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.

No, really. I'm taking you out, putting you on notice, slapping some sense into your sorry ass.

Just for old times' sake, I wandered through the 4-6X section. It was just an arm's length away, but it was the difference between a Happy Meal at the playground and bulimia at the bar. So far, these clothes had been left mercifully untouched by the wand of the skank fairy, whom I envision as looking a lot like Tara Reid.

Instead of being able to buy pretty things for my daughter, sweet somethings in ice cream colors, I must now shop at big, boxy unisex stores where you can still buy shorts that don't say DELICIOUS on the bottom or T-shirts that are plain instead of, swear to God, a size 7 belly shirt with MADE YA LOOK on the front. Look at what? There's not supposed to be anything to look at on a seven-year-old. Because they're children.

Sweet Jesus, what I'd do for a lousy ladybug collar on a smocked dress. Instead, this season's Easter look consisted of sequined and chiffon body-hugging sheaths.

I know that my daughter and I will fight about clothes in a few years, perhaps horribly, but, for now, there will be none of this Little Ladies of the Night look.

And while moms and daughters have always fought over clothes (let's face it, even Marcia Brady wore some shockingly short dresses, and those baby-doll pj's in front of stepbrother Greg were icky), the clothing wars were usually taking place between mom and teen, not mom and first-grader.

When you see a size 7 shirt that says SEXY! Or a mom and her little girl strolling through the mall in matching shorts with JUICY scrawled across the butt, you have to wonder what the hell is going on.