Value of Modesty

I'm grumpy today and rather than address the root of the grump, I'll write about something that has been burrowing in my head for a while.

I once facebooked that I'd be wearing my bikini in Austin. A comment indicating that a modest mother should wear a one piece was lovingly left for me. I let it slide; I'm a duck-back-mother-quacker.

A facebook friend bemoaned having to argue with her very young daughter that she will NOT be wearing a bikini.

While helping my newly potty-trained daughter use the pool bathroom for the third time in a few hours (drip .... drip), I realized that wet one-piece swimsuits were really, stupid, horrible, dreadful things.

It doesn't really matter to me what people wear to the pool. Everyone is comparing and judging behind their sunglasses.

The thing is, if God is so anti-body showing, why are we born nekkid? Kittens have fur ...

Adam and Eve, they were the ones all worried about their nasty bits showing ... God rolled his eyes and gave them something to put on ... but he didn't command. He just provided. It's the first and probably best known story. What if that's how God works? Not so much with commanding ... but providing what we think we need when we need it.

My daughter isn't really old enough to argue about the clothes I buy for her. She is at the age where it is awfully hard to keep her clothed (sorry neighborhood).

My 9 year old tho, he understands that there is something inappropriate about various states of undress. He does not approve of my bikini. He can tell me stuff like that without offending me (husband is not so lucky, sorry babe).

That's when it occurred to me that its not about shaming our daughters into covering up, its about acknowledging that others might be uncomfortable and we can choose to cover up out of respect. Or not and people can be tolerant.

It is lazy and I'll even say evil parenting to MAKE your kids blindly obey. We teach them right principles and exemplify them in our own life and allow them to suffer natural consequences. If you force your kids to fast, force them to pay tithing, force them to be perfect, I worry those are the kids who fall away. If you take the time to help them reason things out and pray about them, even together, that is really God's plan, I think.

(Feel like I'm gonna eat these words someday ... shrug.)