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Pete Wilgoren

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The Suri Cruise Effect?

Posted: 06/26/2012 5:02 pm

You can tell a lot about society just by looking at people's shoes. And that goes for kids too. An examination of what's hot is as close as a sneaker tread away at any mall shoe store. Spider Man, Hello Kitty, Transformers.. they're all huge... and they're all on sneakers. But if society is a mirrored reflection of people strolling down life on the Project Runway, then we might have just walked the plank right off the edge.  

You see, Michael Kors and several other designers are now launching new lines of heels for girls. I'm not talking the cute, black, patent leather shoes with a buckle that have been the staple of little girl wardrobes for generations. I'm talking about heels. High heels for little girls. High heels for little girls as young as six.  

The London Daily Mail calls it the "Suri Cruise effect"... stylish kids in the public eye making average mom and dads feel their kids need to compete in the fashion world to fit in. Michael Kors is offering a set of three inch heels for girls. Target, Jessica Simpson, and Kenneth Cole apparently all have their own heels for little girls as well.   And with all these heels, it's funny, because the only thing I really want is a steel-toed boot to kick 'em in the shins!

I used to have a mental dad checklist of clothing and fashion that I planned to teach the
girls about one day. It was pretty simple and went something like this:  

Jewelry:
No skulls, snakes or pentagrams
No hemp- it's a gateway jewelry. And no metal chains.

Tattoos:
They better be Rated G and they better be temporary.
A tattoo of a boyfriend's name means he is dead to me.

Piercings:
No piercing anything involving a nose, belly button, or god forbid, nipple. 

Cosmetics:
Don't go goth- they look like vampires.  

Heels were never really on the list but now they'll need to be. Every little girl tries to step into mom's heels at one time or another. It's called dress-up. And it's make believe. Or is it? Because I guarantee that little girls will now be walking around in these heels in the near future. None of us have ever met Suri Cruise. I've never even heard her talk. So it's surprising that we as a society might be taking our fashion advice from her.  

Truthfully, it has nothing to do with Suri at all and everything to do with designers who seem to have lost their footing when it comes to what is proper fashion for little girls.  

 

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Mollyannie
Thinking "I can't" guarantees failure
06:54 PM on 07/01/2012
Parents seem to have lost the ability to say no. Suri Cruise seems to be a very spoiled and pampered young girl. I cannot imagine what she will be like as a teen or young adult.
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BrightBetty
You say Bi-Polar like it's a bad thing.
04:43 PM on 06/30/2012
While I don't agree with some of your other fashion advice, heels for children is definitely a NO in this house. It makes me angry because I know how damaging physically heels are, and putting them on the feet of a little girl is not only sexualizing them, I'd consider it just as bad as foot binding. Weak ankles, bad tendons, hammer toes, corns, spine problems and the list goes on. It's friggin child abuse.
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cafebeege
04:15 PM on 06/30/2012
I am SOOOO thankful my kids are raised. I don't even know where to begin expressing the lack of common sense in parenting today. Just for STARTERS, heels for growing/forming feet is BAD for them. Adult women pay a painful price after their feet are mature.......

And haven't we all SEEN the price society, and the children, are paying for prematurely sexualizing our LITTLE girls ?? They're even being raped and murdered FGS !!

Eccchhh .....stupidity really tries my patience. This should be categorized a form of child abuse. Thank you Pete Wilgoren for this article. Sounds like you're a great Dad too....
12:45 PM on 06/28/2012
average mom and dads feel their kids need to compete in the fashion world to fit in. < saddest part of the article. Thanks for worrying about this enough to bring it to the front. My parents made me wait till I was a grown up to act like one - wearing heels, makeup and certain clothes. They tried to make me fit in...with the kids that worked hard at school and/or had strong convictions etc. They tried to make me compete to be the next woman in space or the next prime minister. It wasnt that they pushed me to that, its that they made me realise that I was more than my accessories and my bra/waist size.
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medicontheedge
big loud broad
03:51 PM on 06/27/2012
The subjugation of women is being initiated at a younger and younger age. How long before the dominant males hit us over the head as a marriage proposal?