Saturday, June 27, 2009

Is This What You Want To Teach Your Daughter?

When Caitlin started Operation Beautiful I thought it was a great idea - I even blogged about it. Having dealt with body image issues during my life I really think that this is an incredible idea and I love that it has taken off so much. And I think that this could be a really great teaching item for young girls. Now, I don't have any kids yet but I do watch tv with my bff's daughter and buy her gifts, so I've seen the items that are marketed to kids (Bratz doll anyone - side note for future reference: these will NEVER be allowed in my child's toy box, just fyi). But today I saw something that totally drove home the point that Operation Beautiful is a very needed project.

I was in the infant section at Wal-Mart looking to finish off a gift for Doug's cousin's baby shower. She's having a girl so I was looking around with girls in mind when I spotted two purple onesies stuck at the back of a rack of bright pink ones. So I went over and grabbed one off the rack and saw this:

In case you can't read that it say "Does this diaper make my butt look big?"

Really? REALLY?? This is the question someone thinks should be worn by a small child? I'm sure that the person who came up with this shirt thinks it is funny and, yes, I realize babies can't read, but do we really want to put this image on our daughters? Aren't we supposed to raise our children to know that they are worth more than the size of their butt, or any body part for that matter? Don't we want to raise strong, self-confident children, so that one day maybe there will be no need for Operation Beautiful because everyone will know that they are perfect just the way they are?

Now, maybe I'm overreacting, but there is no way I would buy this for my child, or anyone else's (after I snapped the picture I stuffed this back to the end of the rack in disgust). And this is the first time that I really wished I had some paper with me to write an Operation Beautiful note to stick next to this stupid shirt. You can be sure I'm adding some post-it notes to my purse today.

So, what do you all think of this shirt? Is it horrible? Funny? Am I overreacting? Would you buy it for your child?

5 comments:

  1. A lot of moms who use cloth diapers put their babies in onesies with this saying...but it is to celebrate how much they love their babies' fluffy butts, not as a commentary on their babies' weights.

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  2. I personally would not put my little girl in it. I don't like a lot of the "attitude type shirts" I see at school. I think raising a child will be so hard. There are so many different things that can influence them.

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  3. I saw this a while back too, and thought it was wrong, oh so wrong.

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  4. I don't think I would buy it - but to be honest I just thought of it as a joke because of how big and bulky diapers are. I totally see your point though.

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  5. Wow...crazy message. I know it is meant to be harmless, but I don't see it as that. You can never be too careful with the messages we send to our young girls!

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