Every mother to a young teenage girl these days, finds herself less and less able to control how her daughter wants to dress herself and it’s a constant struggle till the daughter is physically too far away for her mother to interfere. My mother is extremely conservative in her views when it comes to dressing, although surprisingly progressive otherwise!
Growing up, during my teenage years the rules to dress by were never to wear a spaghetti or halter strap anything, skirts could only be of knee length or longer but never less than an inch above my knees, no makeup other than an eye pencil and nail varnish till the age of 16 and all of my jackets and outer wear were never properly fitted on me. They were of the snug and structured style that I always preferred, but always a half size larger than what was perfect on me because my mom didn’t appreciate the curves it created! So I had 4 or 5 pricey jackets in denim, tweed, fleece and wool all in the wrong size! What injustice to the clothing it was! My jeans and pants too were straight leg or ‘closely’ fitted not skinny, my tops always reached my hips atleast and cleavage wasn’t a word in our dictionary! Although my mom could appreciate form fitted clothing on other people, it was never acceptable that I be dressed like them! Initially a lot of this didn’t really matter to me because I didn’t know any better and just wanted to be neatly turned out but there were many small arguments we had over practically every piece of clothing by the time I was 18! I was dressed like someone in their 30’s!
When I was wearing clothes that I had bought for myself, I realized where her conservative attitude came from. She thought that dressing in a manner that didn’t call for attention would help me develop other aspects of my intellectual personality and would keep me protected from the glare of boys my age! I’m not sure if that worked out perfectly as I did have boyfriends, and though they were very decent, my mother never knew of them! Ever since I began supporting myself I also dressed my age and in the right sizes, but I was never drawn to overtly revealing or attention grabbing clothes. I wasn’t the rebel my mother was so afraid of!
When visiting her these days, I don’t necessarily fall back on those rules but make sure there’s no cleavage or short skirt in sight because she is uncomfortable with me in them.
I don’t yet have any kids, but am curious to know how all of you impeccably styled mothers-to-teenage-daughter’s here interact and deal with dressing situations. Do you have ground rules like I had, do you have a say in her clothing items and makeup or do you expect them to be mature enough to present themselves to their own discretion? Do you fear you might turn into your mother in time (if she was or is as conservative in dressing as mine)? Or did you grow up with similar rules?
