victoria's secret jr.

Take a wild guess what these are.

Pads for the newest bathroom cleaning wand? Knee pads? Smooth white tortilla chips?

Nuh uh.

These are pads designed to fit in the bathing suit and training bras I just bought for my eight and a half year old daughter. And yes. They go where you think they go.

The shopping trip was supposed to be a rite of passage. Her first training bras. I took her to a store where we don't normally go because it's really more than I like to spend (okay, it was Justice); but I wanted this to be a special day, so we made an exception. And so there she was, and there they were, in all their fluffy, padded, bright colored glory, impossible to pass up. I caved, because I didn't want this shopping trip to be a negative experience for her.

And that's just the beginning. While I struggle greatly with the reasoning for the pads in the itty bitty bras, I'm dumbfounded as to why they put them in a bathing suit. Honest to god, there is no reason my eight year old needs that area padded in her swimsuit. Or any other young girl who is the size and age to shop at Justice. None whatsoever. (Of course it was the cutest suit that fit her the best...I should have taken a stand and not bought it, but she loved it, and I didn't have the willpower to tell her no.)

Thank god I can pull the pads out. But why??? Why are they there in the first place? You cannot give me one good reason. Not one. Except I guess that our daughters will see them and then we will cave and buy them and then they get more sales. I regret not having the strength to say no, and I take responsibility for that.

I had to sneak in her room tonight while she was asleep and pull them all out. I will be waiting for the argument once she notices they are missing. She shouldn't even know they exist.

I'm so incredibly worked up about this. There are so many millions of ways that our young daughters are encouraged to grow up way too soon. And there are also so many unrealistic images that our daughters feel they either must, or are entitled to, emulate. It makes me steaming mad that my daughter now thinks, because a store designed for her age is selling it, it's appropriate for her to try to enhance her natural beauty at such a young age. Whether I buy them or not, she's seen them; so she's already getting the message that what she has isn't good enough, and could use improvement.

These will go in the trash, and we will not be buying any more undergarments at Justice, to be sure.