Parental Insanity
Do Six Year Olds Need Padded Bras?
By Daniel Muniz

Children clothing manufacturers like Barbie, Bratz, and Saddle Club as well as national chain department stores such as Target have now begun to market lingerie sets of lacy bras and sexy panties to girls as young as six years old. Perhaps the greatest outrage is the shameless hawking of breast enhancing padded bras to girls who are barely old enough to go to elementary school.

Does a little girl really need to be flaunting her fake cleavage in elementary school? And are sexy panties supposed to give her confidence and self-esteem?

But the first question to ask is what are parents thinking of? Or are they even thinking at all?

And what are the manufacturers and the retailers thinking of? Are they too obsessed with making money that they have forgotten the need to responsible members of the community?

Below is the lame response from the Bratz distributor Funtastic:

Such convoluted logic is almost laughable. It is like the esoteric shops that sell crack pipes as a decoration instead of marketing it as drug paraphernalia. Like, what else is someone going to use a crack pipe for?

The same goes for these manufacturers. They know full well that breast enhancements like padded bras or augmentation surgery is intended for attracting attention which is why grown women buy them. And after all, an adult woman is capable of making her own decisions as well as with dealing with the attention the enhancements garner but the same cannot be said of six year olds, especially when it ends up attracting the wrong kind of attention.

To be fair, there are legitimate reasons for a young girl to use a padded bra especially during an awkward time of their physical development. Below is a comment from a parent about such a reason:

In such situations, it is perfectly understandable that there is a genuine need for a padded bra for a “budding” young woman but that is not the case for a six year old.

As for sexy underwear, below is a statement from Target about selling lingerie to little girls:

As for modesty, here is a keen observation I found about this subject:

It is obvious that the manufacturers and retailers are not interested in fashion and modesty regardless of how carefully they craft their statements. They are in it for the fast buck and they don’t care if they are setting the stage for creating a more dangerous environment for little girls.

And the reason it is dangerous is because when parents start dressing their young daughters like raunchy women, it will immediately draw the attention of pedophiles. And worse, more people will begin to view little girls as sex objects instead of as innocent children. Every state in the union has databases filled with sex offenders which ought to be reason enough to discourage sexualizing very young girls. But overall, parents simply should not be pandering to the desires of these perverts because we already have a big problem with child molesters.

However, is such clothing becoming pervasive?

I remember one time I was going to cast a ballot at a voting station located in an elementary school. I was surprised to see how many little girls running around dressed like JonBenet Ramsey. I had asked some elementary school teachers that I was acquainted with about it and many of them indicated that it had not yet reached critical mass but that a trend was definitely emerging in the kinds of clothes that parents are now buying for their children.

In the media sensation of the death of JonBenet Ramsey, much of the nation felt scandalized to see how affluent parents could dress up a pretty little girl to look like a Vegas showgirl as well as dance like one. People were uncomfortable at how this little kid could frolic around in a sexually provocative manner. As a result, the public did not sympathize with the Ramsey family in their tragedy.

Unfortunately, parents are now succumbing to marketing ploys and buying sexy little panties and bras for their very young daughters. And the truth of the matter is that these big corporations would not be selling these kinds of products if there were not people willing to buy them. After all, retailers want to make money and they won’t hesitate for one moment to drop a product line if there is no profit to make off of it.

Sadly, that is not the case because there is a growing demand for sexy lingerie for little girls.

The only other alternative is that people need to raise this issue with the media. A corporation doesn’t mind being irresponsible if there is money to be made but they also don’t want to risk tarnishing their image either.

For example, you don’t see Target selling crack pipes or bongs. Although they can craft carefully worded statements about how beautiful of an ornament a crack pipe would make or how eclectic they are sitting on your fireplace mantle, they won’t sell them even though they could make a fortune. The reason is because the public outcry would trash the goodwill that that department chain has spent years developing. As a result, it is not worth the negative publicity to sell such products even for a handsome profit.

The same could be done with the lingerie sets for little girls.

Right now the clothing manufacturers and retailers are selling these items because they can get away with it. If the press could raise public awareness about the dangers of sexualizing little children and how it can attract perverts, then it could influence these companies to reconsider their product lines. Just like selling crack pipes, many of these reputable corporations don’t want to be included with the wrong crowd.

But most importantly, it is time for parents to let their children be children instead of finding ways that they can be sensuously alluring.

Any opinions or views expressed herein belong solely to the author and does not represent any employer, organization, political party, governmental agency, or any other entity and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site owner or its participants.