Letters to the Editor
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fashion history thoughts
If I am remembering correctly, children (once out of infant swaddlings) dressed as miniature adults until the late 19th century. Little girls wore corsets and hoop skirts and/or stays and farthingales. Their non-chests were put on display like their moms.
I wonder why we used to do that?
I am guessing we had 2 reasons:
1) children mortality rates were very high for their first few years of life, then lveled off after age 6 or so. So young children were dressed as babies (who didn't have souls or the capacity to reason, according to conventional wisdom) until parents were reasonably certain they would live.
2) children, especially girls, were viewed as commodities: something to be bought or sold (in marriage). A good match required (besides wealth or political connections) a girl with beauty, and the ability to bear children. So girls wore clothes that played up these attributes.
The Victorians/Edwardians made children into children. So that's when children's clothing began to look distinct from adult fashions. And while the Victorians and later generations may have overplayed "Ah, the innocence of youth" aspect ofchildhood, they were wise in desexualizing girls' clothes.
So, my question is, what are we saying about our kids now, when we create prostitots? Are they commodities again? We're investing all that money and angst into getting our kids "the best" toys, educations, extracurricular activities, etc., so they can be "successful." Is this overt sexulization of prepubescent girls a throwback to our inner medieval Machiavel? Or are we so led by consumerism that we don't even know what we're doing?