Appearances are everything

[dong]

I can guess why: it's another sign of an unsustainable trend that manifests itself in what one ought to consider our last, untarnished hopes- the innocence of children?

 

[hokeshel]

Dong, you remind me of a conversation I had recently with my aunt. She was one of the first people to get a gastric bypass. I was just a child then. She was over 600 lbs at the time. I told her that I don't remember her being that big. I just remember her having a surgery and that we always had a good time together. I don't remember a difference in her before and after other than she was often sick and I felt bad for her. Yet, she lost over 400 lbs. Kids don't always see what we see. They see deeper, purer.

 

[FourBear]

I am really quite scared when I see 10 year olds wearing eyeliner. My mom wouldn't even let me *touch* makeup at that age.

Has anyone noticed the clothing trend for younger ages, too? They seem to be going in a more...skimpy direction. Not all clothing, but definitely some seems to be tinier versions of clothes for older teens.

 

[Furious George]

American Culture.

 

[dong]

And it spreads, towards this cultural hegemony we've been seeing more of as late. Which gets me thinking about diametrically opposed global factions i.e. WWIII but hey, that's a different thread.

 

[mamab]

I am really quite scared when I see 10 year olds wearing eyeliner. My mom wouldn't even let me *touch* makeup at that age.

Has anyone noticed the clothing trend for younger ages, too? They seem to be going in a more...skimpy direction. Not all clothing, but definitely some seems to be tinier versions of clothes for older teens.

I know what you mean, FourBear. I had to sneak to buy makeup, and had to sneak to wear it. Unfortunately, I didn't get it taken off one day and my mom went ballistic! It was not a pretty sight.

And about the clothes. Man, I wouldn't want my dead dog to be seen in some of the things they try to sell as "appropriate" for little girls, nowadays. Does it seem like clothing manufacturers are trying to make sexpots out of little girls? It does to me.

 

[FourBear]

It personally shocks me, because my mother would have kicked my butt if I attempted to leave the house wearing what some of the young girls now get away with wearing.

 

[mtatum4496]

I can''t help but feel that we are robbing our children of something they can never recover - their childhood. There is a whole lifetime to be sophisticated, worldly and glamorous. But there won't always be the options of doing nothing with your best friend, tossing a football around at the schoolyard, or not having to worry about bills, house repairs, etc.

I hope I can allow my son to have as much of a real childhood as possible, given the times we live in.

 

[dong]

(Considering moving this to another thread as we've digressed quite a way!)

What is a real childhood and just how would that impact upon one's ability to live as an "independent, successful" person in later life? I must profess that I never had much of a real childhood in that sense because most of my time was spent doing academic or related pursuits, not a whole lot of social interaction and definitely not much cultural exposure (due to poverty and a certain striving to cultural elitism). I don't particularly wish it any other way now but I do note that the kind of childhood I did have seems to have been taken to an extreme in many cases already, and if not, it certainly is catching on.

 

[FourBear]

I always thought childhood was letting a child choose what he/she wanted to do, within reason. It seems like many times nowadays parents drive their children to do so many extra structured activities, when they would be more content and derive more benefit from playing outside, coloring, doing crafts, painting, reading, things based on imagination, etc.

 

[mtatum4496]

Childhood is a time I remember when I was free to focus on spending time with friends, figuring out things to do with the resources we had at hand, not having to be concerned about paying bills, going to work or with any of the other things that grownups had to deal with. If I wanted to spend an afternoon staring up at the sky and counting clouds, I could do it. If I wanted to spend a few hours at the local library or at the ball field playing catch, that was okay.

There is plenty of time later in life to learn how to put on makeup or how to like a man. But there will be few if any opportunities to experience life at the pace we can during our younger years.

 

[mamab]

In some cultures being thin is considered undesirable because if a woman is thin, she might not be able to bear children. All throughout history fertility goddesses were portrayed as voluptuous women (often without heads, but that's another topic LOL). There's something about the spread of a woman's hips as being synonymous with fertility and child bearing.

 

[dong]

Ayup, very true. The belief that fat = good persisted throughout history until more recent centuries. Why? Because it wasn't until more recently that in many societies the living conditions were such that one could be concerned with not so much survival as prosperity. That the first world lives in the land of plenty is very significant.

 

[mtatum4496]

Personally, I never have seen the attraction of being rail thin. On the other hand, rolls of flab don't get it for me either. Guess I am somewhere in the middle with my preferences.

 

[mamab]

I would think that if you're "fat" you would also be considered to be prosperous, because it means you have the means with which to purchase enough food to make you "fat."

I don't go in for "rail thin" either. Thankfully neither does my husband. He said he wants to be able to feel a woman in his arms. LOL