Ladies,
Have you ever considered what your children observe about the way that you dress? How about what your children see other women wearing?
Fashion Matters to Children
Adults are conditioned to look the other way when it comes to fashion, for a myriad of reasons. Many people are taught that it should not matter to them. Some of us have our opinions but do not use them to shape how we treat people, so we appear unphased by these things. We filter our opinions through love as Christians, so that we treat people as we would want to be treated no matter how they dress. But children have few filters if any. They are simply taking in the world around them and observing everything they see. They are very honest in their assessments and have not been taught for good or bad how to respond to these things. And one thing that I know, is that fashion matters to children. Children are sensitive to people, their environments and how things make them feel.
One thing that baffled me as a child was why women wore jeans. Jeans showed every crack and bump, material wedging up between cheeks and frankly, kept nothing private….private. These were my observations as a child. I never cared for the way they looked on women. They were neither pretty nor comfortable as I had witnessed women bending down to work to look pinched and squeezed as the waistband gaped away revealing much more than just contours of the body.
While most women wore jeans during that era of the 1980s and 1990s, one thing that was not normalized when I was little was women bearing cleavage. Unlike today, there was still a sense of modesty about showing breasts. Fashion was more conservative in general. I am very thankful for this fact after seeing how much children are subjected to now days.
Changing Fashion Sense
The fact that a mere decade or so can change the cultural landscape so much of what is and is not considered acceptable apparel should tell us something about how ideals degrade. Just 30 years ago women dressed modestly compared to the average woman today. When I was a child, women did not wear leggings as pants, show cleavage during the day, and in general clothing was made much thicker and in more structured shape, even t-shirts! I would say that the 1990s was the last decade that women dressed classic as the standard, with exceptions here and there. Housewives as well as workforce women all dressed nicely for the day, including for grocery shopping. Whereas now days, it is the exception if a woman is dressed in a classy way for her daily life. Fashion is in constant flux and sometimes we can become immune to what’s popular and lose perspective on what has changed. To a child who is new to the world and being inundated with the trends as all they’ve ever known, it’s good to look at what we wear objectively and think about what they are experiencing and not just what we as adults are experiencing when it comes to fashion.
The Many Messages of Fashion
Our clothing is sending a message to children. We teach them that dressing for the day is a means to respect ourselves and others. We teach them to wear clean clothing by wearing clean clothing. By wearing clean clothing, we teach them how important it was that we did the laundry to have the clean clothing. When we wear ugly, sloppy, or dirty clothes, we send a message of sadness, futility, laziness or discouragement. When we wear pretty, nicely shaped, and well-kept clothes, we send a message of gladness, purpose, politeness, and cheerfulness.
The Decorum of Fashion
The way we dress for different occasions informs children of the significance of it. Weddings are formal. Church is respectful. Home is important. Grocery shopping is polite and friendly. Daily living is beautiful. What we wear teaches children about the importance of that occasion and how we value it. When children see a woman working about her home in a graceful and beautiful way, it shapes their perceptions and their values of it. When I use to frequent a laundry mat, there was a little boy who lived near us, who came up to me one day while I was doing my laundry and shyly smiled at me and said, “I like your pink dress”. This was a boy’s boy. He loved pretending to be a soldier, having nerf gun battles, and was a strong leader with others. I was wearing an ankle length light pink dress with a large ruffle all around the hem. He always saw how I dressed old fashioned for the times, but he was appreciative of it. It made me look gentle and kind because it looked soft, feminine and demure. He went out of his way to come into the laundry room just to tell me that. I may have been the only woman in his life that he ever saw dress this way.
The Romance of Fashion
The way a mother dresses tells her children something of her character and what she values. A pretty dress, pretty shoes, pretty jewelry, tells a story to a child. Without words, she is communicating that her work of cleaning, cooking, and childcare is of utmost importance because she does not downgrade herself to do it and that the work is not an insult to her. She is telling them that being with them is special to her, so she dresses up for it. She shows in her outward dress how she feels happy to be with them, happy to create beauty for them, and happy to be attractive for her husband. Her cultivation of her appearance, not overly done in a sense of vanity, nor neglected in a sense of criticism toward it, but done with the purpose of pursuing goodness for herself and her family, is something lovely to behold.
The Higher Standard of Good Fashion
A high-end hotel or restaurant sets the standard with their outward style. Walking into the reception area instantly makes you aware of what you are wearing, the way you stand, and the way you speak. When you enter a place of a high standard you are instantly aware of the higher standard of dress and a higher standard of behavior is usually connected to this. Using outward signals of high standards in your own home and dress signals to children to be aware of how they are presenting themselves, speaking, and how respectful they are behaving. Dressing well is a visual reminder of many things such as your own value, that your day is a gift, that good manners must be upheld, etc.
Beauty & Decency
When the idea of “casual clothing” began degrading the way we dressed, women were gradually taught to find beauty too restrictive, too fancy, too everything. They grew comfortable with non-lovely things and questioned anything nice. Children became subjected to constant downgrading of every part of life and women dressed androgenous, masculine, or simply in pajamas. Children were sent to schools that look like prisons with hardly any time spent outdoors, in a garden, or around anything beautiful. They were taught many wrong things about their very existence at the base of their entire lives while being starved of goodness in general. Children have suffered the loss of beauty. They have not had the chance to admire their mothers in their beautiful state, being given only the most degraded versions of them. Children use to see beautiful fabrics in all different colors and prints, beautiful shapes of dresses and skirts, and did not see things like butts outlined in jeans or cleavage. Children use to have their mothers at home as well.
Bless them with Loveliness
Make your home and your wardrobe a place of loveliness. Carry that loveliness with you in your words and behavior, and by all means, display it in your fashion sense. Dress beautifully regardless of the culture around you. Give your children the loveliest version of yourself. Let them admire the unique things you do to look beautiful. They will enjoy your beautiful hairstyle, your jewelry, your lipstick, your dress. They will remember your favorite perfume and they will get to bask in something beautiful and therefore be taught in what is lovely.
WHATEVERLOVELY.COM
CHRISTIAN LIVING – FASHION – HOME
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