Stuff!

What do you do with your wedding dress once you are married? I mean, really? Is it just supposed to take up space in the back of your closet for years and years (or in some cases, months, or year?). What are we keeping it for? I do not plan on wearing it ever again, nor do I feel the need to pull it out and see if I can still fit into it (which is something I know quite a few people do in order to give themselves that pat on the back. So there, have a pat on the back, but is it really worth keeping some massive dress potentially until you die?). Or is it simply that we spend so much money on the dress and make it more important often than the groom himself, that it seems ridiculous to part with it?

My dress did not cost me thousands. Actually, I think it was less than my grad dress at a whopping two hundred and seventy-five dollars. And yet, I still have it hanging in my closet. It had been tied up in that dry cleaning bag for the past eleven years (yes, thank you, pat-pat on the back for me!) and moved twice and potentially, thrice. But for what purpose? I never, ever intend on ever wearing it again, so why the hell am I keeping it? For that matter, why do we keep anything?

It's like we have this need to hold onto things that are supposed to matter to us, and if it, one, does not matter, or two, we do not hold onto it, that somehow we are a bad person. Devoted and dedicated people hold onto the important stuff, that is how they show the level of their devotion. So if I throw away my wedding dress (I cannot pass it on now, it's far too outdated) or say, my daughter's first lock of hair or my son's first tooth, or various other mementos, then I am somehow less dedicated to my husband or my kids than that person who is now renting out a storage space in which to house all aforementioned objects and more. And why? So I can go back when I am ninety and my kids have moved on and my husband has died to touch them once again? Isn't that why pictures were taken? And even those take up so much space that they need shelves and shelves of their own to hold their reminders.

Memories are good and yes, our memories do falter as time goes on, but does not stress also destroy the very mind itself that houses these memories? We are holding onto things because we feel we should hold onto them and their mere presence, while invoking reminders of the cherished event, also cause us to lose our minds! Who has the room for boxes and boxes of stuff that will never really find any use again? I personally don't, and yet, that wedding dress sits on my bed amongst the piles of stuff I need to pack and will eventually move its way back to the closet and then into the moving box to find it's new home in my new closet at the next house because I could not bring myself to throw it away. And yet, it probably won't be exposed to light again until I either move or someone is going through my effects after I've died. And in that case, they'd probably sit there wondering what to do with this dress that they feel too bad to get rid of but have no use for so then it will just be moved to another closet or storage box or attic.

Why? I don't even know. Because there is an incredible amount of guilt in getting rid of an object with such sentimental value? But not only that, but with any form of monetary value. Not to mention we do not want to simply waste something with so much material. Someone might have use for it if we do not, even though the style is completely gone now and may or may not come back in another 11 years but then will be vintage and could probably be sold but not for the price of keeping it for 22 years. Not only that but our children could maybe use it, but then we are forcing them to wear the old object we had once worn despite the fact that they are so much cooler than we ever were and would really rather wear something of their own choosing but now feel obligated and will either wear the aforementioned dress out of guilt or hurt our feelings by rejecting it in which we will feel slighted and guilty for putting them through that in the first place.

So what do we do with it? I don't know. We have all, as a society, accumulated so much that everything must be reused or recycled in a desperate effort to sustain our habits. But if that cannot be so, or if we are not so creatively gifted to reuse it in a way that is remotely stylish or appealing, then there is nothing left for our stuff but to sit there, collecting dust and getting older and older by the day. So that we can pull it out once every decade or so and remember it, then put it back into the recesses of our closets to forget until we are forced to deal with it? It's ridiculous!

I wish I could just wear the damn dress. I wish I had enough style that it was remotely cool enough to make into something else, or, so it could sell on one of the trading sites as a prized vintage object. But it is not and so I will hold it in my hands a little while before packing it back into a box to pull out again and place it in its rightful place at the back of the closet, where lives everything else I cannot figure out what the hell to do with.

It's Scary Raising a Girl....

What the hell was I thinking? My daughter went to school today wearing a bra. A dance/sports bra, but a bra nonetheless. Why is this a big deal you ask? Because she is 9-years-old. And not one of those early developing 9-year-olds; she is as flat-chested as a popsicle stick, still sporting the same childish body she's had since losing her toddler fat at age three.

So, why the bra then? She obviously has no need of it. And here lies the grey area of parenting a girl. A girl that will potentially hate her body, wrestle with her self image, and deal with all the issues that arise with boys, puberty, and not having a clue what to do about any of it. As far as I was concerned, I had two options. Point out the obvious (that she in no way needs a bra) and tell her to come back when she's sprouted, or, act like it's no big deal and respect her feelings so that when it does happen she will also think little of it and come to me again when she needs the next size up. I went with the latter.

Now, I do run the chance of her coming home from school today crying that people were making fun of her for wearing a bra when there was no need for it. There is also a risk that her fellow classmates will go home asking for one (because if one girl is ready for it when she still has the generic body of a unisex child then the rest of them must as well) and the wrath of those parents who think it's crazy for a kid in grade 3 to wear a bra without needing it will come down upon my head and strike me a terrible mother.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think she needs it and the thought of telling her no has come across my mind multiple times, but it's impossible to know what to do in this situation. I'm hoping she'll wear it a few times and just let it go. And if not, well, it's not really hurting anybody, is it?

But here is a much deeper issue. The fact that I could even find her a bra is rather unsettling for me. Why? Because my daughter is tiny. Tiny in that she can still wear clothes that are made for those in kindergarten (okay, okay, there may be a little bit of exaggeration here, but not much). Her bra, bought from a brand name dance store (on sale at the outlet, don't start judging my purchases for her either) was a size 6. A size 6 when sizes are still made in relation to ages of the children. Which means, that the bra was made for a 6-year-old. And not only that, but there was also sizes 2, 4 and then the larger sizes at 8, 10, and 12. Who is making bras for 2 and 4 and 6 and 8 year-olds? Actually, they're probably sweat shop workers in third world countries that are just doing as their told. My question should actually be, who in their right mind thinks it's okay to design and produce sports/dance bras for two-year-olds? And what teeny, weeny little girls are wearing them in dance class?

This probably makes me a hypocrite. I bought one of these aforementioned bras for my kid who does not need it. But she will never, ever be wearing it in dance class. Not by itself, that's for sure. But the fact is still there that some kids do. That they could if they wanted. If I watched Pageant Moms I'm sure I'd see many cases of this and it makes me so sad. Buying a bra for a 9-year-old makes me sad because I want her to stay a little girl as long as possible. Why can't they stay little girls ? Why must they be wearing, and encouraged to wear from girls magazines and so forth, lingerie? Lingerie made for adults.

Now, I digress here. I was talking about dance bras and now it's lingerie. But that's because it is out there and once you start with the sports bras the logical next step is the traditional form of them.  See how simple it is to go from dancewear to lingerie? And obviously someone has and is making a line for 4 to 12-year-olds (in France, however, that does not mean it won't get here. And I doubt French Girls are any more advanced than their North American cohorts). No wonder girls are having sex way before they're ready when they're wearing lingerie before they even understand the point of them. What ever happened to girls being girls? And is it parents like me who try to be understanding by buying them such things a part of the problem?

I don't know if I made the right decision or not. All I know is that dealing with girls and growing up is hard and getting scarier and scarier by the minute. There is no longer room for black and white, everything is grey because we need to keep them girls as long as possible but also help them grow into confident young women, and the first step of that I believe is supporting them. Isn't it? However, it's easy to support them when it's is a simple piece of fabric, but when she's asking for more serious things like birth control and condoms, well, I don't know what I'll do. I just hope that will not happen until she truly is ready, but in this era of sexting and role models desperate to make the covers of Maxim magazine, I'm terrified it won't be.