Tiger Dads vs. Sexualized Daughters

Why one of our parental duties is to protect our children physically and spirituality by teaching them to be modest.

Should you get Botox for your ten-year-old daughter? What would you think of breast augmentation for your eleven-year-old girl? These and similarly startling issues cropped up in a recent CNN column by LZ Granderson. Writing in an outraged style, Granderson tackled how parents allow the culture to sexualize their daughters. The piece, entitled rather prosaically "Parents, don't dress your daughters like tramps," began with a word of personal experience:

I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.

Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie "10" (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her "Xtina" phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.

Granderson went on to note that the girl was eight years old and to denounce the corporate executives who planned such a product: "[H]ow do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they're pedophiles?" he wondered. The concerned writer and parent reserved his sharpest words for parents, however. "It's easy to blast companies for introducing the sexy wear, but our ire really should be directed at the parents who think low rise jeans for a second grader is cute." Parents, after all, "are the ones who are suppose to decide what's appropriate for their young children to wear, not executives looking to brew up controversy or turn a profit." In the most memorable line of the article, Granderson concluded his denunciation by referencing Amy Chua's recent book: "Maybe I'm a Tiger Dad," he said.

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