Wa-wa-what Wardrobe? Draft 1.0

INTRODUCTION

Clothes are worn for several important functions. Everyone wears clothes to

1. Keep warm and stay protected

2. To avoid nudity in public

And for some, clothes are worn to make statements about themselves. Many people have realized that clothes serve us more than to cover us and keep us warm. Fashion houses Prada and Chanel have been making big bucks on this realization- clothes carve out identities. They make statements, they differentiate us.

As young girls, we put on whatever our mom’s buy for us. Whether it be from Osh Kosh, or… Giant Supermart? Everything goes, as long as there’s a little pink flower somewhere in the front or a bow on the collar. But as we grow older, we start making choices for ourselves. Out with those kiddy pink frocks and in with the mini skirts, torn jeans, or mid rift tops!

No longer do we need our mom’s to buy us cute clothes, hey, we go shopping!

In my wardrobe analogy, shopping represents the daughters attempt to fill an emotional want or need, choosing a certain value and moral over another in the effort to carve out an identity for themselves. Daughters will make shopping choices with their music, their friends, their hobbies and their values. Every moment presents them with the shopping decision: to buy or not to buy? And it’s their choices that differentiate them from others.

When our kids start to go “shopping”, it’s the time that they need your guidance the most. Unlike you, the parent with more resources, experiences and exposure, your daughter doesn’t have such a high ability to discern what’s right for them. Without the right guidance, they might end up making the wrong emotional purchases, and look in the wrong places for love and care.

This book is about helping parents understand their daughters a little better when that time of shopping on their own comes, and be able to be there for them to help them make the right choices. In the following chapters, I will talk about how certain clothing pieces speak of certain character traits and hopefully give insight into how to address your child’s needs.