As we raise our girls we have a strong focus on keeping our appearances very modest. I’ve heard everything from little girls as young as six years old saying they want to wear daisy dukes and crop tops to one eight year old girl telling us that a grown man had called her “sexy” to teenage girls proclaiming to be Christ followers and wearing clothes that are easily causing their brothers in Christ to fall.
Now don’t think we’re all wearing handmade long dresses from the 1980’s. We call our style ‘modern modest’. We do wear pants but definitely enjoy long skirts. And with them being in style now, believe me, we’re stocking up! I had tried for years to find long skirts because I loved wearing them when I was a teenager but they went out of style. Even when looking for maternity clothes I could only find short skirts. And besides not liking the length in a modesty context it just doesn’t work when picking up toddlers.
I have one daughter who loves to do gymnastics. She’s never been taught it’s just that she loves to flip around the house – somersaults, cartwheels, round offs, etc. So she wears bicycle shorts under her skirts or she wears pants.
When it comes to dresses we do not approve of the backs being open or, obviously, short lengths. And it’s difficult to find dresses or shirts without lots of graphics on them. We prefer clothing that isn’t making the children be used as a sandwich board. And on that note, we have the biggest problem in that aspect with boys clothes! To find simple boy shirts without writing is near impossible. So when we do find them we buy what we can in the sizes we can.
When it comes to shirts for girls they cannot, absolutely cannot, be low cut. They are more than welcome to wear tank tops as long as they’re not too open. We have to correct our girls when they try to wear their older sisters clothes because that will obviously cause their shirts to be low cut. And they will try to wear their sisters skirts. As you can imagine, that is quickly remedied.
Our focus is to not draw attention to our bodies but to be comfortable in what we are wearing. We don’t have to focus on tugging at shorts to pull them down or shirts to pull them up. Women should lean over to see if anything will be showing when they go to pick something up off the floor. I had a very embarrassing moment that convicted me of that. My mother in law had taken a photo of me dancing at a wedding reception and, though I have never seen the photo, she told me that things were showing that should have been covered up better.
So ladies, consider how much you are showing to the world when you dress. You are not only teaching your daughters but also young girls around you {in your neighborhood, in your family, your friends children, at church, etc}. You never know who your appearance or words are influencing. We need to teach, but also learn ourselves, that there is far more importance in who we are and not in what we look like. Focus more on your beauty within.
Blessings!
