The Bikini Lesson

                  

I was recently passed along a link to this interesting video on the subject of bikinis, modesty and body respect. If you have a few minutes to spare, I recommend checking it out. And this too. Jessica Rey’s speech is thoughtful, clever and completely on-point. Although be warned that yes she is a swimsuit designer so her opinion may be slightly biased. However overall the speech gets to the heart of why I feel weird about bikinis on little girls. I asked a few others what they thought about bikinis on children and the conversation quickly turned heated. Some thought it was adorable, while others didn’t think it was appropriate because of it's sexualized nature. The underlying question of this conversation was whether modesty is just a mask for the cultural tendency to tell women how to dress in order to be taken serious by the sex-crazed male population. It’s a pretty loaded question and one I feel an obligation as a mother to attempt to address.

Modesty has gotten a bad rep in recent years, becoming practically tantamount to frumpy or prudish. Even if I want to just write it off as a non-issue for myself, I can’t because I have a daughter to raise. At 24-years-old I can say I am comfortable with how I dress and how I present myself to the world. However, I do not feel compelled to prove that I am comfortable with my body by exposing it all. But as a mother of a little girl I understand that this isn’t something I can necessarily sweep under the rug. After all, she won’t be a toddler forever and even with our careful guidance as parents, there is going to be outside influences beyond our control.

So when it comes to teaching children about modesty I think of it as a bit of balancing act. It is important that girls are taught from an early age that there is nothing shameful about their bodies but that modesty is a measure of personal respect. Personal respect. She respects herself and knows she can command a room’s attention by her words, her confident posture and not because she is wearing a mini skirt.