Wednesday, March 27, 2013

A Letter to a Father Who Wrote to Victoria's Secret, from a Mother

I will go ahead and throw out there right away that I am not a proponent for 13-year old girls to wear lace thongs that say, "Call Me" on them.

However, I had mixed feelings when I read the "Letter to Victoria's Secret from a Father" that has been getting a lot of publicity lately. Don't get me wrong, I agree with so much of what he is saying.



YES, it is sad that our society continues to sexualize younger and younger girls.
YES, our daughters should be focused on more important issues and thinking about careers and philanthropy and whatnot.
YES, I hope girls like Blakely don't find their self-worth in their underwear choices.

But as a parent, albeit a new one, I refuse to place the blame for how this next generation turns out on Victoria's Secret. It is NOT Victoria's Secret's job to raise my child. It is NOT their job to influence her clothing choices, her morals, or certainly not her life choices.

I've noticed more and more that this generation of parents have become "facilitators" of their children's upbringings. They've become "supervisors," who dictate how everyone else needs to make sure their kid turns out right.

We want to tell teachers how to teach, what to teach, what NOT to teach...
We want schools to teach sex ed... to not teach sex ed... to teach abstinence only sex ed...
We want sports leagues to give our kids participation trophies, so we don't have to tell them that they PROBABLY won't grow up to be an NBA superstar...
And we want stores, like Victoria's Secret, to base their offering around shaping our kid's morals, behavior, and taste in clothing, so we don't have to.

Does it suck that now as parents we're going to have to navigate another struggle in raising good, moral, Godly kids? Yup. Will I do my best to tackle this issue with honesty and openness, with or without Victoria's Secret's help? Yup.

Because I worked for Bath & Body Works (owned by the same company as Victoria's Secret), I KNOW that they have done huge amounts of research, and if they are making this line, they absolutely have reason to believe that it will sell, resulting in big profits. I'm not going to hold a for-profit company  at fault for making business decisions that will result in profit.

So what will I do if Blakely asks me to go to Victoria's Secret this side of high school? *Gulp*... I will talk to her. I will be open and honest with her about my thoughts, and I hope that I've raised her to do the same. If she can give me a compelling reason that she wants Victoria's Secret underwear, and she wants to use her own money to buy them... I will consider it. I will talk through it with her. I will choose my battles, and I will instill morals through my behavior and a relationship with God, not by trying to rip every possible bad choice out of her grasp.

If we're not going to give Victoria's Secret credit for our kids turning out well, we can't give them credit for them turning out poorly either.

No comments:

Post a Comment