EXCERPT: Scandalous Dressers Begone!

Oct. 27, 2007 — -- Are young girls today dressing too sexy?

Author Celia Rivenbark's new book, "Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank," gives advice on how to help your daughter express creativity while also teaching her what is appropriate.

Read an excerpt below. Readers beware: The excerpt includes profanity.

The princess had just graduated to a size 7 when everything went to shit. We headed for our favorite department store, ready to take that leap into the new world of 7-16. By-bye, 4-6x, I thought to myself with a tug of sadness. My baby was growing up.

And apparently into a prostitute.

"Where are the sevens?" I asked the sixty-something clerk who wore her glasses on a chain just like me.

"You're standing in'em," she said.

Oh no, I thought, looking around. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

"There must be some mistake," I said. "Theses are, well, slutty-looking. I'm talking about clothes for a little girl in first grade."

"That's all we got."

"But these look like things a hooker would wear!"

She smiled sadly. "You have no idea how many times I hear that every day."

Okay, breathe. This is just some weird marketing experiment. Right?

I went to my second-favorite department store and was invited to peruse the awfulness that is Tweenland! A better name would be Lil Skanks!

Sequins, fringe, neon glitter tank tops with big red lips on them, fishnet sleeves, scary dragon faces lunging from off-the-shoulder T-shirts. Whither the adorable seersucker? The pastel floral short sets? The soft cotton dresses in little-girl colors like lavender, pale pink, periwinkle blue? This stuff practically screamed SYRINGE SOLD SEPARATELY.

I get it. Now that my kid is practically of childbearing age (is six the new seventeen?) I must choose from ripped-on-purpose jeans and T-shirts that scream things like BABY DOLL and JAIL BAIT, not to mention a rather angry GIRLS RULE AND BOYS DROOL! where an embroidered flower with buzzing bee should be.

When did this happen? Who decided that my six-year-old should dress like a Vegas showgirl? Ando one with an abundance of anger issues at that?

And why are parents buying this junk fashioned from cheesy fabrics that surely leave your dryer's lint filter full of glitter and fuzzy sequined balls?

I hope you won't take this the wrong way—you, the mom on the cell phone flipping your check card to your kid so she can buy the jeans that say SPANK ME on them—but you're going down, bitch.