A Mommy Story

In a previous post, I discussed the disturbing trend towards sexualizing our little girls way too early, usually through inappropriate clothing.

I should have realized that Halloween costumes would soon follow this trend. The number of “sexy” costumes available for preteen girls, and even little girls, is appalling.

When I was a kid, costumes followed traditional styles of ghosts, monsters and princesses in big dresses, with some plastic TV cartoon character masks thrown in.

I remember one year I was a ghost, which is the Halloween equivalent of trick-or-treating in a burka. Another year I was a California Raisin, yet another warm and stuffy costume with limited visibility. I was also a witch one year, but certainly not a sexy witch – more like the green and scary variety.

Perhaps the most skin-baring costume I ever wore was when I dressed as Wilykit from Thundercats in 4th grade. One shoulder was bare, and the dress was short, but I wore dyed tights instead of painting my bare legs to provide a little bit of modesty. And one look at me, with my hair cornstarched to stand straight up and sprayed a bright red and my white and black makeup, would tell you I wasn’t going for a sexy look. Weird and slightly frightening, but not sexy.

So while shopping for Cordy’s Halloween costume, I am appalled at some of the choices out there. Sure, there are the cute, furry, full-body costumes. But for every cute plush kitty costume, there’s a “sexy kitty” costume as well.

What’s that? You want examples? I thought you’d never ask.

Exhibit A: Raggedy Ann Look at that cute little rag doll!

You could never make Raggedy Ann sexy for a toddler, right?

Wrong:

Exhibit B: Pirates Sure, pirates are the big thing this year. And with a smash movie, even girls want to be pirates. But there’s a difference between being a pirate girl:

…and being the pirate’s consort (with some serious vinyl boots):

Exhibit C: Cowgirls While I did find some decent cowgirl costumes, I had to point out two bad ones in particular. First, is this little girl just an early bloomer, or is the chest of this costume padded?

And then there’s the cowgirl costume named Lil’ Texy Cowgirl.

“Texy”, get it? Like sexy, without driving moms into a stampede by using the word sexy. Just switch the first letter so it is a Texas reference, and you’ve got a winner.

Now, I’ll admit that these aren’t too racy. Pretty tame compared to the costumes for older girls, truthfully. But they’re toddler costumes! Toddlers don’t even need to hint at sexy! What’s worse, dressing them like that now could be the first step towards these types of costumes. The distance between that first step and pre-teen costumes is not that big of a jump.

When did it become OK to dress our girls as sexy little women? And do you really want your 11 year old daughter wearing this?