Don’t Let Your Daughters Grow Up To Be Hoochie Mamas

A few weeks back, my daughter and I went to her high school’s spring sports banquet.

As we walked in, we bumped into one of her teammates, who was wearing a tight skirt that barely covered her butt cheeks and ridiculously high heels that she struggled to walk in. She came alone and I figured she had made an immature and unsupervised decision on what to wear. But then, when we got to the table and saw the rest of the team, three of the other girls, out of about a dozen, were also wearing the shortest skirts you could possibly wear and still try to argue that your ass was covered, with sky-high stilettos. And sitting next to them, beaming, were their mothers.

Not only did these girls have a hard time walking in their shoes, they struggled to not flash the rest of us.

Here we were, at an event meant to celebrate these girls’ athletic endeavors and they were wearing, with their mothers’ happy approval, clothes that hobbled them and put them on display as sex objects.

The rugby coach stood to give out awards. She beamed at the assembled team and parents, but then her smile faded.

“Why all you all dressed like hoochie mamas?!” she barked. “If you were my daughters, I’d never allow it!”

Girls are constantly bombarded with the message, from peers, most often other girls, and from the media, that their value is in being a set of tits and ass. Some parents say nothing because they don’t want to be politically incorrect or uncool; others, depressingly, believe the message themselves.

But what we should be doing, as the adults, is calling bullshit.

So, thank you, Coach.