News Freakin' Flash

I am always glad to see pieces like this in the mainstream media, but I can't help but marvel at the sense of discovery and enlightenment contained therein and be absolutely sure that if say, I wrote the exact same piece with the exact same words and were identified at the end as, say, a "writer in the Catholic press," the objections would come fast and furious about puritanical moral codes and imposition of same.

Psychologist surveys the lives of young women today

Women once complained about being reduced to sex objects. Now, their daughters are volunteering to be sex objects. And while parents register disapproval, they often fail to take action. In that failure, they unwittingly place their daughters at risk by allowing them to bypass girlhood. When a daughter moves straight from little girl to woman, she's playing a role rather than gradually learning to live her own life. These girls may seem whole, but they aren't. There is often a lost girl inside.

Many who endorse provocative styles of dress have picked up on the liberal message of the '60s and taken it a step further. They see those who express distaste over the sexually explicit as hung up, old-fashioned. One young woman pointed out to me, "It's almost politically incorrect to say that something is inappropriate."

One of the most unsettling sights today is that of little girls dressed in teeny bikinis at the pool, or walking around in low-rise pants with midriff tops, or in heels and skimpy dresses, sometimes complete with makeup and jewelry. And this doesn't occur only at dance recitals. It can be everyday attire.

Have we come a long way, baby? The Lennon Sisters and Gidget of girlhoods gone by are light-years from today's Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The bridge between these two generations of stars was Madonna -- before she had children and cleaned up her act. Sometime over the past couple of decades, while we adults weren't looking, class went out and trash came in.

{snip}

Parents -- sometimes without even realizing it -- put their daughters at risk when they camouflage these features by allowing them to dress in adult ways. Such dress prompts the child to imitate adult female behavior that she doesn't understand. This can short-circuit normal development. It can also encourage older children and adults to relate to these young girls as sexual beings, sometimes with tragic consequences.

My younger sister told me a story about visiting the home of friends when the teenage daughter's date arrived. The daughter came downstairs in a T-shirt that read, "Strippers do it with poles." The parents seemed nonplussed; it was the boy who said to them, "You're letting her go out of the house in that ?"

Some parents are just misguided when it comes to monitoring their daughters' dress. I will be the first to admit that mental health experts have contributed to the problem. A good example is the school of thought once prevalent among psychologists that even young kids need to have a voice in all decisions that affect them -- with the corollary that, if they marshal a particularly good argument, they can often get what they want. Another approach is to give children two choices, rather than telling them what they have to do. But my personal favorite is the zany idea that parents should never say "No," because it would be too negative! It isn't surprising that they also have a tough time telling their daughters, "You're not going out of this house in that outfit. End of subject."

Another even bigger problem I see is indecision: Parents lack confidence in their instincts and in their judgment. Previous generations had no trouble making hard and fast rules. Parents in those days looked like and conducted themselves as adults and role models; kids and teenagers wanted to grow up and get the perks of adult life as soon as possible. Therapists see the inverse today. There are lots of parents who are uncomfortable with their grownup role and want to be young again; their kids don't want to grow up, or wish to postpone it as long as possible.

There are definitely cases I see in which girls imitate their mothers' sexy style of dress, with their mothers' blessing. (Although there was one high school girl who confided that she was glad she didn't have a mother who looked like Goldie Hawn -- too tough an act to follow!) But the majority of mothers want their daughters to dress more conservatively but are afraid to take their daughters on. Fathers, too.

They make the mistake of thinking that a good relationship is largely conflict-free. One mother said to me, "I hate to rock the boat when she's a teenager; we got along so well when she was little." They don't want a child who complains about them to her friends and the rest of the world on her blog.

I've polled a number of therapist colleagues, and virtually everyone agreed: We almost never see autocratic, dictatorial parents today; it is far more common to see parents who have relinquished power, and kids who have assumed it. Which makes for very unhappy young people. They are petulant and angry; they lack respect for their parents because their parents haven't inspired respect through real leadership.

Well, I'm just grateful it's in the Washington Post, and hope some parents pay attention.