Don't think it can get any more bizarre than a junior high school banning girls from wearing skinny jeans lest they "distract" boys? Now a kindergartner has been targeted for distracting other kids with her lascivious clothing choices. The little girl's ruffled skirt -- which she wore with a pair of tights -- was dubbed "too short" by her school district, and her mom was called in to make her change her outfit.
Yes, I said kindergarten. And no, this 6-year-old does not live in Saudi Arabia.
The kindergartner with thighs so distracting they bring the boys to the (play)yard attends Tussahaw Elementary School in McDonough, Georgia, where administrators told her mom that her outfit "was inappropriate and a distraction to other students."
She's in kindergarten!
She was wearing a Hello Kitty shirt and a ruffled skirt! With tights!
Has this world gone mad?
I'll admit I was already working myself into an outrage before this story even came across my desk.
My almost-8-year-old came home with a note last week reaffirming her school's dress code. It calls for all students to wear shorts that are at least fingertip-length.
Which is fine, really. For older kids.
My daughter, on the other hand, is in the midst of an awkward growth stage. She has long arms and a teeny, weeny waist. A month away from her eighth birthday, she still fits comfortably in size 5 shorts. They're not booty shorts by any means -- and trust me, I wouldn't let her out of the house in something like that -- but technically just about every item of clothing that fits her waist and is comfortable for wearing in the warmer weather is too short for the school's rules.
We're working with it because we're rule followers, but that doesn't mean I'm not frustrated by the school's failure to recognize that little kids' bodies are distinctly different from their older peers.
What is inappropriate on an older kid isn't on a younger child because, well, little kids don't have big kid bodies! Kindergartners don't have curves and cleavage.
And the notion that other people are being "distracted" by a 5-year-old in a skirt with a pair of tights makes me want to vomit. Who are these distracted people, and what are their motives?
Who, exactly, finds little girls sexy? Because it's not me. And it's not the little kids.
My daughter's little friends aren't paying much attention to what she's wearing ... they just want to know if she brought her favorite stuffed animal to school today or where she got that rad sheet of stickers. At least, I hope that's what they're thinking?
Or maybe her knees really are too much for the little boys to handle. She inherited my knees after all ...
What do you think of these school dress codes? Are they sexualizing kids too soon?
Image via Action News Jax