My 14-Year-Old Daughter’s “Fashion” Choices Are Seriously Putting Me on Edge

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Our 14-year-old daughter is in 8th grade and has recently changed the way she dresses. In 7th grade, there were some short shorts, but they were mostly paired with t-shirts. This year, she’s grown a few inches (and pounds) but still squeezes into the same shorts despite us trying to buy her bigger ones. She’s also obsessed with very low-cut Lululemon tanks. It’s too much too fast for us. She secretly bought one of those tank tops with her own money because we wouldn’t buy her one, but we don’t want her wearing it. I’m a 42-year-old woman who teaches middle school myself and sees a lot of questionable outfits, but seeing this sort of thing on my daughter puts me on edge. My husband remembers being a middle school boy and doesn’t want our daughter being looked at like an object. We want to give her freedom to explore her sexuality and express herself, but we also want her to value herself enough not to use her body to get attention. We want her to protect her heart. Please help!

—Middle School Mama Bear

Dear Mama,

I know this is hard—I truly do. We all want to protect our children. But if this is the way she wants to dress, I implore you to back off. (I particularly implore you not to point out that she’s “grown” a few pounds. I assure you that she knows that. I think it’s awesome that she doesn’t care.)

The fact that your husband looked at girls his age, when he was in middle school, as “objects,” is neither here nor there. The way to prevent boys from seeing girls as things rather than as human beings is not to change girls’ behavior. This is a them-problem (if it is indeed the case for the boys your daughter encounters; the boys I know who are that age are nothing like the boys of yesteryear, thank goodness, since there are lots of parents raising their children way better than that).

While you may find the way she’s dressing distasteful, insisting that she dress otherwise will do nothing to “protect her heart.” And it will do nothing to protect her in any other way, either. It is likely to have the opposite effect of what you intend: It will make her dig her heels in, perhaps leading to her lying to you—changing her clothes once out of sight—and it will drive a wedge between you. If you want to protect her heart, do what you can to keep her feeling safe and loved by you, so that when something troubles or worries her, she’ll come to you for help and support.

I don’t know why she’s dressing the way she is, and neither do you. Maybe she feels cute. Maybe she is “exploring her sexuality.” Certainly she is expressing herself (she’s just not expressing herself the way you want her to—but you don’t get to decide that; she does). Is she “using her body to get attention”? That’s an assumption that comes from your own feelings about bodies/sex/clothing—don’t put that on her. And don’t assume that she doesn’t “value” herself, either.

Is she rebelling against you? Maybe. Look, I know you hate this. Can you think of it as a rite of passage (for you)? At 14, she is trying on a new version of herself. She has different taste than you do. And she may be purposely trying to push your buttons—she knows you well enough to know you’ll hate these clothes—and provoke you. This is part of the work of being 14. It’s a developmental stage.

As I’m sure you’ve already learned (repeatedly), a lot of things happen when you’re a parent that feel like life and death in the moment—where you think if you don’t fix this now (potty training, sleeping through the night, getting the kid to eat anything besides white bread and mashed potatoes), it’ll never get fixed. But she uses the toilet, sleeps until the last possible minute on school days, and eats sushi (maybe not literally, but for example). She figured that all out in her own time. Things changed when she was ready for them to change. Let her be. It’s her body, after all, not yours.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m a high school student who has a friend in the same grade with a very similar family structure: We’re both the oldest, with two younger siblings (7 and 9 for me, 6 and 9 for her), a dad who works, and a stay-at-home mom. Over the summer, my friend and I came up with a babysitting arrangement that I think worked well for both our families: One day a week, I watched all four of our younger siblings; one (other) day a week, my friend did. This gave both our moms a couple of days when they could come and go as they liked, with at least one of those days completely free from little kid noise, and we both earned some money. (I help out at home by watching my siblings sometimes, but this is for shorter periods and less regular/predictable; it’s part of what I get my weekly allowance for.)

My friend and I are still working out our schedules for the school year, but our families are interested in keeping this going for school day afternoons. The issue that comes up is that my family is a little financially better off than my friend’s family. Sometimes this comes up with our siblings—like, we have newer video game consoles and fancier Lego sets, so they want to come over here on both days (but we try not to have them playing video games most of the time, and Legos are moveable between houses, so it’s not much of a problem). The problem I have is with our moms and payment. We have the same agreed-upon rate for both of us, but my mom often throws in extra as a tip to my friend. My friend’s mom knows how much my friend brings home, and when she pays me, she’s often apologetic that she can’t pay me extra. Sometimes she goes on to say that she doesn’t want me to think she doesn’t appreciate me, but their family budget is tight right now, or to mention they are saving up for something, or to offer some other explanation. The over-apologizing for not paying more than was agreed upon makes me uncomfortable. I assume it’s fueled by her knowing that my family is paying her daughter extra, but I don’t want to suggest that my mom stop tipping my friend—that just feels unfair to my friend. I have said, “You don’t need to apologize” to my friend’s mom but she still does. Is there another way to politely convey this? It feels awkward to have a parent of a friend telling me about her family’s financial situation (which does seem fine, from what I can tell; just more strictly budgeted and with less flexibility than my family’s). Should I just smile and nod and take my money?

—First Daughter Problems

Dear Daughter,

I’m impressed by your sensitivity and thoughtfulness around this awkward situation. I think your instinct not to ask your mother to stop tipping is especially thoughtful. You’re a good friend. And I wish her mother wouldn’t lay her discomfort on you (I wish adults, in general, wouldn’t say or do anything to make children uncomfortable in an effort to ease their own anxiety), but we can’t do anything about that. There is no additional polite alternative to the way you’ve already handled this. Your only recourse is to work on your own unease.

Since this happens often, steel yourself. You know what’s coming; be prepared. Let her do her thing. When she’s done, just say, “Thank you,” take the money you’re owed, and go. That’s better than smiling and nodding. In fact, you might try to maintain a neutral gaze while she offers this week’s “explanation.” It’s not your job to take care of her and help her deal with her discomfort about paying you only what you’ve agreed on when your mom is paying her daughter a bit more. It’s possible that if you do nothing other than simply wait patiently for her to finish talking, she’ll eventually stop trying to get you to make her feel better.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My ex, Josh, and I have a 7-year-old son, Evan, together. We had only been dating very casually for a few weeks when I got pregnant, but after I decided that I wanted to keep the baby, we gave a real relationship a try for our son’s sake. We were young and immature then, and neither one of us is great at communicating. We broke up on bad terms when our son was about a year old. Josh and I are both good parents, but we’re bad co-parents.

I feel like we’re stuck in a cycle where we’re both bottling up our feelings, and then our resentment builds up until it explodes in a fight. For example, I forgot to tell Josh about an IEP meeting until it was too late for him to get time off from work to be there, and the ensuing fight morphed into a long list of smaller, unrelated complaints about things that had happened weeks or months earlier. Josh and I always try to be polite in front of Evan, but we must not be doing a great job, because Evan made a comment the other day about how I don’t like his dad. It made me sad that he felt that way, and I want to try to do better. Even though Josh and I don’t get along, I know that he really is a decent guy who loves Evan a lot. I think he’d be willing to start fresh if I’m the one who takes the first step. But I don’t know where to start! I’m going to set up a shared calendar so that meetings and other events don’t get forgotten, but I’m not sure what other practical steps to take to be a better co-parent.

—Willing to Try

Dear Willing,

I’d say that the first practical step is to sit down with Josh when Evan isn’t present and when there is no immediate source of tension, call a truce, apologize sincerely for everything you’re genuinely sorry about (I think that failing to tell him about the IEP meeting until it was too late for him to join it would be a great place to start), and tell him that you want to do better. Ask him what you can do in service of that.

Will he reciprocate? Will he apologize to you for all the things you’re mad at him about? (You haven’t mentioned any, but I assume there are plenty.) Maybe. But don’t count on it, and don’t waste your energy getting mad about that. The point of this meeting is not for the two of you to get to kumbaya. It’s to help you figure out how to be a better co-parent, for Evan’s sake. Big bonus if this helps Josh be a better co-parent too—but you can’t control that.

The calendar is a good idea (I like it!) if Josh agrees to it. So don’t just do it (or just announce that you’re going to do it) but instead talk to Josh about it, telling him that you’d both be able to add things to the calendar so that you’re both informed about what’s happening when. Ask him if he thinks that would be useful; tell him you would find it useful, since it’s sometimes hard to keep track of everything when Evan is back and forth between his two homes. Whatever you do, don’t come off as the boss parent to whom he’s subsidiary. (Even if you feel—and are—the one doing most of the parenting.) If you want to be a good co-parent with Evan’s dad—the decent guy, as you say, who loves him very much—then make sure you talk to him as an equal, not an extra, OK?

Dear Care and Feeding,

Our younger child, “Hannah,” is 8. She is very bright and can be social and active at times, but usually, when she’s at home, one can find her sprawled across the couch or curled up in a little ball reading a book. She is a voracious reader. She has other hobbies too, but she likes reading best. She doesn’t like any organized sports, but she isn’t sedentary.

But my mother-in-law does not approve. Whenever she sees Hannah reading, she complains. She says disapprovingly that we let her read “all the time” and that’s why she needs glasses. She insists that if we don’t pressure her to go outside more, she’s going to become unhealthy. (She goes outside plenty to play with her friends.) She also has a habit of comparing grandkids, and often says—in Hannah’s presence—that she needs to be more like her older cousin, “Maisie,” who aspires to be a paralympian (she has a prosthetic leg), a comparison that both girls hate.

My mother-in-law visits about once a month, and so this happens once a month. (My husband’s whole family lives in a town about an hour away, and his mother lives across the street from his sister and her daughter. We visit them about once a month as well, but she only ever complains about Hannah’s reading habit when she visits us, because when we visit them, Hannah is usually outside playing with Maisie.) My husband and I, independently, have both told her to lay off. Her response is that we’re taking things too seriously and that she can’t help but speak up if she feels something is wrong. My husband thinks now is an excellent time for our daughter to learn to stand up for herself. I think that at 8 she shouldn’t be expected to get an adult to back off and stop disparaging her, that we have to do something. But what?

—Reading isn’t Wrong

Dear Reading,

First, let’s split the difference between you and your husband. At 8, Hannah shouldn’t be expected to handle her grandmother’s bad behavior on her own. But it isn’t a bad idea for her to have a strategy—developed with the help of her parents—for responding in the moment to your mother-in-law’s bullying. Role-play it with her. Start with her playing Grandma and you playing her, to give her some ideas about what she might say/do when this nonsense begins. Calmly: “I’m not Maisie, I’m Hannah. Maisie likes sports; I don’t”—and then refuse to further engage, with your permission—or, when she hears Grandma berating you for “letting” her read all the time, getting up and leaving the room without comment, so that you can deal with it. Switch roles, too—you playing Grandma, Hannah being herself—so she can practice (this may have the added benefit of making her laugh, as you do your best imitation of Grandma being mean and ridiculous). In other words, help her feel empowered to respond in a way that feels comfortable to her, without causing her further stress. It’s hard enough to be criticized for who you are; it’s even harder for a child to have to defend who she is.

But the something you have to do is take a tougher, comprehensive, direct approach with your mother-in-law. Your husband and you should talk to her together, as a united front. Tell her you won’t stand for her disparaging your child. Tell her if she continues to do this, she will no longer be welcome to visit. If she says, yet again, that you’re making too big deal of this, tell her, “It is a big deal. And it’s not for you to say we’re taking our daughter’s well-being too seriously.” If she continues to insist that she has no choice but to say something when she feels something is wrong, tell her (serenely) that nothing is wrong. You needn’t quote chapter and verse. You don’t have to defend who Hannah is, nor do you have to persuade your ignorant mother-in-law that reading is an excellent use of her time, or that Hannah is perfectly healthy. And then tell her, once more, that if she can’t keep these thoughts and “feelings” to herself, her visits will come to an end.

If your husband can’t say any of this, then it’s up to you to, on your own. I hope he’ll back you up. But even if he doesn’t, if Grandma shows up next month and lays into Hannah again—or once more gives you a hard time about how you’re raising her—take your daughter and leave the house. That should get the message across. Good luck. And congratulations on raising a reader.

—Michelle

More Advice From Slate

My fiancé and I are at odds about what to do with his ex. His 7-year-old son spends 90 percent of his time with us or his maternal grandparents, but his ex still pockets the child support to fuel her party lifestyle. We cover the clothes, school supplies, medical expenses, food, and extracurricular costs, and split the cost of groceries with the grandparents when his son is over there. We barely make ends meet at the end of the month, while his ex goes on shopping sprees all the time.