Messages By: sinder

 Oh...but it's not.  In a perfect world it wouldn't matter what other people thought, it wouldn't matter what message your clothing (or lack of) sent and it wouldn't matter what you played with or were exposed to. But it is what it is and to turn a blind eye to reality is truly irresponsible.  Just because they MAKE the clothes doesn't mean you should buy them or wear them. Just because they MAKE a toy doesn't mean you have to buy it. In the immortal words of Chris Rock  "Just because you can drive with your feet doesn't make it a good idea!"  Kids have parents to protect them from things that seem like a good idea but are not but that assumes that the parents know the difference as well.  To justify putting anything on your child or in your child's hands that sends a message that is unhealthy by saying 'parental influence will override (insert any number of possibilities here) makes the retailers and makers oh so happy because you've given up your common sense and become a sheople and are turning your children into sheople as well. I'm pretty sure that the term 'peer pressure' has always meant exactly what it means today and no generation has the corner on the rebel market. So they win.

Which brings up who is 'they' anyway? Oh yeah....'they' are the people making money hand over fists on your child...and then your pre-teen (who insists on having whatever the latest trend is because you laid that foundation nice and strong for her)..and then your teenager (who continues the trend in clothes but adds hair coloring, extensions, plastic surgery and low self esteem because she doesn't look just like the girls in the media. Hopefully you've been able to avert an eating disorder)..and then on your grown child (because you've grown up paying so much attention to what you look like that you've forgotten about the inside..bring on the plastic surgery and botox!!) .  Yes, it's a generalization but you give your kids vaccines, tell them to wash their hands and wear their seatbelts for their physical safety, yes? We have ratings on movies and games so that they are not exposed to things that will damage their minds. We teach them manners, make them go to school and arm them with rules of the road, rules at the table and rules for being a good friend. But why bother doing any of that when it is undermined by things that we knowlngly and purposely do to and for them?  I'd bet good money that most of us either threw out or researched every painted toy in our kids possession when we heard that lead paint was used in so much. How many will respond the same way to news that the toys our little girls play with actually DOES impact them? How many of us threw out painted toys on the mere possibility that it MIGHT have lead but won't stand toe to toe with the child you're going to turn out into the world over what clothes she wears?

 I have an 8 year old daughter, and two sons that are 19 and 22. She is not allowed to have Bratz dolls...even the name makes me wonder who in the name of all things holy buys these things. She has dolls and even a few Barbies (The "I can be" series is actually quite inspiring; pretty people can be just as smart and successful as anyone and not just on the catwalk). She has very distinct taste in clothes, loves to read, paint her nails, wear jewelry, is on her 5th belt in Tae Kwon Do and won the Barbara Boxer Award last year.  She's smart, funny, compassionate and curious. She's also beautiful and it's only been recently that she has begun to understand that people stare at her because she IS striking not because she doesn't match or has something in her teeth.  If I have any say so about it, she will continue to grow up knowing that how she dresses her heart and soul should far outshine the way she dresses her body. She may have won the genetic lottery but she will be responsible for the person she becomes....as....will.....we.

We can scream and shout that it shouldn't matter what we look like on the outside and that it shouldn't matter how we dress but it does.  The one thing missing from this show is the honest perspective of a male.  My two sons both watched the show and both had very strong opionions.  I raised them to see people as people but they are both fully aware of how the world works.  They are both in college; one is artsy fartsy and the other is a party animal. One is gay and the other is a girl magnet.  Did they judge the guests based on what they chose to wear? Yep. Is it judgemental? Well...of course! lol  We all choose our clothes based on what we like, how we feel that day, what people say about it. (How many of us were told that a certain color looked great on us and now we wear it....alot! Or were told that that certain pair of jeans made heads turn so we wear them when we want to feel good?)  There's nothing wrong with it...it's human nature...but when your kids are wearing skimpy clothes because it makes THEM feel good, don't you wonder why???  Don't you worry that the clothing choices are only the beginning of the slide down the slippery slope into any number of issues like eating disorders, low self esteem, promiscuity or self loathing?

You can say it doesn't matter but it does.  If it didn't matter then why do we all gasp when we see a 90 year old man in a speedo? or a pregnant mother in a bikini? or a 7 year old beauty pageant contestant in pantyhose, make up and fake nails?  It's just easier to give in....easier to not wage the war day after day....easier to justify the allowances by claiming free will and self expression.  But...I have to wonder....if the parents are joining that rally cry....how come they're not having LibbyLoo parties (what my son calls slut training) and wearing micro mini's?? 

Bravo to the parents who are teaching their daughters how to stand against peer pressure and to believe in who they are regardless of the clothes.   Maybe there should be a test: if the kid can wear a potatoe sack and still feel worthy then perhaps THAT is a child for whom clothes do not make the person. What a test THAT would be!!!!

It's the very philosophy of 'everyone else is doing it'' and/or 'if it's so bad why do they make it' that absolutely floors me. Extrapolate that attitude to various other issues and voila! we now have answers to global warming (I mean, they make cars afterall!), obesity (but Hostess Twinkies are the best selling snack foods ever!) and alcoholism (but they sell it everywhere and it's legal!).  Seems to me it's the little lessons like this one that teach a child how to stand up in the face of the big lessons later in life.

 I met a brilliant man several years after a divorce. He lived in Canada and I, in California. He was intelligent, creative, articulate, curious...he pushed me to think and tapdanced on every boundary I was adjusting in my single life. We got married after dating, long distance mind you, for a year. Oh I know it was stupid NOW but then it was romantic..le sigh.  I attributed his mood swings to the creative process...to being brilliant...to being a lost and tortured soul. Had I known anything about bipolar disorder I would have seen it for what it was and I like to believe, I would have run like there was a fire licking my hiney.

Bipolarism is tough to deal with...tough to live with.  I spent four years in hell. He attempted self medication through alcohol and eventually drugs. He could not cope with the fact that his brain had 'betrayed' him...he was suicidal...he was hateful...I swear he was a minion of the antichrist come to pay me back for being a hellion as a kid.  I didn't give up because I was already 'in' when we found out he was bipolar. I should have left for myself and for my two boys that I subjected to his lunacy.  The marriage lasted less time than the courtship; he was taken to jail in handcuffs after being chased down by 3 cruisers who found him at our house after trying to kill himself by driving his car into a brick wall...then running back to our home, breaking in, threatening to kill me if I told the police anything and then going out the front door to tell the police to get off his driveway. ALl this with my boys huddled in a back room with a baseball bat in case he tried to touch me.  And at that point he was on medication.

I think it's great that some people make it through....it gives hope to those that need it. However, there is so much about bipolar disorder that is unknown by the general public that to tell someone to stick it out without knowing all the details can be dangerous advice.  My ex was a Philosophy Major with a Law Degree obtained on a fully funded scholarship. He was a gifted musician and when not in the throws of a cycle, quite charming and spiritual. My point....not the guy you would ever guess spent thousands of dollars on cocaine, started bar fights or beat people up. 

Get the information and diagnosis before you make any decisions but for the love of all things holy don't believe that you can change him or save him. 

 *blinking* Umm...how old are you? Seriously? Am I reading this correctly and understanding that you are using the fact that Hollywood of all places is your standard of measure for whether something is acceptable or not? Hollywood endorses whatever will make a buck..or a statement...Man...with that kind of logic, there isn't much that is off limits!

And am I mistaken here or wasn't what you quoted Dr. Phil as saying in direct reference to the cartoon show of Bratz and not of the dolls themselves? Ahem. I hardly think his reaction to their clothing (remember the doll to real life fashion show) could be mistaken for approval!

And didja know that lots of companies and organizations 'endorse' things ....and they sponsor them cuz it's a tax write off.

 That's the thing: go on with your bad self and wear whatever you want but don't be shocked and offended when someone labels you.  You may not be a slut but you're wearing a slut suit!!!!

 True...but they all go hand in hand.  If the kids don't SEE the crap they don't WANT the crap. No one thing is to blame...it's an inundation of things that start when they are very young with things LIKE the dolls.  The dolls spawn the clothing line, the movies and the following.....consumers spur the rate at which they are made. 

Way to go Erin!!  I wish my mother had had the courage to leave...I used to wonder what my life would have been like had I not grown up in such a dysfunctional environment.  Time and experience taught me not to dwell on a past I cannot change which allowed me to love being me without regret or if only's. 

 

BUT.....had I not heard the things my father said and called my mother, I would not have been scared of him. I would not have come to blame her for being too weak to stand up to him and not brave enough to defend me. I would not have believed that her inaction on my behalf was because I was unloveable, unworthy and unimporant. I would not have confused lust for love. I would not have married young just to get the hell out of that house. I would have a relationship instead of a truce with my family today.

 

Way to go Erin....your kids may never have the words or understanding to be able to tell you the many things you saved them from simply by removing them from the situation but I do. Watching your idols battle each other tears apart the belief that love is real. Hearing the two people that created you saying hateful things to each other, lights a fire of fear deep inside you...a fear that if they can stop loving each other..how long until they stop loving you too?  You get the idea.  I would have traded an everyday father for anyday peace. But that's just me.

 

 

What exactly does this girl think she is going to gain by this? I realize she wants control, and maybe that's what started the whole thing....Mom had more control than she cared for.  I found it interesting that she didn't seem to treat her own mother with much kindness or respect either. 

 

Man....my boys would cut a girl out of their lives like mold on cheese if they tried that kind of controlling crap....and they aren't even mama's boys!l  lol

 

Karma will pay Miss Thang a visit....I hope she registers for a really good carpet cleaner cuz she is inviting some serious dung into her life!

Without his Mother, he'd not be the man she says she loves so MOM obviously did a great job ~ what a way for the two of them to thank her for it.   And no...it wouldn't be as special without his family there since the whole purpose of  a wedding is to share the event with friends and family.  That's her son for Goddess sake! They'll be divorced in no time if she keeps up the poor me routine, but Mom will always and forever be Mom...even long after this bride is just a bad memory.

Funny thing is that she seems to have no problem with HER mother being privy to everything but HIS mom is an issue.  Sounds like a case of 'Oh crap, she's onto me and I better get rid of her before she tells!' She made it nasty the minute she tried to make the boy choose between the woman who gave him life and the woman who wants to be in it. 

I am the stepmother  to an 8 year old  girl that my heart does not know I did not  create. Her  mother died of a drug overdose 18 months ago and her father and I have had her fulltime since that day. Prior to that day, her mother and her mother's family had kept her from him for over a full year. Everytime we got close to getting to her, they moved her to a different relative's house in a different county requiring more paperwork and transferring of petitions.  They told her he abandoned her...that he didn't want to pay child support so that he could see her...and on and on. We ended up having no choice but to sever the ties with the family for a time while she was in grief counseling and trying to rebuild a relationship with her father.  They took us to court to try and gain custody (which they lost), then they tried to sue for visitiation (which they lost), then they tried to sue for guardianship of her estate (which...yes they lost).  We try to make it work every month...sometimes it works and sometimes it does not but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone make derogatory comments about the only living parent she has left essssssssspecially if it is NOT true. Nope...you don't get to confuse and hurt her like that I don't care if you are God Herself. 

Grandparent or not...family or not....if there is emotional damage being done to the child's psyche then someone has to step up and protect them from it. I am in no way saying that the Grandmother in question here is causing harm....my comment is a general response to the posts about Grandparents having the rights no matter what. I disagree.  Everyone involved, parent and Grandparent alike, need to remember that kids hear everything...they sense more than we give them credit for and they know things without being told. If Mommy and Gramma don't like each other, the kid knows.....and now you've put the child in a situation similar to a divorce.  All in the name of love and 'my rights'. 

And before anyone assumes anything: I have two college age boys with a man I married at 19 and divorced at 24. His mother is the woman I consider my Mom and I treat her as such. She introduces me as her daughter...we talk alllllllllll the time...I am the executor of her will over both of her sons mind you. I love her with all my heart.  Through thick and thin, she was consistent, fair and nonjudgemental. Some 20 years later, I can honestly say she has been the single most influential person in my life.  So it CAN be done.