Sexualisation of children
There are many things I dislike about the fact that David Cameron has commissioned Reg Bailey of the Mothers Union to write a report about the sexualisation of children. Not least that this is a panic that has nothing to do with children, but everything to do with the rather horrible way that both parents and children are thought of by a certain section of society (David Cameron and Reg Bailey being two of them).
There is no sexualisation of children. Parents are not rushing around pimping their children, and there is not a plethora of sexual activity within young children.
But the propositions from the report show what the fear is about. The main proposition from this report is that a single website will be set up for parents to report inappropriate images, products and services. According to the reportthe website should set out clearly what parents can do if they feel a product is inappropriate for their children. Don’t we just not buy the clothes if we think it is not appropriate for our children? Do we really need a government sponsored website to tell us how to navigate this particular issue? And isn’t one persons inappropriate clothing something someone else likes?
What particularly makes me mad is the contempt this expresses for parents and children. We can’t be trusted now to clothe our own children- we already can’t be trusted to feed our own children properly. And like the ridiculousness of the moralisation of food (whereby white bread is somehow evil but ciabbatas are somehow morally good) to try and rule between good and bad clothing is equally absurd.
The padded bra seems to get a particular drobbing but as parents of pre pubescent girls will know, is that when they start developing girls do need some protection and also want to protect their modesty by having a little bit of padding over their breasts.
I think as parents we should react against this constant intervention into our choices and our childrens choices about what we should and should not do.