In the 1800s, Godey's Ladies Book, THE fashion book of the day, was marketed to women in their 30s, because they were old enough to have taste.

Ok, first of all that mother is delusional if she thinks the VS PINK line is for 12 year old girls - it's original target was college-aged girls 18+ not 12 year olds. So why the hell is she buying her 12 year old daughter a VS gift card? My guess is she's afraid of the word "NO" because she doesn't want to be the bad guy and have a sulking 12 year old ruining her day. But to go out and buy the damn card and then bitch about the pictures in the store and how the big bad companies' marketing practices are unfair...gimme a break.

Besides, there's no way I would have paid those prices for bras and panties for my girls at that age!

The question shouldn't be "Why Do Teen Girls Dress Like Sluts?"

It should be "Why Do Parents Wring Their Hands Over the Availability of Slutty Clothing For Their Teen Girls and Then Go Ahead and Buy the Victoria's Secret Gift Card Anyway?"

How to refrain from weeping at my inability to win this war for my girl, to be her David to Victoria's Secret's Goliath? It's hard enough just to get them to school on time.

A burden unlike any before in human history. What do you want, a medal? A cookie?

> Hated her then; thank her now.

OK, see, that right there. (I got two sentences into a comment on this last night before realizing that as blessedly childless middle-aged man, I was never going to have the energy to finish it.)

We can be sure that childhood individuation and separation from parents has at no time / in no culture ever been fun. When things go perfectly, it might still be fraught and bruising.

But I think at lot of Teen Angst is a self-fulfilling prophesy... From postwar America. We convinced each other that being a teenager was special and mysterious time of life, and then everyone started behaving that way. We isolated those years of life, and those members of the family, from all the others in some preposterous ways.

It was very helpful to Hollywood, which needed niche markets to goose profits. And divorced parents loved it, because they could pretend their kids were going to be all fucked up anyway.

When I see a teen girl whose clothes are aggressively inappropriate, I know there was no loving father in the home... No guy who could pull her aside and say "Honey, I love you, and this is not how it works...."

> A burden unlike any before in human history.
> What do you want, a medal? A cookie?

Kevin understands.

The words "husband" and "father" do not appear in the piece.

I dressed in very short skirts for all of high school--ironically, they all passed the dress code, when jeans weren't allowed. But, fashions change and I spent my early 20s looking like Annie Hall (ie, an Orthodox Jew in many long layers) or else a disco queen in Candies and Danskin halter tops. Hardly a worry in my life then or now.

I'm with Kevin and Crid on this. My dd is 13 and we have rules. It's called parenting, this lady might like to try it sometime. I don't allow too much exposed flesh and I don't tolerate smart mouth either. Like Crid said, some people take it as a given that the moodiness is part of the teen deal. Umm, no. My dd is self aware enough to realize that her hormones are making her moody and she will tell me, "Mom. I feel bad right now. I think my hormones are acting up again." I tell her that, that is not an excuse for being rude or sullen. For women, hormone fluctuations are sad fact of life. She needs to learn to deal with them. This is the stuff we are supposed to be teaching them as parents.

If you really want to annoy yourself about how parents abdicate all their responsibilities read this from the NYT :

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/fashion/tutors-take-on-duties-of-therapists-and-personal-assistants.html?ref=fashion&_r=0

I believe these people are actually called governesses!

It's called parenting, this lady might like to try it sometime.

This. This woman doesn't have to battle Victoria's Secret at all. All she has to do is say "no".

some people take it as a given that the moodiness is part of the teen deal

Well, it is, but... I remember the emotional roller coaster rides caused by hormones, and wish my parents had explained what the hell was going on. We made a point of explaining this to our kids,, and the result is that they aren't caught by surprise. They have "moods", but they know what is going on, and they deal with it.

AS usual you are right on the money and so funny too!

Commenters may be missing deeper issue.

The young girls are generally not marriage minded in their late teens to late twenties like previous generations. So, there is a competition to have fun with the most desireable looking guys before they have to bite the bullet and settle for a sucker to marry or cohabit with them later on.

The cometition can be intense if 80% of the girls are trying to attract 20% of the available "hot" guys. This means putting out a lot of coochie and looking provocative to gain some advantage in a very nasty catfight.

It is more likely that the less attractive girls may have to really up the aggression level to get some of the dreamy guys, even if for only a few hours.

We can be sure that childhood individuation and separation from parents has at no time / in no culture ever been fun. When things go perfectly, it might still be fraught and bruising.

But I think at lot of Teen Angst is a self-fulfilling prophesy... From postwar America. We convinced each other that being a teenager was special and mysterious time of life, and then everyone started behaving that way. We isolated those years of life, and those members of the family, from all the others in some preposterous ways.

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 16, 2012 8:55 AM
_________________________________

Many people - including Miss Manners and John Rosemond - have said that the whole idea of adolescence was a mistake, since it tends to be about teens feeling entitled to quite a few rights long before they get certain responsibilities.

And, as Rosemond said in 2005:

http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0202tantrums02.html

....Until recently, in nearly every culture the 13-year-old was no longer regarded as a child. Nor was he/she an "adolescent," as we today refer to the teenager. There was childhood, which effectively ended at 13, and there was adulthood. Granted, the teen years were a period of apprenticeship, but teens were expected to behave responsibly, and did. What we call adolescence is actually the product of child labor and compulsory education laws.

These laws - unarguably good, but every "good" thing has a down side - extended the dependency of children by a good six years. In days not so long ago, the teenager may have still been living at home, but in many, if not most cases, he/she was no longer a dependent. For example, as teenagers during the Great Depression, both my father and father-in-law were helping support their families, as were many of their friends. Their sisters were accepting equivalent at-home responsibilities. There was no place for petulance and wallowing in narcissistic soap operas in that context.

Prolonging childhood is equivalent to prolonging immaturity, and indeed, much of the behavior today regarded as "typical" of teens is looked upon by people my parents' age and older as more than simply immature. It's bizarre. I'm referring here to the tantrums, unpredictable mood swings, exaggerated emotional reactions to disappointment or frustration, and the generally dramatic "take" teens have concerning their own lives. In days not so long ago, only pampered children of the rich acted in such self-centered ways.

And there we have yet another clue. Whereas once only children of the upper classes were pampered (and not all of them, mind you), even today's lower middle-class child is pampered, at least by the standards that governed my father's young life. Extend a child's dependency indefinitely and pamper, indulge, and otherwise "spoil" the child throughout his/her extended dependency, and you're likely to wind up with a toddler in a teenager's body......

I ditto Hamsta-- Teenage girls (and young women as well) are natural-born Attention Whores.
IMO, cell phones are the very symbol of AW-ness... and there are plenty of young males ready and willing to feed the girls' cravings for attention.
Hootchy wear and cell phones sort of go together.

> Teenage girls (and young women as well)
> are natural-born Attention Whores.

See? This stereotype is deeply entrenched... As if all were "natural-born" for something only in this one little stretch of life.

Way back in the early 80's some girls used to wear mid-thigh flared skirts, nylons, and ballet flats. It was pretty hot.

Those girls are the names I still remember instantly today. Almost every single one of them are on their second or third marriages. But If I grab the yearbook and google the girls that just wore regular jeans and shirts -- as a random sample, totally non-scientific -- they all seem to have had the stable marriages and long-term success.

I think it's a side effect of America's puritanical culture. Humans are naturally sexual beings. But we pretend that teenage girls are supposed to be completely and utterly desexualized, i.e. it's considered unnatural and unhealthy to express feminine sexuality in any healthy, positive way. So instead of a young woman integrating this aspect of her personality in a healthy way, it must be mentally compartmentalized and detached from her view of self. So you end up with the dichotomy (yes, big generalization) of successfully desexualized girls (dressing plain and boring, baggy clothes etc. - wouldn't want to be called a slut etc.), and those who go overboard in the opposite direction. You don't see this so much in places like Brazil or Western Europe where it's regarded as more healthy and natural for woman to be able to accentuate their feminine beauty without it being stigmatized or attacked as slutty, or even regarded as such. Of course, this is a huge generalization.

"But If I grab the yearbook and google the girls that just wore regular jeans and shirts -- as a random sample, totally non-scientific -- they all seem to have had the stable marriages and long-term success"

Anecdotally, I don't see the same trend at all amongst people I know. One of the most happily married now is a friend of mine who used to dress very slutty as a teenager and party a lot. Many of those with unsuccessful marriages are those 'desexualized' ones who dress plain. It's not scientific though. But I don't think it's healthy for any marriage if a woman is afraid of her sensual side and perpetually shy and anxious and uncomfortable in the bedroom. And men don't want "Mrs Plain" on their arms, they want someone they feel they can show off a little, let's face it.

Kids haven't changed and kids rebelling hasn't changed.
What's changed is parenting, or the lack of it.