Fashion Experts

I was browsing around Target today, looking for a few shirts for my daughter.  I've just about given up on trying to find her skirts and shorts there - or anywhere - clothes today are definitely not modest.  When I buy her shirts, I buy her a size too big so that it will fit her like a "real" shirt rather than the skin-tight imitation of a shirt that is being sold these days.  Up on one of the walls, they had a display of shirts that had pithy little sayings such as,

"But DAD said it was okay!"

"1. I want it.

2. You buy it.

3. Any questions?"

"#1 Heartbreaker"

"I tried to fool Mom once....it didn't work"

"Fashion Expert"

It breaks my heart to see stuff like that, and I hope I never am around to see a mother allowing her daughter to choose a shirt like that.  There were a lot of other shirts like these, but I can't remember what they all said. 

A couple of weeks ago, L and I went to the mall.  She wanted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe for our special time together.  It was packed, so we walked over to the food court to eat.  We sat in a restaurant that looked out over the rest of the food court.  It was a Saturday night, so all the young teens without driver's licenses were there doing their thing.  I looked at all those girls and boys that were sitting all together, filling up a big table and my heart broke for them.  The girls all had on extremely tight clothes with lots of make-up.  They didn't realize what they were doing when they freely gave out hugs to their "boy" friends and then continued to stand there with their arms around the boys.  They probably thought they were behaving as "just friends" but those boys were loving every minute of the attention the girls gave.  I'm sure the girls thought that it was so KEWL to have all these boys who were "just friends" with them.  I used to think the same thing when I was their age, but now I know better. 

I looked at those kids and felt so sad for them.  To me, they were a deserted bunch.  Their parents dropped them off at the mall and left them alone to fend for, and figure out for themselves the intricacies of the big, wide world.  And what were they going to learn from each other???  Their eyes told me everything.  None of them looked content.  None of them could sit still.  None of them could sit and hold a conversation that took longer than a minute.  They spent their time trying to impress each other with their clothes and hair.  

So what does all this mean for my daughter?  I am going through a period of calling out to the Lord on this one.  We certainly aren't raising her to behave as the girls at the mall.  We are raising her to be a young lady who seeks after God, and to be a wife, mother, and faithful daughter.  Our biggest problem is that we don't really know anyone that is following the same path we are.  We feel as if we are the only ones in the world who has listened and taken to heart the great things that Doug Phillips of Vision Forum discusses on his CD's.  We have also read So Much More, Home-Making, and many other books on raising daughters.  We feel God has led us to these books and to this life we have chosen, but man, is there anyone else out there who feels this way besides the people who write these books?  :-)

I've noticed while surfing blogs that there ARE others out there who are taking the same path that we are with our family, and I have especially noticed some of the young ladies from these families who are blogging about this stuff.  Do they even realize their influence?  I am making plans to cruise some of these blogs with my daughter to give her some long-distance role models.  At this point, I'm not sure what else to do.  I am trying to be available for her in every way I can and to be a godly role model for her as her mother, but I don't want her to feel we are raising her in a vaccuum.