Why Do We Let Our Daughters Dress Like That?

In March 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an essay that set off one of the decade's most heated parenting debates. Author Jennifer Moses opened with a scene: a bat mitzvah party in an affluent East Coast suburb, where the 12- and 13-year-old girls gathered in the ladies' room in minidresses, perilously high heels, and heavy makeup -- "like a flock of tropical birds," as she put it -- before returning to the dance floor to, in her words, shake what they barely had.

Her question was aimed at parents, herself included: why do we permit this? Why do we buy the plunging prom dresses, the built-in push-up bras, the two-inch heels -- and then act surprised at the culture we've dressed our daughters for? Moses argued that parents had surrendered to the "dress like everyone else" pressure, outsourcing their judgment to peer norms and marketers, and that the surrender had consequences for how girls understood their own value.

The backlash was immediate and came from two directions. Feminist critics argued the essay policed girls' bodies while letting the real culprits -- the retailers and media companies marketing sexuality to children -- off the hook. Why, they asked, was the mother's complicity the scandal rather than the industry's design? Others heard something valuable in Moses's discomfort: that parents do face genuine pressure, that "everyone else is doing it" is a poor moral compass, and that naming the unease was better than performing indifference.

Both responses had a point, which is why the essay lasted beyond its news cycle. Moses was right that parental passivity is a choice with consequences. Her critics were right that individual mothers are the last link in a long commercial chain -- the sexualisation of preteen girls is a business model before it is a parenting failure, built by companies that profit from manufacturing the very insecurities the products then promise to fix.

The question in her headline -- why do we let them? -- turned out to have an uncomfortable answer: because saying no is socially expensive, because the market makes yes effortless, and because it's easier to buy the dress than to have the fight. Recognizing that is the first step. The second is deciding, parent by parent, that the fight is worth having.