Sunday, January 25, 2015

Shopping With A Tween Girl...Not For The Faint of Heart.

There are few things that stress me out more these days than clothes shopping with my 12-year old daughter..who thinks she is going on 30. I find myself saying no to nearly every other thing she holds up. Today I took her shopping for a dress for the upcoming Father/Daughter dance. She found one that she was in love with and when she walked out of the fitting room...I nearly hyperventilated. The dress had a bell sleeve on one side while the other side was sleeveless. It was a perfectly beautiful dress if my daughter was 17, but she is 12 and back on the rack it went. She found another dress that was "the one." I decided it was not the one. Her face was crestfallen and she was a little miffed at me. I had an internal battle with myself on how to explain why the dress was inappropriate.

What I really wanted to say was...

*The dress is a halter-style and while your feet are growing faster than Pinocchio's nose... your chest sweetheart, is not. You have nothing to hold that dress up. It is much too revealing for you to wear. No daughter of mine is going out of the house wearing something that makes her look like a cheap hooker. YOU ARE TWELVE!

I didn't say those things because explaining to my daughter what a hooker is would have made me hyperventilate for the second time in one afternoon. That word doesn't need to be in her vocabulary at all.

What did I say instead?

The dress isn't really age appropriate and it doesn't fit you correctly so let's keep looking.

It was all flowers and singing birds and we moved on to the next store. If you have ever met my daughter you would know that is so not the way it went down. There was a lot of "But MOM! You don't understand". It was followed by "I am paying for the dress and you are TWELVE!"

I wish I could make clothing designers understand that I don't want my daughter dressing like she is 20 going to a club with her girls on a Friday night. She still wears pajamas with puppies on them for crying out loud. I don't think a dress with sleeves and a full back is too much to ask. I would also like it to hit just above the knee as opposed to mid thigh. I get that the days of seersucker dresses are behind us. I want her to feel beautiful and trendy without her barely there lady bits being on display. Is it really too much to ask?!

I am happy to report she found a dress we both agreed on and she will wear a little jacket over it. I also threatened to find an Amish website to buy her clothes in the future.