Drop-waist pants are inappropriate, against the rules, and sold everywhere

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

By Heidi McDonald

School shopping with my kids has historically been easy, but this year it wasn't. Shopping for my third-grade daughter was torturous, and it wasn't because we disagreed about what she'd look cute in. (Those arguments will emerge either when she enters seventh grade, or when she suddenly decides platform shoes are cool.)

	Ted Crow, Post-Gazette

My problem was trying to find pants at Monroeville Mall for her with normal waistlines -- waistlines that hug her actual waist and won't announce the color of her underwear to the whole class.

Buyers, retailers and designers who manufacture the next wave of "cool" for little girls have obviously never read the Woodland Hills School District's Student Handbook. The handbook's policy on student dress code, found on Page 8, is clear that pants must be worn at the waist, that midriffs and underwear must be covered.

So, can someone please explain to me why the Children's Place, JC Penney's, Express Kids and other stores conducting Back-to-School sales are selling only drop-waist pants for girls in sizes as small as 4, worn by kindergartners, if these pants are not allowed in schools?

These skanky-looking pants, by the way, are not allowed at our house, either. Two years ago, a relative gave my then-6-year-old daughter a pair of drop-waist jeans for Christmas. I had ridiculed pants like this during Britney Spears videos but was unaware they were even made for 6-year-olds and failed to notice the irregular waistline on them.

My daughter didn't understand the difference either and, after spending one day in these pants, hurt herself in unmentionable places because she'd been trying to pull them up to her waist all day.

Once we realized what the problem was, the pants were banished, and I don't even mean given to Goodwill as we usually do. These pants were far too evil for any 6-year-old girl to ever be seen in again.

We gave them to the beagle, something we knew would ensure their immediate and permanent destruction.

So, fast forward to a month ago, when we made our yearly Back-to-School Odyssey. I should have realized we were in trouble when I observed hordes of overly made-up, gum-chewing, midriff-bearing teenage girls, some of whom were there with equally skanked-out fortysomething mothers.

I'm not sure exactly when "popular style" and "inappropriate" became interchangeable, but I am absolutely sure that weight limits should be imposed for drop-waist pants in the interest of the public good. I am not advocating that overweight girls shouldn't be allowed to look cool. I am saying that nobody looks good, or cool, in these stupid pants, and girls who already experience the misfortune of being overweight in high school look even worse in them, exposing the girls to further ridicule.

Purchasing underwear for my daughter, I discovered a clear discrepancy. Underwear made for 8-year-old girls has normal waistlines, as is appropriate for pre-teens who are too young to want to look sexy in bikini briefs. As previously mentioned, our school district's dress code requires pants to cover underwear. (Another requirement in that code is "no thongs," and I had to explain to my husband that the handbook wasn't talking about footwear.)

So another issue emerged: If drop-waist pants are being made for little girls whose underpants are still being made to cover their belly-buttons, is there about to be a similar fashion revolution of inappropriate underwear for kids, or are these girls expected to demean themselves by showing everyone their underwear all the time?

My daughter recently became curious about sexuality, and in our mother-daughter talks my explanation for abstinence vs. sexual activity is to refer to it as "keeping or giving up the power."

I didn't stop at "it's against school rules" when explaining to her why she's not allowed to wear drop-waist pants. I explained that by wearing those pants, she'd be giving up a tiny piece of "the power." She'd be telling people she's not an interesting enough person to talk to, because she just wants people to look at her body parts.

I want my daughter to feel good about herself and her body, but I have to draw the line at her flaunting it in front of others. She's only 8 years old!

She asked me what to do if people tease her for wearing different pants from everybody else; this shouldn't be an issue, I explained, because drop-waist pants aren't supposed to be worn at school. With any luck, my little tattletale will tell on every single girl she sees wearing them and force parents to pay more attention to what their daughters are wearing.

But in the meantime, we can't wait for stores to resume selling more school-appropriate pants, so we bought regular-fitting boys' jeans in her size. They fit her and the Woodland Hills dress code comfortably, and with the flowery, fluttery, rhinestone-emblazoned shirts she wears with them, nobody can doubt her femininity or cuteness.

I applaud Woodland Hills for upholding an appropriate dress code and encourage parents to just say no to drop-waist pants. If you need any destroyed, my beagle is certainly always hungry.

Heidi McDonald lives in Edgewood. She can be reached at whistlingthis@yahoo.com.

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