Between Booty and Bermuda

When you live in the South, you start pulling shorts and tank tops out in mid-February. It’s one of the joys of living here. I always relish the day when I can wear my sandals to school for the first time, even if I’m wearing them with jeans and a sweater. The South has the lovely kind of weather that makes sundresses in March a real possibility. It also means that “Spring Cleaning” starts well before Spring actually arrives. When the ratio of girls to boys in your home is 3:1, cleaning out closets and drawers is no easy task. It usually takes multiple weekends dedicated to pulling out every outfit from last Spring, trying it on, discussing (read: arguing) with your children about whether it still fits and then making multiple trips to the local charity and to friends’ houses with bags of hand me downs. Occasionally an outfit has to make its way to the dress up closet for a time before it can be given away because a certain 5 year old just can’t bear to part with it even though it’s clearly two sizes too small. I actually enjoy this process. I get satisfaction from having neat and organized closets and drawers and knowing that everything in those closets and drawers fits the wearer, at least for now. My 10 year old does not love this process as much, and I can’t say I blame her.

For her, cleaning out closets means that a shopping trip for a new Summer wardrobe is imminently close. She enjoys having new clothes, and as the oldest, it is a privilege that she gets more often than her little sister. She does not, however, enjoy the process of getting new clothes. As a 10 year old, she is 5 feet tall and weighs just over 100 pounds. She is built just like her Daddy – long and lean. She is gorgeous! She has long legs that my 5’2″ frame could never dream of having. I put my pants in the dryer just hoping they will shrink a little, yet I have to line dry all of her blue jeans or they won’t fit past the first wear. Even when she was younger, I would have to buy pants that were two sizes too big just so they would be long enough. We would just cinch in the waist. Shopping for clothing that is both age appropriate and that fits her is a near impossible task. And warm weather clothing is more difficult than most. Everything that is in style for 10 year olds is too short for her. Those cute track shorts that all her friends wear? They show her butt cheeks. The tunic shirts that go over leggings? They are just t-shirts for her. The blue jean skirts with kitten heels? No, just no. All of the clothes that fit her size are way too old for her. She doesn’t have the curves of a 16 year old and doesn’t want to wear culottes like a 50 year old. Junior sections in stores are usually not helpful as almost all of the clothes have writing on them that I just won’t let her wear. (By the way, no girl really needs things written across her chest or bottom at any age.) Add to this that most clothing designed for teenagers and that might fit her shows more skin than is appropriate – on top and bottom. When we shop in the Women’s sections of stores, all the shorts are mom length and all of the shirts are designed to cover mom arms. Not bad for me, but not what a 10 year old wants to wear. When it comes to shorts, there has got to be something between booty and bermuda. When it comes to shirts, there has got to be something between hoochie and hiding something.

We usually just go for the basics. We buy several pairs of blue jeans, order her some shorts online from Lands End or Gap (you can choose the inseam lengths online), load up on solid colored t-shirts and buy as many tank tops and leggings in solid colors as we can to go under the too short track shorts or too skimpy tops. Don’t get me wrong, I love that she embraces her body type. She is proud to be in the back row center of every school picture. (She always reminds me that she is the easiest to spot.) I want her to be proud of how God made her. I want her to appreciate all the benefits that come with being tall. She loves that she is outgrowing me by the day. Most times, she is proud of how long legged she is. In her ballet classes, that’s an asset. But when we go shopping together, I see the little hits to her self-esteem that are taken every time she tries something on that looked great on the mannequin but is way too short on her. And I see her self confidence ebb away ever so slightly every time we have to bypass the cutesy, trendy teeny-bopper stores on our way to find some more basic pieces that will fit her better. It breaks my heart. Sometimes I think I will start a clothing line designed for vertically gifted young girls. It would have shirts that are about three inches longer than the norm. It would have shorts with a skinny waist but a long inseam. It would have things that still have sparkles and unicorns and mermaids on them, but would fit my daughter. But then I remember that hemming pants and sewing on buttons is about the extent of my sewing skills. So,what to do?

For now, we just take it season by season, year by year. We buy t-shirts from every school event and camp that we can because they become wardrobe staples. We welcome hand me downs from older friends so that we can do our “shopping” at home. Her dad and I try to build her self esteem and body confidence up every chance we get, because we know we can’t keep it from getting torn down by magazines and TV commercials. Her dad tells her stories of the time he grew ten inches in one year and couldn’t keep pants in the right size. I let her go through my closet and borrow anything she wants to wear. We try to shop local and at little boutique-type stores because they are more likely to have items that are both trendy and the right size. We are trying to teach her that dressing her body appropriately is important, albeit more time consuming than most, and that modesty is not a lost virtue. Hopefully she is learning that how she looks is not nearly as important as how she feels about herself. Hopefully. She loves to sew and draw and design. Maybe by the time she has her own long legged beauties, she will have become the fashion designer that they need. If you have a child that falls outside the average range of height and/or weight, I’d love to know your tricks and tools both for shopping and for building body confidence. It’s not an easy task and we can all benefit from raising confident young women. Until then, we will continue to search every Spring to find something for her to wear that falls somewhere between booty and bermuda.