Dressing Room Moments II

Dear Diary,
After several weeks and two failed attempts, I am happy to be publishing a post!

There was a moment in a dressing room recently that I just can't keep to myself.
[Link here for my first dressing room moment post written almost one year ago.]

I want to share it because it was such a cliche moment for us parents grappling with our teens' choices....a charming speech given by a quietly desperate mother trying to steer her daughter's choice into another direction. A moment parents are guaranteed to find themselves in sooner or later.

While my oldest daughter was trying on summer clothes, three mothers, moi included, were stuck in the cramped space outside our daughters' dressing room doors. Much like being in an elevator, those close quarters really only allow for staring at the floor or the door behind which your daughter stands. Occasionally the awkwardness would be broken when a mother decided it was time to talk directly through the door, straining to hear the grumbled/mumbled replies, as if making negotiations at a drive through window.

"Do you need another size?"

 

"Can I see it on you? I am buying it so I need to see it on you."

 

            "Are you almost done?"

 

       "Here, I got you a different color."

And so it went.
Doors opening and shutting,
girls and mothers conferring,
hangars of clothes passing from one hand to another.

A dressing room door nearby opened and The Mom stepped forward to look within. Then I heard a one-way conversation by this mother that went like this:

"Are you sure you want to wear that? I mean in public-- you would wear that in public? You will be wearing that in front of your grandfather; you wouldn't be embarrassed wearing that in front of him?"

I could only imagine what she was viewing on her daughter....a swimsuit? Short shorts? A tank top?

I chuckled, but only because it wasn't me trying to cajole my daughter into wearing something more modest or appropriate.

I was not unsympathetic. I was ready to acknowledge this mother's troubles with my oh-what-we-mothers-put-up-with solidarity face.

My daughters have modesty built into them like a V6 in a Mustang GT.  So I haven't had to make those kinds of arguments with them.
I think it helps that their mother models it.
(Modesty, not the Mustang. But I wish I was modeling the Mustang....I digress.)

Our growing children have minds of their own and a desire for making independent choices. Some of their choices are questionable and require the universal parental admonishment, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?" 

Or my new favorite, "Would your grandfather approve?"

Yes, I chuckled at that scene.

And I am oh-so-grateful I haven't had to pull out the "grandfather approval" card.
Yet.

Happy shopping!
LJ