I Wouldn’t Let My Tween Daughter Wear Crop Tops—Was I Overthinking It?

As a mother of two who’s navigating the tween years for the first time (my daughter is nine years old and my son is seven), some things have caught me by surprise. For starters, I never realized just how quickly little girls are maturing these days, both physically and socially. My nine-year old, we’ll call her R, still plays with barbies and wants to be cuddled around the clock—provided we’re not anywhere near her school, that is. She’s also hurtling toward puberty at an alarming rate, whilst absorbing a lot of media influence and wanting to participate in trends that I think oversexualize her—think TikTok dances and makeup tutorials.

This brings me to our latest battle: crop tops. They’re cute, they’re trendy and there’s nothing remotely sexual about her beanpole prepubescent body…so what’s the problem, right? Still, I felt compelled to take a strong stance against her wearing them and I don’t know why. Am Ithe one oversexualizing my nine-year-old? Am I playing the corny and dated role of that archetypal dad who says things like “I’m not letting you out of the house dressed like that!”? If that’s what’s going on here…ew. 

Confused, completely ambivalent and painfully aware that I was spending an absurd amount of mental energy analyzing tween fashion trends, I turned to an expert to help me hash this whole thing out and perhaps reevaluate my perspective. Here’s what I learned.

Meet the Expert

Dr. Maureen Slattery is a board-certified OB/GYN with 20 years of clinical experience. She has advanced training in sex counseling and education, and is an AASECT-certified sex counselor. In addition to sexual health, her clinical practice also focuses on menopausal care. Maureen has been featured in online columns for the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) on sexual health and aging for those over 50 (In the Mood), and  for the Rochester Regional Health’s Health Hive on using HRT during menopause.

OK, this one is exceedingly obvious. And the truth is that my objection to R’s crop top obsession (or her desire to wear makeup and “look more like a teenager”) has nothing to do with thinking her behavior is in any way inappropriate or that there’s anything wrong with her body. 

I also am very progressive and pretty far from puritanical about all this stuff. What I realized during the course of my conversation with Dr. Slattery is that I have been projecting my own fears about my daughter being victimized onto her, and perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the f***ed up social construct that grooms girls to believe that they are (or one day will be), first and foremost, sexual objects. This toxic culture encourages rampant body shaming of girls and women and reinforces the idea that sex is something vulgar, taboo or shameful.

The antidote, says Dr. Slattery, is not to ban crop tops, but rather to, well, celebrate them: “You have to tell [your daughter], ‘I'm glad that you like your body and that you're proud of it and that you're not ashamed to wear any kind of outfit whether you're going to school or hanging out at home.”

R is not a sexual being yet and knows very little on the subject. My stance on crop tops was simply a function of the fact that I’ve been viewing tween fashion through the lens of a grown woman who has, far too often, been on the receiving end of unwanted male attention. Basically, I want to protect her from that icky feeling of being ogled by randos. Unfortunately, that is a real thing. And it can’t and shouldn’t be ignored. The best parenting solution is a relatively straightforward one, though. Educate, educate, educate.

Crop top bans—and any dress code that sets a double standard for girls, for that matter—are not helpful, and can even be harmful because they put the onus on a child to mitigate the bad behavior of others. That doesn’t mean we need to turn a blind eye to some of the less savory aspects of our society and its prevailing attitude towards women. Instead, Dr. Slattery says, it is incumbent upon parents to “arm your kids with the stuff that they’re not going to hear anywhere else.” And, unfortunately, that’s most if not all of it. 

Indeed, the expert had some strong feelings on the state of sex education in our country—specifically how it focuses solely on anatomy, fails to address the psychosocial aspects, which include concepts such as consent, and encourages a stifled dialogue on the subject. “In New York you get a puberty talk in fourth grade, but in fifth grade they separate the boys and girls to watch videos about periods and morning erections, but they don’t bring them back together, which I think is a huge mistake,” says Dr. Slattery.

Alas, if sexual education is falling way short of what it needs to be in order for girls to feel free in their bodies, whether they’re wearing crop tops or sweatpants, then we as parents need to cover all the bases at home. And if that sounds intimidating to you, you’ll be relieved to know that Dr. Slattery pointed me towards a few very helpful resources, including the National Sex Education Standards manual, which provides an age-by-age guide to discussing all things sex with kids, as well as several book recommendations that you can find below. (And if your kids are reviled by all this stuff—mine certainly are—Dr. Slattery recommends making the conversations happen when you’re in the car and have a captive audience.)

So how does this story end for me, you ask? Well, I already told my daughter that the crop top ban has been lifted. But before I did, I took a deep dive into all the other things that have made me uncomfortable when they really shouldn’t, including some surprisingly mature dance moves that she definitely learned from Taylor Swift videos. (Her favorite artist, duh.)

We talked about how girls and women can be objectified and what that means, and we talked about how unfair it is. We brushed up on the concept of consent. I took Dr. Slattery’s advice and told her it’s not her fault she’s a girl, and that as long as she’s comfortable with what she’s wearing and knows how to ask for help if anything unwanted is happening, she’s doing just fine. And that’s all she wrote…at least until I report back on my efforts to raise a decent boy.

Dr. Slattery’s Book Recommendations

• Girls and Sex/Boys and Sex by Peggy Orenstein
• It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris and Michale Emberley
• Loving the You That You Are by Kristin Blomberg