Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
August 22, 2001
To parents: be aware of how teen daughters dress
Modest dress teaches self-respect, gains males' respect
By Mary Beth Bonacci
I'm thinking of writing another book: "Ten Things Parents Do That Make Me Want To Throttle Them."
The first chapter would be about something I saw last week. I was driving down a suburban street in a nice neighborhood. It was one of those relatively busy, but still residential, streets that every neighborhood needs to feed its residents into the more major arteries. And, as I was driving, I saw a young girl standing on the curb. She was probably about 14 or so, and she seemed to be waiting for someone who was supposed to be giving her a ride somewhere.
So far, so good.
The problem was what she was wearing — a half-shirt and low-slung short-shorts, flaunting the kind of flat tummy and slim hips that 14-year-olds acquire so effortlessly, while older women toil endlessly over Stairmasters and down Slim-Fast, all seemingly in vain.
Honestly, her outfit wasn't that different from what I see so many teenagers wearing in the malls. And it was probably less revealing than what she sees on her TV-star counterparts. But there was something almost surreal about the juxtaposition of an innocent-looking young girl standing on an innocent-looking curb in the heart of an innocent-looking suburb, displaying her body to passing traffic.
She looked, in a weird way, like some kind of naïve streetwalker.
And, as if to drive home the seriousness of what I had just witnessed, I remembered the story dominating that day's news. On that very day, 72 convicted sex offenders had been set loose on the streets here in Colorado. They were released from prison, not because they were innocent, but rather over a technicality in the law under which they were convicted. There was apparently something about the length of their prison term relative to the length of their parole that the Colorado Supreme Court didn't like. I should also add that 70 percent of these sex offenders were convicted of offenses against children.
So here, in a city where some 50 known child molesters were on the loose, a young girl was standing alone, on display, on a busy street.
I wanted to find her parents. And I wanted to throttle them. I wanted to ask them what on earth they were thinking, or indeed if they were thinking at all.
I realize that her parents may not have known how their child was dressed. I know that teenaged girls have a way of wearing one thing out the door and another by the time they reach their destination. I know they're not above sneaking.
But I also know that plenty of parents allow their kids to dress like that. They figure it's the "in" thing. They figure it'll help their kids fit in better. They figure it's not worth the battle. They figure there's no harm.
They figure wrong.
There's no question: teenage girls like to wear sexy clothes. Why wouldn't they? That's how they see women dressed on TV and in magazines. And, being slim and not yet fully developed, they can "pull off" those looks. Most celebrity women work hard and pay lots of money to look like 14-year-olds. Fourteen-year-olds, on the other hand, look that way naturally.
Mostly, looking sexy gets them attention — male attention. What 14-year-old girl doesn't want boys to notice her? Unfortunately, they're not mature enough to discern between good attention and bad attention. There's a big difference between a boy who wants to get to know a girl because she's nice and a boy who wants to get close to a girl because he senses an opportunity to use her body for his own personal gratification. It all looks the same to an innocent girl.
And to parents falls the difficult job of teaching young girls the difference between good attention and lustful attention. A big part of that lesson is teaching them about the messages they send by the way they dress.
These are not fun lessons. They create a lot of conflict in the house. Girls want to be popular. They want to look and dress like everybody else. Society's messages don't die easily.
I distinctly remember two of these battles from my own childhood. One was over halter-tops. The other was over bikinis. Both were forbidden. I screamed. I cried. I begged. I cajoled. But my parents held their ground.
Here's the kicker. I was 10 years old — 10 years old. I didn't have a body to pay attention to. I looked like a boy. But my parents knew that they were laying a foundation for how I'd dress later and it would be easier to lay that foundation right at 10 than to have to introduce new standards a few years later. They didn't budge.
And, looking back, I didn't sneak. I didn't change into more revealing clothing after I left the house. And I didn't start dressing that way after I grew up and moved away from home, either. I still don't.
Why not? Because even if my parents weren't watching, I knew God was. I knew he expected more from me. When I was younger, I was just afraid (in a good way) of sinning and losing my connection with God. But as I got older, I saw the deeper wisdom. I saw the sacredness of the human body and the ugliness of flaunting it in exchange for scraps of insincere male attention. I saw that when I respected my body, it inspired men to respect it, too. I saw that real love and sexual exhibitionism were radically incompatible.
That's the lesson I learned from my parents. It's a lesson I hope the girl on Garrison Street learns as well — before it's too late.
Mary Beth Bonacci is a Catholic speaker, syndicated columnist and author of two books. She can be reached via her web site at www.reallove.net.
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