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Congratulations! Your daughter looks like a stripper.
I have a sister three years younger than I am and we couldn’t be more different. She loves small towns and I’m a big city person, she is the outgoing social butterfly and I’m more of the reserved observer, she prefers to stay at home and I like to paint the town red. But for all of the many differences, there are a few similarities and one of the most notable is our trigger happy impulse to passionately argue a point. Due to logistics and more pressing priorities, our time together has been reduced to a couple of days a few times each year. But invariably all of our visits will eventually send us off debating the finer points of subjects ranging from finances to philosophy.Among her many accomplishments was being a member of the high-school cheerleading squad. As with most schools, being a part of this elite group put her in the upper echelons of the student social class; not to mention we went to one of the largest schools in the Tennessee (I graduated with over 500 students), making the grade wasn’t an easy task. Even though it’s been years since her last herkie, she has maintained an appreciation for the sport that I don’t posses. I guess you can take the girl out of cheerleading but you can’t take the cheerleader out of the girl.
Several weeks ago she made her annual pilgrimage down to Atlanta for Bubba’s birthday. As we were spending time in the spring weather we got on the subject of her passion and she proceeded to show us a YouTube video of a half dozen eight year old girls in a dance competition from last year. Her aim was to highlight the skills of these kids and while her goal was met it also produced in me a far more concerning reaction. This eventually led to a very spirited dialogue on the acceptability of children’s attire, especially for girls, in our current culture.
(For a full appreciation of the post, I recommend watching the video before reading further)
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You don’t have to be a member of NOW to immediately appreciate where I was coming from. Candidly these little girls look like they should be on the main stage at the Pink Pony Show-bar. As the video gained traction after hitting the internet naysayers began their protests of the girls’ appearance, the dance moves, and the music. The disagreement between those who saw it as no big deal and those that didn’t escalated into a national debate featured on several news stations.
Machiavelli wrote in his legendary volume The Prince, “the ends justifies the means”. Without question the talent of these young girls is remarkable, to exhibit that level of skill and ability at such a young age is astonishing. Even with my neophyte knowledge and aversion for this activity I can appreciate the hard work and effort that was put forth to get to them to that point. But while the detractors bellowed at how could parents allow these little girls to look and dance this way, I think the much greater question is why is it necessary?
To put it another way, does the ends (the showcasing of these girls extraordinary talent) justify the means (that they need to look like hookers)? Why do they need to wear bra tops and tight short bottoms to exhibit their skills? Why must they have make-up plastered, eye-lashes glued and hair extensions weaved? What purpose does it serve? I dated a woman once whose daughter was a competition cheerleader at the age of nine. According to her, the intent is to make the girls look older than they actually are, but she couldn’t explain why that’s relevant. I’m convinced that the laws of marketing are in full effect – sex sells. The more suggestive the attire, alluring the make-up, or arousing the moves the greater the chances of winning. It wasn’t coincidence that the more sexual the girls’ moves the louder the crowd got.
In interviews with the parents, one stated that the video was taken out of context as it was at a competition with similar acts and wasn’t intended for the world to see. Which begs the question why post it for on Youtube for the world to see? While another claimed how was their costumes any different than going to the swimming pool? The last time I checked most parents don’t carry mascara and lipstick with the Finding Nemo SPF 50 to the pool. It appears to me that some parent’s hope of getting on Oprah backfired on them.
While some may ask how could a mother do this, I have to ask where was the dad? How can any father, in our sex-induced society, not have a problem with his daughter looking like that? Where Sunshine asked to dress that way I’d lose my mind! Why didn’t the dads step up and question why they needed to turn their daughters into Tammy Faye Baker? Or maybe it was just easier to assume that’s mom’s department and head out to the golf course instead?
The end result was unfortunate, what should have been an opportunity to spotlight the talent and accomplishments of some very special little girls became corrupted by the poor judgement of some very short-sighted adults. And that was something my sister and I could agree on.
Before I even clicked the video I was unhappy with how those girls looked, and when you said they were eight. EIGHT? It is completely unnecessary. Why make them look older when eight is so fleeting? In some ways I think men leave girls to the women and women leave boys to the men. It shouldn’t be that way. I agree, their talent is incredible, the dance moves, though, are unpleasant to watch from girls so young.
It is very sad and unfortunate that what could have been very innocent and wholesome turned out to be so corrupted.
Thanks Lori!
I completely agree that this is unnecessary and I especially like your second to last paragraph about dad. My goal is not only to keep my daughters from dressing like this, but to train them and my sons to be better parents than these kids’ have so my grandkids aren’t exploited like this either.
The only way our society will ever move away from the sexualization of our culture is that men stand up and say “ENOUGH!” Otherwise it will always continue.
This comment is coming from a dude who lives with a wife, three daughters, aged 6, 7, and 15, plus I am in the company of my mother in law, sister in law and 9 year old niece every other day. Women are around me all the time.
This is awful. Those outfits are completely inappropriate. While those girls may be having a blast, they are being sexualized.
My teenage daughter is a junior varsity cheerleader. Their uniforms ar a littel too short and a little too tight for my acceptance. My wife agrees but they don’t make Amish attire for one girl.
Women see no issue with sexualizing young girls because theya re used to it. Unfortuantely men need to be more outraged than they are. Where was dad? That’s always the question. One of the victories feminism claims is taking away parenting decisions of fathers.
I am estranged from my sister but luckily her daughter, my niece, is a softball playing tomboy.
Where is dad? Society doesn’t care, I’m convinced that the expectation is that dad needs to earn the money and stay out of the parenting aspect of things, especially with girls. What a huge mistake, we have a generation of girls who have father wounds because he thought his place was on the golf course instead.
Great feedback Lance!
Hey. don’t blame father’s abdication of their roles on feminism! That is not feminist values at all.
Before I started the video I knew I wasn’t going to like it. I only made it through 20 seconds of the video. No doubt the young girls in this video have great dancing skills. However, dancing skills do not include bra and pantie outfits while jiggling their butts.
I enjoyed your comment about the failed attempt to get on Oprah. That was funny.
I have a 4 year old daughter, both my wife and I are appalled at the clothes that are made for little girls her age.
Great post.
They actually have clothes now, at your daughters age, with the word ‘juicy’ on the butt. I kid you not. Parents of the year right there…
Thanks for the comment Kevin! Please come again.
I saw this video last year and even did a post on it. Obviously the little girls can dance, but where the hell are their parents? Who is this teacher that thought it was appropriate to choose these costumes? It was years beyond their age group but still sexualized these little girls. I really am baffled. I have girls in dance and I know that I pay for the costumes, the parents could have said no. Should have said no!
TM, Thanks for the comment! I’ll tell you where the parents were, they were cheering their butts off as their daughter grinded on stage like a stripper. I hope they are proud of themselves. One of the parents said that they had tried everything to have it taken off…obviously that was after their interview on Good Morning America.
Thanks for stopping by and please come again.
Um, WOW. I would NEVER let my daughter (if I had one) dress or dance that way. They look like little hookers trying to seduce men. It is absolutely appalling to me that parents allow their children to look that way.
My son and I have a very open line of communication. Because of that, he talks to me about the girls he “likes” and will often show me their pictures on Facebook. One girl, 12 years old, looked like she was about 17. She had her eyes lined in black eyeliner, she was wearing booty shorts and a cropped tank top. She had her back arched as she leaned up against a wall with her finger in her mouth. HER FINGER IN HER MOUTH. Oh and did I mention that her hair was bleached? Yeah, this is a 7th grade girl in my son’s school. You know what Ethan said to me when I was going on about her looks? “She’s a cheerleader, mom. Most of the cheerleaders look like that.” Needless to say I tried to kindly stray him away from girls like that. (Maybe that’s bad, but it’s how I feel)
Maybe this is a completely generalized statement, but I think that there are some areas of the country where parents feel that having their daughters being cheerleaders and/or dancers allows the parents to make them into the artificial beauties they want them to be. It’s quite sick in my opinion. Now, I’m NOT saying this applies to all dancers and cheerleaders. I’m sure you are aware of the types I’m referring to.
I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve written.
April, you have a valid point and it’s certainly reasonable to believe that mommy is vicariously living through their daughter. All parents do it, dads with sports and their sons. Mom either was part of that group and wants her daughter to be or she wasn’t but desperately wanted her to. Either way it’s bad news. And I have seen pics of some of the Queen’s sons friends and it’s amazing what some of these girls do they are so aggressive at such a young age.
Whoa. Those little girls are UBER talented. Wow. I had to go back and read the paragraph above the video. “What?! They’re 8 year olds?!?”
Because… um… yeah… that was a bit much for 8 year olds. And as a mother of a 9 year old and a 6 year old daughters, it made me want to cringe. I’m too stunned for words.
I love Lance’s comment. Women are used to it… it’s true. And yes, maybe as women, we need to empower the fathers of this world to be able to speak up against something they think is wrong. I think many of us already see it that way, but for the unfortunate ones who don’t, they’re the ones oversexing themselves too. (Spoken from someone who put way too much sexuality out there in my life and it came back to bite me in the ass.)
I think there are too many confusing messages about sex in our culture anyway. We use it to sell everything but GOD FORBID you try to instill a healthy attitude about sexuality in your children. How dare I teach them the proper names of their body parts?!? Ugh… don’t get me started…
Good comment T. One of the things that I had tried hard to do is shield Sunshine from the over-sexing you mentioned. It’s in cartoons, it’s in the movies they watch, it’s everywhere and we still are the most sexually repressed nation on the planet.
Our society and culture lures us in with sexuality and then criticizes us when we actually use it. It’s sad.
Yes the kids are talented. Of that there is no doubt. My concern is this. If all these girls and their parents are at this competition… then who is watching the trailer park?
Too harsh?
A bit spicy but completely understandable.
Man, I don’t have a daughter, but if I did, I’m pretty sure I would be pulling out of that routine. Heck, I probably would have been involved enough to know this went way too far before I ever let her get to the performance. 8 years old? C’mon man! Almost everything gets sexualized these days, but we need to let kids be kids. Childhood is only lived for such a brief period of time and we parents should be doing everything in our power to protect that point in their lives rather than exploiting it.
Surely there is a value to be found in teaching sexuality in a healthy way, but this isn’t healthy education for those girls and IMO it is way too soon. That video just reminds me of how sexualized Britney Spears was at a young age and how badly things went for her for a while (if they aren’t still, I really don’t know).
Grrr…some parents! Sheesh!
You have to check out the real video from the song Single Ladies from Beyonce. The moves these girls did were identical to what she did in the video.
There is no doubt in my mind that they did this because the used the oldest of marketing tactics….sex sells.
Very well written, my brotha! KUDOS!!
Presh sis!
I realize this is an older post, but I felt compelled to comment. As a former cheerleader and memeber of a competitive hip-hop dance team, I don’t believe it is appropriate for young children to be dressed in this attire. I cheered from the time I was 5 until I was 18 (I’m now 24) and danced for my last 2 years of high school. Even as a Sr. hip-hop group we did not have costumes that risque. However I would like to comment on the make-up. We were required to wear heavy make-up because it helped prevent our faces from being washed out by the bright stage lights. I understood growing up that make-up was only for the stage and otherwise I never wore the stuff. When I wasn’t cheering or dancing, I was working on our farm and the typical tomboy. I was able to separate the stage from real life, but I NEVER had to wear costumes like that. I am passionate about cheerleading and dance, but I also think it’s important to keep them both age appropriate.
Emilie, thanks for the note and your different perspective. I do believe there are numerous benefits to competitive cheerleading. I just think the same benefits can be accomplished without the girls looking like a “Candy from Carlsbad’…:-)