
Nowadays, most girls wear crop tops and short shorts. I can admit that I wear crop tops as well, but I am also 17 years old. I didn’t start to wear crop tops until my sophomore year of high school. Before that, I would always wear t-shirts or hoodies with pants. I only chose to wear a crop top because I noticed that most of the shirts in stores were either very ugly t-shirts with weird wording choices or designs that I hated, or they were tight and short crop tops.
Realizing I’m getting older and more mature I decided to go with the crop top and ever since then, that’s mainly all I wear for shirts.
If a little 9-year-old girl chose to wear a crop top, this could be potentially very dangerous and just plain stupid. Little girls should be wearing unicorn and mermaid shirts and shirts that say “My to-do list: Sleep,” not shirts that show half of their stomach. Not to mention, there are so many creeps in the world and if a child wore revealing clothes like that, it would provoke the predator to be more engaged. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.
Aside from predators, children shouldn’t wear revealing clothes simply because they are just kids. They have their whole teen and adulthood to be able to dress “cool.”
When I was younger, I would wear very cringy clothes that I thought were cool and fashionable at the moment, but looking back it was just embarrassing. But that’s how it should be, all kids should go through at least one embarrassing moment or phase before they become a teenager. Nowadays, kids skip that step and go straight to makeup and fashion.
A few months ago, there was a video that surfaced on TikTok of a fifth-grade class having their promotion. In the video, most of the girls were seen wearing tight and short revealing dresses with super high heels. You’d expect 10-year-old girls to wear puffy and fun-colored dresses right? The dresses that these little girls were wearing were the same type of dresses that women would wear to a club. At what point is it too much?
Of course, kids should be able to wear what they want, but when what they want becomes too revealing and adult-like, there should be restrictions applied by their parents.
Kids are growing up so fast these days and it’s the clothing choices that speed the process up. I’m not saying that kids shouldn't have any freedom with their clothes, but I am saying that the type of clothing they wear should not be revealing nor should their stomach be showing.
Let’s keep kids safe and supervise what they choose to wear.