Just out of curiousity…those of you have young daughters, do you ensure they have a modest dress code from an early age?
Example: I have a little cousin (she’s 10) who is a girly girl but my chachee will not allow her to wear skinny leg jeans, sleeveless tops (which I can understand), or any other tight clothing. In addition she is not allowed to straighten her hair or wear big earrings/jewellery. Her younger sister (only 2) is also always dressed in very modest clothing, no sleeveless tops or anything.
Personally I think my chachee is training them well from a young age but I can’t help but contrast it to my own upbringing where my parents were always pretty cool with what I wear/wore. While no sleeveless was/is allowed, things like skinny leg jeans, skirts/dresses with tights etc are acceptable in my household.
So, those of you with daughters, are you especially careful about how you allow them to dress from an early age?
I was/am raised exactly like you. As in no sleeveless but skinnies or dresses with tights, etc is fine. I guess it's more about the skin-showing that my parents are strict about. Obviously the clothes can't look painted on and if they are then I'm to wear a cover-up over it. think it's how it should be and your chachi is a bit too strict.
I personally don't see a big deal about sleeveless so I'd be okay w/ my daughter wearing it. My whole reasoning is that if you can wear 3"-4" sleeves, going up a few inches is fine. Tanks is another issue.
But modesty is important and should be taught at a young age but with reasoning.
i hope your chachees girls dont grow up to be rebelious … usually its seen where parents have been over the top strict about things that kids start to either hide and do those things or flat out rebel and get their way.
its what used to happen in our social circle when i was growing up… my girlfriends wouldnt be allowed to wear dresses.. and if they did they had to wear thick tights (we are talkin bout arabia in the extreme heat)… no sleelvless clothing… actually no western clothing only shalwar kameez.. if they had to wear trousers then they ahd to wear a dupatta with their tshirts.. no fitted clothing at all…
u would think im talking about teenagers .. im talking bout when we were only 9!
all these girls would hide western gear in their school bags and change when they would get to their schools… when they turned into teenagers.. man did they rebel…
my parents on the other hand were very relaxed in all aspects of child rearing, though within boundries… i wasnt allowed to wear sleevless when i was a teenager.. though i had worn PLENTY when i was still pre teen… skirts, shorts, dresses.. my parents put everything on me… and then when i became a teenager and started to develop my feminine anatomy, my mom sat me down and explained why i couldnt wear some of the stuff anymore.. liek cut sleeve dresses…or shorts or dresses without any tights… it was a bit hard for me so my mom would allow me to wear it at home.. and change before men would come home like my brothers or dad… slowly i gave them up myself.
never did i feel like i was being suffocated and not allowed to wear certian things.. my parents thinking was.. armaan nikal jaye tho acha hai,
but i wasnt allowed to wear make up.. that was a no no … no nail polish either. good thing i didnt care bout it myself
teaching modesty at an early age is great.. but a 2 yr old having to wear a sleeved tee under a tanktop is stupid. its the easy way out for mothers… never put them in such clothing that later on u have to explain why they cant wear it.. why waste the energy talking to teh child.
this is one aspect that REALLY has me confused and puzzled. On one hand, its stupid to make a little kid wear winter-clothes in summertime, but on the other hand, I dont want them dressin like hoochies later on either. I know there's a middle ground somewhere, like khawa stated
Maybe because I only have myself as an example.....Yes I was one of those who "rebelled" later in HS/college, and even now, I don't dress like THAT (but not for modesty reasons), but I'll stll get daaNts from my mom if i'm not wearing a duputta.
Thats naother thing I dont' understand, I've heard that arab women dress normally at home with their families (fathers and brothers) whereas i KNOW that desi girls are raised to cover up even at home. Make no sense to me.
My mom never said a word about my clothing but seeing her and my sister I knew that I had to dress modestly. I was never into fitting and wore very lose clothing until after I got married.. for some of my shadi kapray my mom asked the tailor to have the "zip" in the back and boy I was amazed what a good fitting meant...now I wear modest yet fitted kapray and cover myself properly.. at home I wear whatever I want, tank tops, half sleeves etc and I guess I will follow the same approach for my daughters, they will be allowed to wear anything and everything at home but before stepping out I will determine the final look and inshaAllah they will not have the urge to rebel or change into western clothing at school as I keep hearing about girls!!!
As far as sleeveless, skirts etc is concerned, it's all good until probably 8-10 years old and then it's about time to make your daughters learn the importance of modest clothing outside the house!!
I was raised to think that only shalwar kameez was acceptable .. I was the oldest girl in the family and so it was my parents' first experience.... and I had to start taking the chaadar when I was 11-12 and everyone around me was still wearing frocks and sometimes without shalwars or tights... I didn't understand it myself why I was dressed this way so when my friends asked me I would not know what to say... I did rebel...even refused to take a scarf when I started working.... I just didn't care....and then living in the west I would try to be modest but without scarf or hijab.... and then came a time when I started wearing the hijab fulltime and did so on my own...with a lot of commitment alhamdulillah... sometimes parents don't know better themselves.... but a lot of girls who are forced to dress differently from their peers do rebel at a later stage...
I have a friend and she dresses her daughters modestly from an early age... her 3 year old wears sleeveless but only at home...not infront of any uncles.... or anyone.... and she always makes sure her daughters wear pants or tights (loose) so that as they grow older they realize that its not ok to have legs uncovered... even with these restrictions....it is amazing how well dressed her girls are and how hip.... I really admire her way of letting her girls dress as everyone else yet learning and maintaining modesty... I pray when I have girls I can do the same with mine.. inshAllah
sleeveless and tight clothing etc. has never been accepted in our family; siblings cousins nd we all are brought up in such a way that we just dont feel comfortable in wearing overtight dresses or sleeveless. Now one of my sisters is 10 years old and she’ve been wearing tights and all that, which is fine because she is a kid, but slowly mom is starting to tell her that youre growing up and got to wear shalwar kameez at home aswell nd so on, which she doesnt find very odd since she knows that her older sisters do so .
yes, i also knew a few girls when i was around 10-11, they used to wear hijab/scarf on head when they were coming to school, but then they removed it during the day and when they were heading home they put it back on again, out of fear from parents .. and i guess thats normal when you feel that you are forced to do something which you arent ready for you become rebellious ..
I'm so happy to hear most of you guys had such positive experiences, mA :)
I, for one, wasn't that lucky. I guess it had something to do with the fact that I moved to US when I was a teenager and didn't have my sisters to look up to, as they were studying in Pak at the time. On top of that, my mom wanted me to wear shalwar kameez ALL the time and my dad wanted me to wear jeans, pj's and stuff ALL the time- I have never been more confused in my life. But Alhamdulillah, something much better came out of all that confusion. I became much more confident and started to decide for myself what to wear and how, but man it was tough going through.
We learnt from our mother. Her dress is always modest, so is ours. When we were really young, we had wore those choori-daar pajamas, leggings, pants but slowly she changed us to more n more modest dress as we grew up. never felt anything rebellious about it.
I was raised like most of you guys where I wasnt allowed to wear sleeveless but fitted stuff was fine. I never felt the urge or the need to rebel because it was understood that I can walk out in anything that had any amount of sleeves and that only my feet showed (no capris). After getting married, I had to follow a dresscode. Since I live with inlaws, hubby was like ur tops have to hit below the hip, be loose and sleeves can't be too too short. I had such a rough time adjusting but I did for my own sanity. I respect his parents and his siblings so I dress accordingly but he knows when im with my family, I wear what I like. I think when parents enforce a dresscode, thats when girls rebel. I dont want to enforce a dresscode on my girls but I wanna teach them there r limits and they can follow all the trends as long as they stay within the limit.
I think a lot of what you girls have said is right- sometimes when a parent is too strict on their daughter/s it can have the opposite affect. I have a few Pakistani friends at uni whose parents never allowed them to even wear skinny leg jeans etc when they were in high school and now...well..unfortunately as soon as these girls get to uni they remove their cardigans/jackets and stay in sleeveless tops until they get home. It's kinda sad but it makes you realize that it's important to maintain a balance when bringing up girls. While it can be very difficult to maintain such a balance I think it is necessary.
Even though i was born and bred here in the west, my family was always very conservative in terms of dress. I wore dresses only up until i was around 10. after that it was pants and shirts. For picture day at school, my mom would dress me up in shalwar kameez (and that too, tacky as heck ones..i would like to strangle the fool who put up my grade 7-8 class pics on fb..). Sleeveless was always a no no. I went to a high school where we had to wear uniform, so i never bought and wore any "english" clothes during those years. I would come home from school and change in to shalwar kameez from my uniform. It was only when I went to university, that I bought "english" clothes, and that too, loose and baggy stuff - (i was chubby for one, and a thug wannabe...lol).
now my cousins and neices these days who are around 10, do wear the sleevless, dresses, capries, etc. But my BIL wants them to dress more conservatively. a mamoo of mine has a 9 year old, and doesnt let her wear half sleeves and just long tops.
Khwateen i agree with u that when parents oppress their children, the kids feel the need to rebel. I know of girls who arent allowed to dress a certain way, use fb and twitter and these girls have found other means to fool them. They have FB n twitter n they dress the way they want to, just not in front of their parents. I rathar know what my kids r doing, atleast that way I can sort of guide them instead of being completly ignorant of their activities and thinking wow my kid is amazing and so shareef. Parents think dressing their children a certain way (modestly) make them a good honest kid, a shareef kid but its their harkatein that defines their goodness. I think more emphasis should be placed on equipping them with moral and eithical values that will help them identify and choose between right and wrong then just assuming if they dress modestly they r automatically good so parents become superstrict with the dresscode of their kids.
I was always dressed modestly I think, even as a little girl. But I was dressed in longish sleeveless dresses and stuff. Nothing above the knee, but when I was little, sleeveless was okay. We lived in Saudi then too.
By 11ish Ammi was already more strict about my clothing but nothing too bad. I just couldn't wear short dresses and such any more. Nothing above the ankle, really. Short sleeves and such were okay. So were pants.
At age 12 I started attending a private school and had to wear the uniform skirt. This was a tough one for my parents, but I was allowed to wear it with tights. But I was NEVER allowed to do that outside of the school environment. My skirt was still embarrassingly long, and in middle school I used to roll it up so it was a little above the knee. I still kept my tights on. By late high school it wasn't as much of a concern, because the uniform expanded to allow pants in certain colors and I was more comfortable in them anyway. I did still wear the skirt with tights sometimes.
When this whole dresses and skirts with leggings or high boots trend started, I really didn't think I would be "allowed" to wear it. No one would really stop me, but I didn't want to be the subject of conversation in that way. Anyway, it seems to be okay, but I don't do it often. I'm still most comfy in long dresses.
As for the shalwar kamiz thing. My parents never forced me to wear them out or to non-desi events. Maybe that's why I am not bothered being out and about in a shalwar kamiz, whereas plenty of people I know would go home and change. Usually the nondesis love it, at least in our area. And they want to know where it's from, what the fabric is, etc.
